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Since the seventies, the safety of car occupants has greatly improved, expressed in both the number of road crash fatalities and in mortality risk. Since 2011, however, the number of road deaths among car occupants has not decreased.
A light electric vehicle (LEV) is a light, electrically powered vehicle to travel relatively short distances. Most electric vehicles cannot be used on public roads in the Netherlands, whereas in many other European countries this is permitted. Not much is known about the safety of LEVs since large-scale, systematic research is hardly available.
Published:
(SWOV) | Schermers, G.; Goldenbeld, Ch.; Bijleveld, F.D.; Nabavi Niaki, M.; Weijermars, W.A.M.
Published:
(SWOV) | SWOV
Several measures can be used to affect behaviour: enforcement, education and public communication, as well as vehicle and infrastructure measures. Measures that enforce or elicit safe behaviour are generally most effective, ensuring that road users do not have to (consciously) think to behave safely.
A bicycle helmet is intended to protect cyclists against head and brain injuries when they are involved in crashes. Research shows that in case of a crash helmeted cyclists are 60% less likely to sustain serious head/brain injuries and 70% less likely to sustain fatal head/brain injuries than cyclists not wearing a helmet.
By traffic education we mean all educational activities aimed at positively influencing road user behaviour. The activities are mainly aimed at increasing knowledge, insight, skills and motivation. In principle, traffic education is relevant to all road users, young and old, in all road user roles: lifelong traffic education.
Public communication on road safety includes all activities and products for a voluntary, lasting change in knowledge, attitude or behaviour. There is little evidence that stand-alone mass media communication is effective in changing behaviour or improving road safety. Research does show that campaigns can contribute to increasing support and knowledge of laws and regulations.
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 road deaths per distance travelled) is more than eight times higher than fatality risk for drivers, but over three times as low as that for motorised two-wheelers.
In 2020, over a quarter of the total number of bicycle kilometres were cycled on pedelecs; particularly the over-65s opt for pedelecs. This is also borne out by the crash figures: in 2019 and 2020, almost one in three of the cyclist fatalities was a pedelec rider.