A SUMMARY OF THE SAFETY RELATED RESULTS OF A CANADIAN BICYCLE COMMUTER SURVEY

There have been insufficient comprehensive North American bicycle safety data upon which to base inclusion of safety in the design of urban bicycle networks. In response to this need, a survey of commuter bicyclists in Ottawa and Toronto, Canada was undertaken in 1995 by McMaster University with funding from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. The objective of this paper is to review the survey methodology which was successful in estimating travel exposure and to present research results related to (1) the characteristics and contributing circumstances for bicycle collisions and falls; (2) collision and fall rates by facility type; and (3) the results of a detailed analysis of the safety of sidewalk cycling. The objective of the survey was to collect collision/fall histories to complement more traditional police and emergency databases which typically only include more serious events. However, an additional objective was to collect detailed travel behavior information for exposure estimation. The measure of travel exposure combined information from a map where cyclists traced their regular route with estimates of commute trips per month.