Bicycles are an important mode of transport. They provide access to many opportunities for many sections of the community and many Australian cities are investing considerable resources in developing infrastructure for their movement. Bicycles are particularly important for the younger members of the community who do not have a driver's licence. The proper design of bicycle infrastructure requires a knowledge of the demand for bicycle trips and the character of accidents. This paper focuses on bicycle accidents, investigating long term variations in the character of these accidents. More particularly it compares the bicycle accidents in 1981 with those occurring in 1960 for the Melbourne Metropolitan Melbourne Metropolitan Area. It discussed the changes in the severity of bicycle accidents showing that bicycle accidents have declined from 12 per cent in 1960 to 7 per cent of total casualty accidents in 1981. However, they include more deaths and injuries in 1981. The paper also presents an investigation of the long term changes in accident type subdivided by the functional class of roads, time of day; day of week; and month of year; commenting on the marked increase in the accidents in local streets in 1981 when compared with 1960; 25 per cent versus 12 per cent respectively; and the percentage of accidents on Saturday declining from 17 per cent in 1960 to 12 per cent in 1981. The paper presents use of a new accident type coding. This is applied to the 1960 data and enables a better assessment of bicycle accident types than the existing road user movements (RUM). Its implementation is suggested. The paper closes with comments on the general character of bicycle accidents, concluding remarks and some directions for future research (A).
Abstract