PW 1433 Cycling accidents in the netherlands – an overview of risks, injuries, causes and consequences for policy makers

Abstract

Cycling, which is very popular in the Netherlands, has known health benefits, but can also lead to accidents and injuries. In 2016 in the Netherlands 120.000 people were treated at an Emergency Department due to a traffic injury, which is 19% of all unintentional injuries. Of those road traffic injuries 60% can be attributed to cyclists. To monitor accidents and injuries, the Netherlands has a continuous injury registration at 14 ED’s: the Dutch Injury Surveillance System. DISS is representative for all ED’s and provides the possibility to perform follow up studies with patients.The objective of this study was to gather insight in self-reported causes and risk factors of cycling injuries.In this case control study a questionnaire was sent to patients who visited one of the 14 DISS ED’s after a cycling accident (n=3.146) in 2016, and to a control group (n=1.811) with cyclists who did not have a bicycle accident in the previous year.After controlling for factors such as age and kilometres travelled, we found no differences in injuries between classical and electronic bicycles. (dis)Mounting is often mentioned as a cause of injury by senior cyclists. Cyclists own behaviour and behaviour of other road users play an important role in causing injuries. However, the specific use of a smartphone was not an important cause of cycling accidents. Environmental factors such as the state of the road appeared to be crucial as well.