importance of cycling safety

Cycling safety is important, first because of the injuries themselves. In addition, the risks discourage people from cycling, despite its many individual and population health benefits:

• increases in physical fitness, declines in body weight;
• lower risks of associated diseases, e.g., diabetes, stroke, heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis;
• reductions in air, noise, and water pollution.

Transport Canada data indicates that in Canada in 2009 the number of cyclists injured in traffic collisions seriously enough to be admitted to hospital was about 435. The number of fatalities from 2005 to 2009 ranged from 41 to 73.

Data suggest that cycling in North America is not as safe as it should be. The risk of traumatic injury is greater than for motor vehicle occupants, and also greater than for cyclists in European countries.

The good news is that cycling injury rates have been declining over time and if cycling is safer in Europe than in Canada, it can be made safer here. In addition, the risk of injury needs to be balanced against the individual and public health benefits of cycling.

cycling injury risk factors

To reduce the risk of cycling injuries, the first step is to understand the determinants of risk. One of the factors that differs between European countries with low cycling injury rates and North America where rates are higher is the transportation infrastructure for cycling.

Commuter cycling infrastructure in Canada and the United States tends to place cyclists on road, often beside both moving and parked motor vehicles. In contrast, northern European cities offer more dedicated cycling infrastructure alongside roads, but separated from motorized traffic. The relative merits of these two styles of infrastructure from a safety perspective are the subject of a great deal of debate. As an example, a California transportation engineer, John Forester, has advocated cycling on roads in vehicle lanes with cars as the safest mode of travel (“vehicular cycling”). His thinking has been integrated in part into North American transportation planning.

The proportion of trips by bicycle is another factor that differs between European countries and North America. In the US and Canada, cycling represents 1 – 2% of urban transportation trips. In Austria, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands 10 – 30% of urban trips are made by bicycle. Studies consistently support the principle of safety in numbers: death rates and injury rates are lower where cycling modal shares are higher.

our research on injuries

Because of the importance of injuries to well-being and to choice of cycling as a mode of transportation, our program of research has addressed injuries in a number of ways:

• We reviewed the literature related to the types of route infrastructure and the likelihood of injuries, as well as the literature on the risks and benefits of cycling and walking.
• We designed and conducted an innovative study in Vancouver and Toronto, Bicyclists’ Injuries and the Cycling Environment or the “BICE” Study. It examined which route types are associated with higher and lower cycling injury rates.
• We compared the results of our study and an updated review of the injury and conflict literature to cycling training materials from drivers licensing agencies in each Canadian province and those of non-governmental cycling training organizations. The goal is to help ensure that training materials are evidence-based.