Findings from Statistics of Bicycle Collisions

• County roads and state routes have a disproportionate number of fatal bicycle collisions in relation to the total number of bicycle collisions.
• More than half of fatal bicycle collisions involved a pickup or panel type vehicle.
• The 10 to 15 age groups experienced the highest bicycle collision rate. The rate for this age group is twice that of the rate for the next highest age group.
• Collision rates for bicyclists aged 15 or younger have shown a decline from the base years of 1988 to 1993. Bicyclists in the age groups from 16 to 54 have shown an increase.
• Approximately 80 percent of bicyclists involved in collisions were male.
• Injury severity for male and female populations is similar.
• Approximately half the collisions occurred at intersections. The actions of bicyclists (22%) contributed slightly more to the occurrence than the motorists' actions (19%). It was not possible to determine whose actions were responsible in the remaining 9 percent of intersection collisions.
• Bicycling opposite to the direction of traffic (wrong way) accounted for 16 percent of all collisions. Bicyclists being hit from behind by a motor vehicle, commonly misperceived as a leading cause of bicycle collisions, accounted for only 5 percent of all collisions.
• Although alcohol involvement in all bicycle collisions was very low, 12% of bicyclists and 12% of motorists were impaired in fatal collisions.
• Rates of collisions between cyclists and motor vehicles are roughly double in cities than in towns, at an average of 3 collisions per ten thousand persons. Fatal collisions afflict 0.02 people per ten thousand per year.