Characteristics of Commuters’ Single-Bicycle Crashes in Insurance Data

Abstract

In order to maximize the public health benefits of cycling, the negative impacts of cycling, such as the number and types of crashes, should be identified. Single-bicycle crashes, in which other road users are not collided with, are one of the main safety concerns in cycling, but comprehensive knowledge on these crashes is not available due to poor data sources. This study aimed to identify characteristics of commuters’ single-bicycle crashes in Finland. Firstly, insurance data covering 9268 commuter bicycle crashes in 2016 and 2017 were analyzed to find single-bicycle crashes. The insurance data are based on self-reported crashes. In total, 3448 single-bicycle crashes were found with crash descriptions that were informative enough for investigation of their characteristics. According to the results, 62.9% (95% confidence interval +/− 1.6%) of the crashes were related to the infrastructure. In the majority of infrastructure-related crashes, the road surface was slippery. The slippery road surface was typically due to icy or snowy conditions. The lack of proper data complicates the recognition of single-bicycle crashes, and hence policy actions and research projects are needed to develop better data sources for proper investigation of cycling safety.

Survey-Based Accident Analysis for Human-Powered Three-Wheeled Vehicles

“…Some studies are based on hospital statistics and survey of bicycle drivers that had been treated in hospital after an accident [8,9]. Other sources might be insurance data like in [10]. Not every accident necessarily leads to hospitalization and usually only a very small proportion of bicycle accidents are recorded by the police [11], which is especially the case for single accidents.…”

RoadSurf‐Pedestrian: a sidewalk condition model to predict risk for wintertime slipping injuries

“…There do exist some sources, however, from which slipping and falling accident and injury statistics can be collected, like the Finnish care register, ambulance transport, injury claim data or the injury databases of individual companies (Karlsson, 2013; Hippi et al ., 2017). Accidents and injuries occurring to pedestrians and cyclists are typically single accidents (thus, without a collision with another party) and are not included in traffic accident statistics (Utriainen, 2020). Single accidents of these vulnerable road users are highly underreported (Airaksinen, 2018).…”

“…The TVK's injury data are based on self‐reported crashes that have been handled by the insurance companies, which have paid the compensation. Injury descriptions have been written by the injured person, the supervisor, another employee or the claims handler in the insurance company (Utriainen, 2020). In this paper, a single‐pedestrian injury is determined as an event when a pedestrian has slipped, fallen or stumbled.…”

Approaching Bike Hazards via Crowdsourcing of Volunteered Geographic Information

“…Infrastructure in this sense often refers to bicycle facilities [16][17][18][19], such as on-road track routes, on-road marked bike lanes, and off-road bike paths. Often it also refers to the condition and type of lane, e.g., road size and speed limit [20][21][22]. Furthermore, zones of multiple use, such as intersections, shared pathways, or parking lot entrances, are identified as contributing to bike hazards [19,23,24].…”

“…An even greater number of unreported cases can be assumed, since data is only available for accidents recorded by the police or insurance. For example, Utriainen [22] pointed out for Finland that only 21% of bicycle accidents are officially documented. For Freiburg, bicycle traffic accounts for 26% of the total traffic volume [35].…”