2. Participating LA’s
• Aberdeen City
• Aberdeenshire
• Dumfries and Galloway
• East Dunbartonshire
• East Renfrewshire
• Edinburgh
• Fife
• Glasgow
• Inverclyde
• Moray
• North Ayrshire
• Shetland
3. Campaign Aims
• Influence parental attitudes.
• Increase driver awareness of children
cycling, to make the journey to school
safer.
• Increase the number of cycle journeys to
our target schools.
8. Previous success
• 84% of drivers and 88% of parent drivers said
the campaign would make them slow down
when driving through the cycle friendly zones.
• 88% of drivers and 89% of parent drivers said
the campaign would make them give kids more
space on the roads.
• 64% of parents said the campaign made them
more confident about letting their children cycle
to school.
Taking place in the following 12 LA’s covering over 120 schools. Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Dumfries and Galloway, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Fife , Glasgow, Inverclyde, Moray, North Ayrshire, Shetland. Research shows that over 40% of children surveyed say they want to cycle to school. Further research showed us that the main barrier to cycling to school was that parents don’t allow it, as they fear the roads are too busy. So we decided to devise a campaign that would try to counter this situation.
Cycling Scotland has significantly increased numbers of children cycling to school over the past 4 years by developing this campaign which creates awareness around schools. The Give Me Cycle Space campaign show parents we are asking drivers to be considerate of their children when cycling, to overcome the barrier that parents don’t let their kids cycle because they perceive it as unsafe. We set some goals for the campaign in order to be clear about what we wanted to achieve and so we could evaluate the outcomes after the campaign had finished. These were:
An integral part of the campaign is communicating to parents that we are directly asking drivers to be aware of child cyclists in their area – this shows them action is being taken to improve cycling safety on school journeys. Outdoor Visuals We do this through implementing a range of marketing – creating highly visible areas in the school vicinity to convey the message to drivers and parents using billboards, bus shelter posters, lamp post banners, ad bikes, phoneboxes, bus rears. In school grounds gate banners and feather flags will also be used. television ads, drivetime radio • This is visible to kids, parents and especially drivers and shows we are putting tangible initiatives in place. • The campaign is run in conjunction with Bikeability Scotland training in schools to ensure kids are trained to cycle on road. • We aim to target children in the Primary 5 to 7 age groups, as children do not receive cycle training until Primary 5, so we did not feel it was appropriate to be encouraging children to cycle to school when they have not started to undergo training.
In addition to the presence around schools we send home a direct mail pack with the P5-7 children for their parents. This year the recyclable paper bag will contain a spoke reflector and stickers for the kids, a car sticker for the parents for them to show their support and, most importantly, a leaflet which outlines why cycling to school is of benefit and what is being done in Scotland to support it. The pack will also include local cycling maps where available and a covering letter tailored to the local authority.
The Riderz stunt team will do 2 shows in each LA which all participating schools will be invited to. The stunt shows are preceded and followed by workshops for the children, led by the Riderz, which include a ‘How to check you own bike’ session, a bike challenge, travel planning with the LA contact, a ‘Meet the Riderz’ slot complete with autograph card. New for this year, children can create their own cycling rap with Tigah, a cycling musician and a bike artist with some exciting elements developed from previous years. Dr Bike, ad-bikes, inflatable billboards and feather flags accompany the Riderz visits to create a cycling spectacle, a focus for activities and to encourage and enthuse children about cycling to school. There is also a new interactive Riderz website which will be updated daily throughout the tour with videos, blogs and photos from each of the schools. A competition for participating schools is also on the website and children can follow the Riderz progress and leave comments on the grafitti wall. http://theriderz.com/ Competition New for this year and to give the schools a focus for activities outwith the Riderz visits, participating schools will take part in a competition which requires the each P5-7 class to record their mode of travel to school over the course of a week. The prize is a class trip to the Mountain Bike World Cup for the winning class.
The campaign is on a much larger scale this year, both in terms of the number of partner LA’s and the scope of activity and additional components. TV Ad A 30 second TV advert will be shown nationally during the campaign on STV, Channel 4 and 5. The storyboard follows on from the now recongnisable image of the child with outstretched arms asking for cycle space whilst cycling on the road to school. Radio A radio advert will play on local stations in each of the LA’s. Additional website content for each radio station will also inform listeners about the campaign, host a video of Boogie and Dingo cycling to Trinity Primary School in Edinburgh for Bikeability training along with a linked competition. Press Advertorials will feature in both national and local papers and publications.
We enlisted Progressive Research to evaluate the impact the campaign had on driver behaviour and parents’ attitudes to letting their kids cycle to school. In 2011 we found the following;