Abstract

Objective: This paper examines infrastructural and route environment correlates of cycling injury risk in Britain for commuters riding in the morning peak. Methods: The study uses a case-crossover design which controls for exposure. Control sites from modelled cyclist routes (matched on intersection status) were compared with sites where cyclists were injured. Conditional logistic regression for matched case–control groups was used to compare characteristics of control and injury sites. Results: High streets (defined by clustering of retail premises) raised injury odds by 32%. Main (Class A or primary) roads were riskier than other road types, with injury odds twice that for residential roads. Wider roads, and those with lower gradients increased injury odds. Guard railing raised injury odds by 18%, and petrol stations or car parks by 43%. Bus lanes raised injury odds by 84%. As in other studies, there was a ‘safety in numbers’ effect from more cyclists. Contrary to other analysis, including two recent studies in London, we did not find a protective effect from cycle infrastructure and the presence of painted cycle lanes raised injury odds by 54%. At intersections, both standard and mini roundabouts were associated with injury odds several times higher than other intersections. Presence of traffic signals, with or without an Advanced Stop Line (‘bike box’), had no impact on injury odds. For a cyclist on a main road, intersections with minor roads were riskier than intersections with other main roads. Conclusions: Typical cycling environments in Britain put cyclists at risk, and infrastructure must be improved, particularly on busy main roads, high streets, and bus routes.

Highlights

  • MethodsThis paper examines correlates of cycling injury risk in Great Britain in 2017. Ethical approval was given by the University of Westminster.As in [9] the study uses a case-crossover method

  • Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands; London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, Academic Editor: Paul B

  • High street status was associated with an elevated injury risk in final adjusted models, while urban area status was not, an initial effect becoming attenuated when adjusting for other variables

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Summary

Methods

This paper examines correlates of cycling injury risk in Great Britain in 2017. Ethical approval was given by the University of Westminster.As in [9] the study uses a case-crossover method. Researchers randomly generate control points from the routes followed by individual cyclists prior to experiencing an injury This produces a set of control sites representing the typical types of route environment experienced by the injured cyclists; and the types of places they might instead have been injured were all types of route environment risky. Comparing this set of matched controls with their cases (corresponding injury locations) allows researchers to establish which out of a range of characteristics of injury sites (e.g., road width, street infrastructure) are associated with increased odds of injury

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