Trauma: Crash statistics & safety
About this page
Improving cyclist safety is one of the most important reasons we campaign for better bicycle facilities.
Most crashes are not accidents as, when you look into the circumstances of the crash, it is obvious they could be avoided. That's why we avoid talking about cycle accidents, and instead refer to cycle crashes.
Crash statistics
One of the best and most easily accessible sources of information is the VicRoads database of all road crashes in Victoria that have been reported by police. It is called Crash Stats.
It records such details about the crashes as where, when, types of vehicles involved, crash description and more.
You can search Crash Stats to answer all sorts of questions about cycling safety. You can also produce crash maps. The picture shows a crash map of the City of Stonnington. Chapel St has the highest number of bike crashes of any road in Victoria.
Questions include:
-
Where do the most cycle crashes occur in my municipality?
-
What sort of cycle crashes are the most frequent in my area?
-
Are school children or adults more often in cycle-car crashes?
-
Where should we build a new bike lane to have the most impact on reducing bike crashes?
For instance, on St Kilda Rd we have been counting cyclists numbers at Southbank Boulevard for six years.
We can compare these numbers against the number of crashes on St Kilda Rd between St Kilda Junction and Southbank Blvd to show that the bike lanes have encouraged more cycling while crash numbers have remained relatively static.
In general the most crashes tend to be where the most cycling is, as there can't be a cycle crash without a cyclis.
It is important to note that the VicRoads Crash Stats only records on-road crashes reported to police. That means that police attended the crash or it was reported to them later.
It is generally accepted that lesser injuries (non-hospitalisations) are vastly under-reported in crash statistics, and that only about 20% are actually reported to police.
Also, Crash Stats only reports on-road crashes and does not usually include injuries and deaths that occur outside a road reserve, eg on a railway reserve, off-road path or stunt park.
In fact most bike crashes occur off-road and the only way to track them is through coronial information and hospital admissions data.
The Monash Accident Research Centre tracks this data and we have reported on it in our 1996 and 1998 review of bicycle crashes.
Bicycle Victoria also takes crash reports from our members as part of insurance claims, but this information has not been properly analysed or tracked year to year. We plan to do another report on cycling crashes and injuries in late 2004.
That said, Crash Stats is a consistent source of information for crashes and is generally comparable year to year. It also shows only the tip of the iceberg, but is a good reflection of what is under the water (or goes unreported in our analogy).
Bicycle Victoria seeks the coroner's report on all cycle deaths in Victoria and writes to the coroner on any cycle deaths we see in the papers or that come to our knowledge.
VicRoads also has other bicycle safety information and the Traffic Accident Commission and police also report on road deaths.