The latest injury and fatality figures show cycling safety to deteriorate in the Netherlands. Every year, about a quarter of all traffic fatalities and more than half of the number of seriously injured road users are cyclists. In the last decade, the number of seriously injured cyclists has even increased by 55%. The above figures indicate that crashes in which cyclists are involved form a large share of crashes in the Netherlands. As bicycle use is expected to grow over the coming years, and the group of seniors (a vulnerable group of road users) will increase due to population ageing ,the numbers of cycling casualties are expected to rise even further. To stop this negative trend, cycling safety needs to be improved by means of evidence-based prevention strategies. To that end, a National Research Agenda Cycling safety (NOaF) is needed, to identify the current research needs and to indicate high priority research areas. In order to draft such a National Research Agenda, the current knowledge-base on cycling safety needed first to be explored and the knowledge gaps identified. As such a systematic overview of the state of the art was not yet available, we conducted a review of the current literature on cycling safety. This document contains an overview of its main findings. Detailed information can be found in the final report - in Dutch - by Reurings, Vlakveld, Twisk, Dijkstra & Wijnen, (2012). Van fietsongeval naar maatregelen: Kennis en hiaten. R-2012-8 Leidschendam: SWOV Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Verkeersveiligheid. However, it should be noted that, at this stage, such an overview of existing knowledge cannot be exhaustive. The width of the subject and the fact that no previous inventories were available to elaborate on may have led to relevant studies being missed. It should also be noted that the reported studies are mostly from the Netherlands; studies from other countries have also been included, whenever available. Because of the Netherlands having a unique cycling culture that greatly differs from that in other countries, results from international studies may not apply to the Dutch situation, and vice versa. The present overview solely focusses on the direct influencing factors, such as the traffic environment, the cyclists' traffic behaviour, other road users’ behaviour, legislation, route choice, weather conditions, traffic intensity, the quality of the bicycle, the crash characteristics of motorized traffic and the quality of post-crash assistance. It complicates matters that these factors are not independent of one another. For instance, road user behaviour is not only influenced by a person’s knowledge, motivation and skills, but also by the design of the infrastructure and by the traffic rules that apply. Understanding these interrelationships is not only of importance to analyse the nature of the safety problem itself, but also to select the most effective prevention strategy, and thus to answer the question: ‘Which links in the cause-effect chain need to be addressed to achieve the greatest safety effect?’ Therefore, we will first present a theoretical framework of these relationships and discuss the implications for prevention. A further comment concerns the indirect influences on cycling safety. There are several factors outside the traffic system that have a direct influence on cycling safety, such as economy, population ageing, environmental planning, and social relations. The economy, for instance, has an influence on road safety investments and on traffic volumes. Environmental planning determines the locations of facilities, such as schools, work locations and shopping areas, and thus directly influences traffic volumes. Changes in ‘lifestyle’ influence consumer needs, trips and aspirations. The rise of the mobile phone fills the need to be in touch with others, which has resulted in their use while cycling. This broader context is too wide for including it into a study of this nature. Instead of reviewing these indirect influences, we limit ourselves to discussing the direct influences only. For instance, the safety effects of electric bicycles will be discussed, but not the question of why these bikes have become so popular the last few years. Similarly, the safety consequences of the use of the mobile phone while cycling will be discussed, but not the reasons for the increasing use of mobile phones. An additional consequence of the exclusion of indirect influences is the exclusion of the mechanisms by which road safety measures get implemented. As a consequence, the study has not looked at road safety policy itself, as, for instance, the way in which policy is organized and choices are made about the implementation of measures. However, the extensive international literature about this subject indicates that factors such as the presence of a central coordinating body, the availability of national data on road crashes, and political commitment to national safety targets are necessary preconditions for effective road safety policy. (OECD-ECMT, 2008). As this involves the entire area of road safety policy and not specifically cycling safety, this has not been dealt with in the present study. For further reading on this topic, see: Bax, De Jong & Koppenjan (2010), OECD-ECMT (2008) and Wegman & Aarts (2005).
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