Hankering for bike safety

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By: Ashton Shurson - The Daily Iowan

One day, a bicyclist rides down the road toward an intersection, then sees a semi coming toward him. Hoping to beat the enormous vehicle, he crosses the intersection - and he's hit.

Well, not really.

The bike is actually stationary, and the roads are part of a virtual world.

The Hank Virtual Environments Laboratory in MacLean Hall is home to a bicycling simulator used to test children's and adults' bicycling behaviors with simulated traffic.

The goal of the experiments is to reduce childhood bicycle injuries, said Joe Kearney, a co-director of Hank and an associate dean for the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The rear wheel of the bike connects to a disk and belt that controls inertia and momentum so the participants feel as though they are riding on actual roads. The bike, standing on a platform, is surrounded by three 8-by-10 walls on which simulated streets and neighborhoods appear.

Last week, Jim Cremer, a co-director of Hank and UI computer-science professor, traveled to a conference in Italy to report the results of a recent experiment.

During this particular experiment, riders - both children and adults - approached an intersection with dense traffic and crossed through small gaps between cars. When riders were presented with another random traffic scenario with bigger gaps, riders still chose the smaller gaps, Kearney said.

"Bike injuries are serious and especially most serious with kids and cars," he said. "We seek the causes of these."

Emergency rooms see approximately 500,000 bike-related injuries per year, according to the study's pamphlet.

The program started in 1995 as a joint project between the computer-science department - Kearney and Cremer - and UI psychology Professor Jodie Plumert, another co-director. Since its implementation, there have been roughly 10 to 15 experiments with more than 500 participants. Each experiment lasts for 15 to 20 minutes. Sixty to 80 subjects participate per study, ranging in age from 10- to 12-year-olds to college students.

Funding was provided by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, Ford Motor Co., and the Iowa Center for Injury Prevention. The original model cost roughly $120,000 and now runs on six computers that cost $2,000 a piece.

Kearney said Hank presents the opportunity to have virtually controlled experiments and test a person's basic perception with distance and speed involved.

"The substantial question is about ecological validity," Cremer said. "We want to know which things affect the validity of these environments."

One fundamental finding is that kids and adults will choose the same size gaps, but children choose less time to spare when crossing the road, Kearney said, adding that kids are usually less ready to go and fumble more before riding through the gap. Also, adults tend to initiate motion before the gap arrives.

Although the UI is not the home to the only simulator in the country, Kearney is still proud of Hank's accomplishments.

"We like to think this one is the best," Kearney said with a smile.

E-mail DI reporter Ashton Shurson at: ashton-shurson@uiowa.edu

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