Citation

Piatkowski DP, Marshall WE. Travel Behav. Soc. 2020; 20: 313-321.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.tbs.2020.04.009

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Adolescents engage in more risky behaviors than other age groups, including riding a bicycle without a helmet. To address helmet use, public health professionals encourage it, even passing laws requiring helmet use. But these approaches may have unintended consequences, potentially pushing more risk-prone adolescents away from riding a bike and into cars. This mode shift could lead to worse safety outcomes, not just for teens but for society in general, as a risk-prone teen driver would be more dangerous to themselves and society behind the wheel of a car than when riding a bicycle. This research is a first-step in addressing the complicated issues around helmet promotion by asking the question: are risky non-bicycling behaviors associated with bicycling and wearing a helmet while bicycling among adolescents? We test correlations between non-bicycling risk-taking behaviors (such as drug and alcohol use), bicycling, and bicycle helmet use in a generalizable sample of US adolescents. Data comes from a nationally-representative sample of 15,624 US high school students collected in 2015.

FINDINGS from a multinomial logistic regression model and analysis of variance identify a sample population consisting of at least three distinct groups: i) a non-bicycle-riding group; ii) one bicycle-riding group that tends not to wear a helmet and reports increased risky non-bicycling behaviors; and iii) another bicycle-riding group that tends to wear a helmet and engages in few risky non-bicycling behaviors. Furthermore, we do not find evidence for helmet-wearing adolescents who are also risk-takers, nor do we find evidence for non-risk-taking adolescents that do not wear helmets. The group that does not bicycle is generally older than the bicycle riding groups and is characterized by more risky non-riding behaviors than the helmet wearing group (but fewer risky behaviors than the group that bicycles but does not wear a helmet). Our results indicate that individual behavioral characteristics require increased attention in helmet use and bicycle safety research.

Language: en

Keywords

Adolescents; Bicycling; Helmet Promotion; Helmets; Risky Behavior