This is scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Karen Hopkins. This will just take a minute.

Streets can be a dangerous place for bicycles. In 2013, nearly 750 cyclists were killed in the US from being hit by a car.

And of the 48,000 cycling injuries that were reported that year,

nearly a third involved a motor vehicle.

Now, a new study suggests that signs sporting just five words could help show drivers and bike riders

how to share the road.

By not saying share the road. By not saying share the road. In all 50 states

traffic regulations state that bicycles should be treated as vehicles, which means that

they have the same rights as cars when it comes to using the roads.

But those roles are not always clear.

Signs that urge motorists to share the road are ambiguous.

Cyclists may assume they mean that cars should make room for bikes.

But some drivers may think they're saying that bikes should get out of the way of traffic.

To see how such science influence how people think about bike riders' rights,

researchers recruited 1800 volunteers to take a quick survey.

Subjects were shown one of four images. Some saw a street with a traditional shared the road sign.

Some saw an image of a bicycle painted on the pavement in a shared lane.

Some saw signs that read, bicycles may use full lane, and some saw a street with no instructions

at all. They then answered some questions about road etiquette.

Turns out that folks who saw the sign explicitly noting that bikes can use the full lane

were the most likely to recognize cyclists' rights to be on the road.

And the ambiguous share the road suggestion?

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