The overall objective of the ADONIS project is to encourage car drivers to change to cycling and walking on short trips in big cities. This implies that drivers are encouraged to change from a more safe mode of transport to a less safe mode. From a safety point of view, this fact requires investigation of bicycle and pedestrian accidents in order to minimise the number of these accidents. Quantitative accident studies exist, for example based on police recorded accidents. But such studies do not go into deep details concerning factors leading to the accident and assessments of accident causation factors. Nor is it in this way possible to get information from the involved persons about the accident and their view on various factors of importance for the accident. Therefore, a different qualitative approach to explore cyclist and pedestrian accidents has been chosen in this study. This method is very valuable because it enables us to get new knowledge of how accident involved road users have perceived the accident situation by giving their opinion on how the accident has influenced them. Accident studies have shown that inadequate perception is most often a causation factor in accidents with cyclists (Bernhoft 1993). Concerning accidents with pedestrians, studies indicate similar problems. But results from accident studies do not reveal enough information on problems concerning interaction between road users. It seems to be necessary to get in contact with the persons involved in accidents to obtain sufficient knowledge about their behaviour leading to accidents (Nordic Council of Ministers 1994, Herslund 1993). Generally, it is suggested that car drivers often perceive themselves as having the necessary skills and proper behaviour, but consider their counterparts as unreliable and irresponsible. Further, it seems as if they do not perceive vulnerable road users as a potential hazard, they merely look for other motor vehicles. It is also generally suggested that both accident involved car drivers, cyclists and pedestrians often perceive some signals which should have indicated a dangerous situation, but for unknown reasons, they neither regard the signals as a sign of risk nor react in order to avoid an accident. The aim of this study has been to further explore these suggestions and from the results get input to the questions of how to prevent cyclist and pedestrian accidents and how to promote cycling and walking. (Author/publisher)
Abstract