Bicycle Safety Education: Changing Minds. Saving Lives

Background:  In the past seven years, Grand Rapids, Michigan, has invested heavily in bicycle infrastructure, going from zero to nearly 80 miles of bike lanes. The area’s bicycling culture rapidly grew. However, with an increase in ridership also came significant increases in bicycle-involved crashes and fatalities. Between 2008 and 2012, the city’s fatal bicycle crash rate was nearly three times higher than the state average. Güd Marketing teamed with city and state officials to develop a public education campaign to help eliminate bicycle crashes and fatalities through education on rules and increased respect among all road users.

Program background:  The Driving Change campaign was developed through significant research – crash data analysis, review of existing campaigns, community surveys, focus groups, input from community leaders – in order to create effective messaging for Grand Rapids. Research showed high levels of confusion about the rules related to bicycling and bike lanes and significant animosity between motorists and bicyclists. The Driving Change campaign was built to provide positive, direct and balanced messages about improvements that motorists and bicyclists should make to “drive change” in the community for everyone. The campaign utilized a heavy media strategy to reach all motorists and bicyclists in Grand Rapids during summer 2016. Media was concentrated in two, two-week flights to maximize the impact and frequency people would be exposed to the messages.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  Driving Change’s first-year success was gauged in three ways – media metrics, and results of both a pre- and a post-campaign survey on attitudes and knowledge related to bicycling and crash data. Media –The campaign delivered more than 32 million impressions to a community of about 500,000 people in just four weeks. Pre-/Post-Campaign Survey – The weighted, representative sample of Greater Grand Rapids residents showed many statistically significant improvements between April and August 2016. 

• 26% increase in self-proclaimed “very familiar” with the rules for bicyclists.
• 40% increase in awareness of a newly implemented 5-foot passing rule.
• Significant increases in beliefs that:

-       Grand Rapids is a bicycle-friendly community (+13%) -       Bicyclists typically follow the rules (+22%) -       Bicyclists and motorists are respectful of each other’s rights on the road (+18%) Crash Data – Fatal or serious-injury crashes involving a bicyclist decreased 81% between summer 2015 and summer 2016. The total number of crashes matched the record low of 42 for a summer.

Conclusions:  Driving Change is unique among bicycle-focused traffic safety efforts for its focus on evaluation and measurement. Results show clear success of the research-based approach to messaging and media-based education. Long-term behavior change and crash reduction will be evaluated over the next few years as the campaign continues to deliver educational messages.

Implications for research and/or practice: 

• Deep audience understanding is key.
• Finding a tonality that is appropriate for both the intended community and the issues is crucial.
• Tailor messages to address problems specific to the community to create behavior change.
• Strategic partnerships and value-add from media vendors can significantly extend the reach of public education efforts.