Bicycle safety


Bicycle safety is the use of road traffic safety practices to reduce risk associated with cycling. Risk can be defined as the number of incidents occurring for a given amount of cycling. Some of this subject matter is hotly debated: for example, which types of cycling environment or cycling infrastructure is safest for cyclists. The merits of obeying the traffic laws and using bicycle lighting at night are less controversial. Wearing a bicycle helmet may reduce the chance of head injury in the event of a crash.
Most bicycling fatalities occur as a result of collision with a motor vehicle. Studies in multiple countries have found that drivers are at fault in the majority of these crashes.

Crashes

The first recorded bicycle crash occurred in 1842, reportedly between Kirkpatrick McMillan, an early rider of the velocipede, and a young girl in Glasgow. The report, however, is vague and the identification disputed.
The overall risk of death from a cycling accident in developed countries has diminished over the last 25 years according to a 2017 analysis of OECD statistics. In the United States, cycling remains a more dangerous mode of transportation when compared to automobiles. According to NPR, the number of bicyclists hit by vehicles rose at an alarming rate during the COVID pandemic, and a leading cause of this was poor bicycle infrastructure.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted, in the United States, over 32,000 automobile related deaths in 2013. By comparison, WISQUARS, the CDC's injury statistics website, found just over 1,000 deaths from cycling in 2015. Despite the relative safety compared to automobiles, the number of fatalities and hospitalizations from cycling is significantly greater in the United States compared to other western states such as Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands. In a 2014 analysis, there were 4.7 cycling deaths per 100 million kilometers cycled in the U.S., compared to 1.3 deaths per 100 million kilometers in Germany, 1.0 in the Netherlands, and 1.1 in Denmark. In the United Kingdom, cyclists have half of the rate of motorcyclists but eight times the rate for motorists.
Causes of crashes vary according to local conditions. Road conditions, weather, speed, brakes, rider visibility, bicycle and automobile traffic, driving under the influence, riding under the influence, and distracted driving are contributing factors to accidents. Many bicycle crashes are unreported and therefore not included in official statistics.
An international survey on underreporting of the most severe cycling collisions found reporting rates ranging between 0% and 35%. Furthermore, there is biasing in the kinds of collisions that appear in official data. It is known that collisions where a motorised vehicle is not involved as a collision partner i.e. single cyclist, cyclist-pedestrian or cyclist-cyclist collisions have lower odds of being reported to the police. Lower severity collisions can incur significant costs, and result in long-term effects. The Belgian SHAPES project found costs for minor injuries primarily related to loss of productivity, and other intangible costs. The French ESPARR study found that close to half of those who experience a minor injury in a road traffic collision in Rhône still experienced regular pain after a year.Therefore, the characteristics of cyclist collisions is an active area of research. In the United States, bicycle crashes may be grounds for personal injury lawsuits.

Hazards

Hazards to cyclists include:
  • Failure of drivers to see or anticipate bicycles. This happens especially at cross sections where cyclists are often forced to ride on bike infrastructure to the right of traffic. Especially when large trucks are involved, the cyclist can fall under the wheels of the motor vehicle.
  • Dooring - When a vehicle door is opened without checking for passing cyclists beforehand and so the cyclist collides with the vehicle door. This is associated with the commonplace layout of streets with vehicles parallel parked near the curb, and cyclists riding between parked vehicles and moving vehicles. Cyclists can protect themselves from dooring by riding outside of the door zone and never right next to parked cars.
  • Getting a wheel stuck in a road irregularity, such as a large pothole, railroad track, storm drain, expansion joint, or edge of a driveway. This can cause the bicycle to stop while the rider goes over the handlebars, or it can cause the wheel to travel in a direction different from the rest of the bicycle, which can lead to falling sideways.
  • Proceeding past stopped traffic can result in collisions with vehicles entering or exiting a junction or turn. Oncoming bicycles may not be visible to drivers as the stopped vehicles may block them from seeing cyclists until the last minute. Lane splitting is specifically illegal in some jurisdictions.
  • Bicycling in rain or snow can significantly decrease visibility if wearing glasses, goggles, or helmet with wind screen, due to lack of windshield wipers.
  • Falling sideways if going too slowly or carrying a heavy, unbalanced load.
  • Falling due to lack of traction on slippery surfaces, such as ice, mud, or railroad track.
  • Road rage: Some vehicle drivers may try to 'punish' cyclists for what they perceive as selfish behaviour in 'holding them up unnecessarily' and so when overtaking them will pass them too closely or cut in too sharply or sound their horn at them. ]
Bicyclists are also subject to all the same types of collisions as cars and trucks, without the protection of a metal shell – although generally traveling at lower speeds. These risks can be increased if cyclists violate the rules of the road, such as going the wrong way down a one-way street, failing to stop at a red light, or traveling at night without lights.
Electric bicycles present the further risk of accidental fire from the overheating of their powerful batteries, especially from lower-quality manufacturers.

Common injuries

Bicycle accidents can result in a range of injuries, with head injuries such as concussions and traumatic brain injuries being among the most serious—especially without a helmet. Upper body injuries like wrist and clavicle fractures are common, as cyclists often extend their arms to break a fall. Lower body injuries may include knee damage or leg fractures, while more severe crashes can cause spinal, chest, or abdominal trauma. Road rash, cuts, and bruises are frequent soft tissue injuries, and facial or dental injuries can also occur, especially in high-impact accidents. Prompt medical attention is important for symptoms like loss of consciousness, severe pain, or difficulty breathing.

Traffic engineering

History

United Kingdom

During the mid-20th century, the traffic engineering solutions were sought which eased the passage of traffic through the streets and also protected vulnerable road users. In the 1940s, an influential proponent of this ideology was Herbert Alker Tripp, an assistant commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police. Tripp argued in his book Town Planning and Road Traffic that: "If we could segregate pedestrians completely from the wheeled traffic, we could of course abolish pedestrian casualties".
This philosophy was also pursued by Colin Buchanan; his 1963 report for the UK Government Traffic in Towns, defined future government policy until the end of the century. Buchanan knew that segregation had not been proven to work for cyclists: his 1958 book Mixed Blessing said: "The meagre efforts made to separate cyclists from motor traffic have failed, tracks are inadequate, the problem of treating them at junctions and intersections is completely unsolved, and the attitude of the cyclists themselves to these admittedly unsatisfactory tracks has not been as helpful as it might have been".
Appropriately designed segregated space for cyclists on arterial or interurban routes appears to reduce overall risk. In Ireland, the provision of hard shoulders on interurban routes in the 1970s reportedly resulted in a 50% decrease in accidents. It is reported that the Danes have also found that separate cycle tracks lead to a reduction in rural collisions.

The Netherlands

The trend away from the bicycle and towards motor cars only began to decrease in the 1970s, when Dutch people took to the streets to protest against the large number of child deaths on the roads: in some years, over 500 children were killed in car accidents in the Netherlands. This protest movement was known as the Stop de Kindermoord. The success of this movement — along with other factors, such as the oil shortages of 1973–74 — turned Dutch government policy around and the country began to restrict motor vehicles in its towns and cities and to direct its focus on growth towards other forms of transport, with the bicycle perceived as critical in making Dutch streets safer and towns and cities more people-friendly and livable.
Cycling is a common mode of transport in the Netherlands, with 36% of the people listing the bicycle as their most frequent mode of transport on a typical day as opposed to the car and public transport. Cycling has a modal share of 27% of all trips nationwide.
This high modal share for bicycle travel is enabled by unusually flat topography, excellent cycling infrastructure such as cycle paths, cycle tracks, protected intersections, ample bicycle parking and by making cycling routes shorter, quicker and more direct than car routes.

Road design

United States

Concern over national public health and active transportation have inspired states and municipalities to rethink present traffic engineering. Following the viral popularity of a video created by video game developer Nick Falbo in February 2014, Dutch-style protected intersections began to gain interest with metropolitan planning organizations. By 2015, Davis, California, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Austin, Texas became the first three U.S. cities to feature protected intersections.
Understanding how to effectively reduce cycling accidents and injuries is in part limited by the lack of comprehensive studies regarding municipal infrastructures and the challenge of controlling for the wide range of risks involved with travel by cycle. Despite these statistical limitations, the risk of cycling accidents has been found to be lowest on segregated on-road bike lanes and routes.Higher risk was associated with cycling on multi-use non-segregated facilities with a lack of any designated cycling infrastructure. Major arterial thoroughfares have also been shown to be more dangerous for cyclists than minor roads.