What does ‘safety in numbers’ imply?

Answer

In road safety, the principle of safety in numbers refers to risks for vulnerable road users. It implies that as the number of cyclists and pedestrians increases their crash risk decreases; or the increase in the number of crashes among these road users is smaller than would be expected considering the increase in their numbers in traffic [24]. This mechanism has been demonstrated in several studies, but the magnitude of the found road safety effect considerably differs. Nor is it clear whether the effect relates to a direct causal relationship [25] [26]. It is, for example, unknown whether the safety-in-numbers effect is caused by drivers behaving differently when the numbers of pedestrians and cyclists increase, or whether the effect is caused by safer facilities in countries with more cyclists and pedestrians, such as bicycle tracks and pavements (amongst others: [27]).

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Cyclists

In the Netherlands, over a third of road deaths and well over two thirds of serious road injuries are cyclists. Cyclist fatality risk (the number of Meer

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