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Abstract
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Background The bicycle is emerging as the most alternative green mode. Korea has encouraged bicycles-riding by extending bicycle paths and infrastructure after announcement of the 'Act on Encouraging the Use of Bicycles' in 1995. As the number of bicycle users has been increased, the number of bicycle-related traffic accidents has been increased too. But there are a few studies for bicycle safety.
Aims/Objectives/Purpose The purpose of this study is improvement of legal systems for bicycle safety.
Methods For it we reviewed the related laws in other countries and surveyed Seoul citizen about safety awareness. Targets of this survey are bicycle riders group on the bicycle path in the park and normal road. Each members of group are more than 150 persons.
Results/Outcomes We find three main issues with this survey. (a) Compared to 52.1% of riders on the bicycle path in the park, just 12.1% of riders on the normal road put on helmets. (b) Most of them answer they feel annoying for putting on helmets. (c) 72% of riders answer they don't know about hand signal of bicycle. However, Korean laws of bicycle are mainly about facilities. But some country's laws include rules of bicycle safety equipment, the prohibition of rider's behaviour and penalties. With benchmarking laws, Korean legal system should include rules of safety.
Significance/Contribution to the Field This study makes foundation of future Korean policy's direction about bicycle safety. Furthermore we expect that social ambience will be raised to use bicycle as a safety transport method.
Acknowledgements This research was supported by a grant from the Transportation System Innovation Programme (TSIP) funded by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs of the Korean government. (10 Transportation System-Future03).
This is an abstract of a presentation at Safety 2012, the 11th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion, 1-4 October 2012, Michael Fowler Center, Wellington, New Zealand. Full text does not seem to be available for this abstract. |