Who,where, when: the demographic and geographic distribution of bicycle crashes in West Yorkshire
Affiliation:
1. Consumer Data Research Centre, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom;2. School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom;1. Institute of Transport Studies, Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Australia;2. Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Australia;1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-2700, United States;2. Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, 3136 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-3136, United States;1. Institute for Transportation, Iowa State University, 2711 South Loop Drive, Suite 4700, Ames, IA 50010, United States;2. Lyles School of Civil Engineering, HAMP G167B, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, United States;1. Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University, Main Campus, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea;2. Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, National Infrastructure Research Division, 224 Simin-daero, Dongan-gu, Anyang-si, Gyeonggi-do 14067, Republic of Korea;3. University of Iceland, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hjardarhagi 2-6, IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland;1. Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Bygningstorvet 116B, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark;2. Department of Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel;3. School of Civil Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, 4072 Brisbane, Australia;1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, United States;2. Virginia Transportation Research Council, 530 Edgemont Rd, Charlottesville, VA 22903, United States
Abstract:
Factors associated with cycle safety, including international differences in injury and mortality rates, protective equipment and bicycle training, have been subject to increasing academic interest. Environmental variables associated with cycle safety have also been scrutinised, but few studies have focussed on geographical factors at the local level. This paper addresses this research gap by analysing a geo-referenced dataset of road traffic incidents, taken from the UK’s STATS19 dataset (2005–2012). We investigate incidents involving cyclists within West Yorkshire. This is an interesting case study area as it has an historically low cycling rate but very ambitions cycling plans following investment from the Department of Transport. West Yorkshire is found to be an unusually risky area for cyclists, with an estimated 53 deaths and 1372 serious injuries per billion kilometres cycled, based on census commuting statistics. This is roughly double the national average. This riskiness varies spatially and temporally, broadly in line with expectations from the previous literature. An unexpected result was that cycling seems to be disproportionately risky for young people in West Yorkshire compared with young people nationally. The case study raises the issue of potential negative health impacts of promoting cycling amongst vulnerable groups in dangerous areas. We conclude by highlighting opportunities for increasing cycling uptake via measures designed primarily to improve safety. The analysis underlying this research is reproducible, based on code stored at github.com/Robinlovelace/bikeR.
