Ottawa-Carleton commuter cyclist on- and off-road incident rates. 1998

L Aultman-Hall, and F L Hall
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington 40506-0281, USA. aultman@engr.uky.edu

This analysis overcomes the known limitations of police and emergency room bicycle accident databases through use of a survey that asked cyclists to indicate their accident history as well as their regular commute route to work or school. By relating the route information of the 1604 respondents (52.5% of the distributed questionnaires) to facility attributes in a Geographic Information System, defensible estimates of travel exposure on roads, off-road paths and sidewalks were developed. The relative rates of collisions on the three different facility types were not statistically different from 1.0. The relative rates for falls and injuries suggest it is safest to cycle on-road followed by off-road paths and trails, and finally least safe on sidewalks. While there were no major injuries reported on sidewalks, the relative rate for these events on paths was greater than the rate for roads. The absolute event rates per bicycle kilometre were found to be between 10 and 41 times higher than similar rates for automobile travel. Results suggest a need to discourage sidewalk cycling, and to further investigate the safety of off-road paths/trails. The analysis also demonstrates the need for bicycle travel exposure information and the use of more than just collision databases for bicycle safety analysis.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D008297 Male Males
D008875 Middle Aged An adult aged 45 - 64 years. Middle Age
D009864 Ontario A province of Canada lying between the provinces of Manitoba and Quebec. Its capital is Toronto. It takes its name from Lake Ontario which is said to represent the Iroquois oniatariio, beautiful lake. (From Webster's New Geographical Dictionary, 1988, p892 & Room, Brewer's Dictionary of Names, 1992, p391)
D005260 Female Females
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000056 Accident Prevention Efforts and designs to reduce the incidence of unexpected undesirable events in various environments and situations. Prevention, Accident,Accident Preventions,Preventions, Accident
D000063 Accidents, Traffic Accidents on streets, roads, and highways involving drivers, passengers, pedestrians, or vehicles. Traffic accidents refer to AUTOMOBILES (passenger cars, buses, and trucks), BICYCLING, and MOTORCYCLES but not OFF-ROAD MOTOR VEHICLES; RAILROADS nor snowmobiles. Traffic Collisions,Traffic Crashes,Traffic Accidents,Accident, Traffic,Collision, Traffic,Collisions, Traffic,Crashes, Traffic,Traffic Accident,Traffic Collision
D000293 Adolescent A person 13 to 18 years of age. Adolescence,Youth,Adolescents,Adolescents, Female,Adolescents, Male,Teenagers,Teens,Adolescent, Female,Adolescent, Male,Female Adolescent,Female Adolescents,Male Adolescent,Male Adolescents,Teen,Teenager,Youths
D000328 Adult A person having attained full growth or maturity. Adults are of 19 through 44 years of age. For a person between 19 and 24 years of age, YOUNG ADULT is available. Adults
D000368 Aged A person 65 years of age or older. For a person older than 79 years, AGED, 80 AND OVER is available. Elderly

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