In order to clarify why young cyclists are particularly accident prone in comparison to expert adult cyclists and whether the reasons differ for different age groups, a study was carried out among three groups of young cyclists and an adult group focussing upon two of the three mentioned topics: knowledge and attitudes. It can be concluded that there are differences between adults and young cyclists in fields that determine at least partly the actual traffic behaviour and therefore may contribute to the disproportionate accident involvement of young cyclists. The relative importance of the contributing factors differs per age group. Primary school children are highly motivated to behave correctly and to comply with the rules. However, they are not able to, because they lack elementary knowledge of traffic and behaviour rules. The fact that they consider other cyclists as much better traffic participants than the older children and adults do, forms another indication for a lack of insight into the traffic system in general. The secondary school children also lack knowledge and, in addition, they do not like to comply with the rules and consider them as relatively
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