Challenges in reducing bicycle casualties with high volume cycle use : lessons from The Netherlands.

The Netherlands is one of the friendliest countries for cycling in the world (Pucher and Buehler 2007), with cycling accounting for about one third of all trips under 7.5 km (Heinen 2011). In addition, young adults in secondary schools travel almost as far a distance by bicycle as by car (Twisk et al. 2013a). Although cycling is estimated to be about four times riskier than car travel (Stipdonk and Reurings 2012), the Netherlands is still one of the safest countries in the world (World Health Organization (WHO) 2013). However, over the last 10 years, the Netherlands has experienced a 55 per cent increase in severely injured cyclists, while the number of fatalities has remained constant. Today, about a quarter of the number of road fatalities and more than half the number of seriously injured are cyclists (Twisk et al. 2013b). An increasing proportion of road safety problems in countries with high volumes of bicycle use, such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium (especially in Flanders), are directly related to cycling safety (Schepers et al. 2014). The list of such countries can be expected to grow as a result of policies aiming to increase bicycle use (Pucher and Buehler 2012). These countries have already implemented many measures to improve cycling safety. It will thus be a challenge to continue decreasing casualty numbers given the parallel goal to increase the amount of cycling. The ageing of the western population is a further compounding factor. This chapter sets out to examine what lessons can be learned when studying cycling safety policies in countries witl1 a high level of bicycle use. The Netherlands has been chosen as an example because of its high volume of bicycle use as well as its world-leading cyclist safety record. This focus also enables us to complement knowledge from existing international reviews (for example Reynolds et al. 2009; Karsch et al. 2012) with the results of studies reported in Dutch to arrive at conclusions valid for countries, regions, or cities with high volumes of bicycle use. The chapter ends with a discussion of future research challenges for such countries. (Author/publisher)