In their study “Teaching Children about Bicycle Safety: An Evaluation of the New Jersey Bike School Program,” Lachapelle et al. used t-tests and the ordinary least-squares regression in order to determine how the children’s knowledge regarding bicycling safety improved after the conducted training. It was found that a significant improvement at p < 0.001 was observed for test scores related to pre-training and post-training assessments (changes from t = 1.4 to t = 1.5). The answers to some test questions regarding the use of a helmet and road rules improved at p < 0.000. Nevertheless, about 15% of students did not demonstrate any changes in their results after the training. In spite of the presence of statistically significant improvements in the student’s knowledge, they cannot be discussed as clinically significant as the fact of improvement in the knowledge cannot be associated with the improvement of the students’ cycling behaviors on the road.
The important recommendation that is based on the results of the article is that schools should pay more attention to educating students regarding bicycling safety in order to address the high rates of accidents and injuries. Therefore, more training programs on bicycling safety can be implemented as part of the school education and community education provided by nurses. However, the results of the study related to improvements in the children’s knowledge can also be affected by such intervening variables as the student’s background, experience in bicycling, as well as experience in bicycling with parents. Those children who learned the rules of bicycling safety before the training can more easily recollect them and then utilize them in practice.