Cooperation of four organisations from four countries, with different backgrounds, but for one aim: improving safety cycling education - this is Safe4Cycle2. Vuelta Sports Association (Hungary), Fundația Comunitare Mureș (Romania), Mariborska kolesarska mreža (Slovenia) and the Bikeability Trust (United Kingdom) are committed to safety cycling education, and will do their best in the frame of the transnational cooperation to develop interactive videos, an interactive workbook for 10-13 years old pupils, and a blended training for trainers course for their teachers in order to make cycling education more attractive for all stakeholders, and to involve more children and teachers in their programs. The Hungarian and the Romanian project partners aim to develop their program further: in the frame of a previous Erasmus+ project all the needed paper-based educational materials have been developed, but there are no nationwide safety cycling educational programs in the two countries. The long-term goal of the project partners is to persuade the decision-makers on local, regional and national level to support the implementation of a safety cycling program nationwide. The intellectual outputs, which will be developed in the frame of Safe4Cycle2 will provide a solid bases for it, completing the paper-based materials. The Slovenian model of safety cycling education certainly has many positive pages, but it also needs some upgrades. In the Safe4Cycle project the can Slovenian project partner aims to transfer many good practices to other partners in Slovenia, as well as insight into the structure of operation and the implementation of different safety cycling programs. Above all, it is necessary to establish programs that will upgrade the cycling exam program in Slovenia and motivate children and adolescents to be interested in safety cycling in later periods. The project partner from the United Kingdom will have a consultant role in the project, as the Bikeability is a well-structured, long running program in the UK. The project partners aims to study the model of Bikeability, to get an insight to the program on the spot and to get acquainted with the approach of the UK program. The project partners aim to jointly develop interactive safety cycling educational materials, based on their experience, with changing good practices and their ideas at the transnational project meetings and even at the job shadowing programs, when they can study each one’s programs on the spot, participating at primary school lessons, training for trainers programs, etc. These kind of job shadowing programs are also good for have a look at the local circumstances, the advantages and difficulties, even the risks of safety cycling educational projects of the partners. Thanks to the experience and different approach the partners will gain during the 30-month-long transnational project at local level the activities of all project partners will be more received, the partner organisations will be more trustworthy, they will be involved more in cycling projects, so they will be able to affect local decisions that connected to cycling. In this way the project can help promoting and facilitating cycling at all on local or regional level. On national level all the project partners will contribute to improving the existing safety cycling educational materials by developing the intellectual outputs that can facilitate involving more children and more teachers in safety cycling education. Regarding the European level the long-term goal of the European Union is to reduce road fatalities to zero in the EU by 2050 ("Vision Zero"). Project partners believe that safety cycling education can contribute to achieve this goal - safety traffic education should be the basis of all safety road strategies, as children can be affected the most effectively. All the project partners have a vision about cycling, especially regarding children: cycling is fun, cycling provides freedom, and the children must be encouraged to ride their bikes - but in a safe manner.
The aim of Safe4Cycle2 project was to develop an interactive website that aims especially children aged 9-12 years and their primary school teachers (and other stakeholders, like parents or police officers) with online safety cycling educational materials. After finishing the development phase the goal of the project partners was to reach as much stakeholders as much they could in order to disseminate and multiply the achievements of the project. The mid-term goal (after finishing the whole project) is to call attention for the importance of cycling education in the primary schools and to have a professionally based online educational material that helps the children and their teachers get acquainted with the most important rules, regulations and practical advices that are needed for safe individual cycling. The other goal was to develop a website that is variable in the future due to the needs of the project partners for example in case of appearance of a sponsor.
Cycling is getting more and more popular in Europe because of several reasons, like sustainability, commitment of the municipalities to liveable cities, Covid-19 pandemic, etc. The project partners involved in Safe4Cycle2 project are committed the encourage everyday cycling, especially among young cyclists. All partners believe that cycling has a lot of economical, social and health benefits, and for this reason all partners aim to reach the cyclists of the future: the children. In the four countries (Hungary, Slovenia, Romania and the United Kingdom – England) there are huge differences between the level of cycling education, but all partners agreed that there is a need for proper online cycling educational materials. Proper means that cycling educational materials should target children with child-friendly texts, images, videos, games to be attractive for the pupils aged 9-12 years, as they use their smart phones, tablets and notebooks as a part of their daily routine. If an organisation that aims safety cycling education wants to reach this target group, has to develop attractive online contents to reach the children as there are no professionally based existing educational materials for this target group. Furthermore there is a need among primary school teachers for educational materials that are easily could be used if they aim to teach safety cycling topics.