This study suggests that police-reported bicycle crashes are different in type and location of crash, in age of cyclist, and in severity of injury, when compared with the estimated population of all pedal cyclists who sustain injury in bicycle crashes. More than half of the costs of bicycle crashes are associated with crashes not reported to the police. In order to be more effective, bicycle safety strategies must be designed using more complete data that include crashes occurring on-road but not reported, as well as those ocurring off-road. Unless methods are found to include the unreported and off-road bicycle injuries when developing and evaluating countermeasures, the net benefits of the proposed programs could be seriously misrepresented. (A)
Abstract