The purpose of this study was to analyse police and hospital data relating to bicycle crashes in Western Australia for the period 1987-2000. The findings were generally consistent with other Australian and overseas studies that have investigated bicycle crashes and injuries. However, some important differences were found in the information obtained from the police and hospital data. The hospitalised cyclists were considerably younger than the police-reported group; the hospital data showed cyclists accounting for a much greater proportion of road casualties, and motorists for a much smaller proportion, than the police data; and the number of cyclists involved in bicycle crashes in the police data decreased between 1987 to 2000 while the hospital data shows a significant increase in the number of hospitalised cyclists. These differences need to be considered in the development of road safety policy relating to cyclists. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting