Transactions on Transport Sciences

Transactions on Transport Sciences 2022, 13(2):27-35 | DOI: 10.5507/tots.2022.010

The Relationship Between Cycling Behaviour, Attitude to Traffic and Attitude to Daily Life of Junior and Senior High School Students

Yoshio Taniguchi^a, Shunji Taniguchi^b, Kazunori Shidoji^c

^a. Yokaichi Driving School, Myohojicho 1101-29, Higashiomi, 527-0046, Japan; Integrated Frontier Sciences, Graduate School of Kyushu University, Motooka 744, Nishiku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan

^b. School of Culture Information Studies, Sugiyama Jogakuen University, Hoshigaokamotomcahi 17-3, Chikusaku, Nagoya, 464-8662, Japan

^c. Department of Advanced Information Technology, Graduate School of Kyushu University, Motooka 744, Nishiku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between junior and senior high school students' cycling behavior, attitudes to traffic and attitude to daily life examining the effects of their gender and age on the behaviour, and to explore the underlying psychological determinants. Past studies on automobile driving have reported that the lower the level of a driver' attitude to safety, the higher the frequency of his/her risky behaviour and near-accident or accident involvement experience; that male and young drivers' level of safety behaviour is lower and they tend to exhibit risky behaviour more frequently than other drivers. It has also been reported that errors and lapses may correspond to accident experience. Although there has not been much research on riding of mopeds and bicycles, it has reported similar results. We conducted a survey on 2,077 junior and senior high school students, asking them to evaluate their traffic-related attitude/experience, behaviour as a cyclist, and their attitude to daily life. Factor analysis led us to extract three factors: "risky cycling", "social desirability", and "near accident". Drivers with weaker "social desirability" characteristic had a stronger tendency to "risky cycling". And it was also shown that the stronger the tendency towards "risky cycling", the more frequent the "near accident" experience occurred. Further, factor analysis focused only on items of cycling behaviour derived two factors: "distracted cycling" and "rapid cycling". Analysis of the correlation of these two factors and the aforementioned three factors showed that cyclists with a stronger tendency to "risky cycling" and weaker tendency to "social desirability" had a stronger tendency to "distracted cycling" and "rapid cycling". It was also shown that the higher the factor score of "risky cycling", the more frequent was the "near accident" experience. The number of accidents while cycling was found to be related to the factors "risky cycling", "social desirability", "near accident", "distracted cycling", and "rapid cycling". Based on the result above, it was speculated that the psychological determinants of cycling and car driving might be common, and it was considered that traffic safety education on cycling for junior and senior high school students is also effective for later car driving.

Keywords: Distracted cycling; Rapid cycling; Traffic behaviour; Near-accident; Social desirability; Junior and senior high school students

Received: November 30, 2021; Revised: April 22, 2022; Accepted: May 31, 2022; Prepublished online: June 29, 2022; Published: August 18, 2022  Show citation