Crowdsourced bicycling crashes and near misses: trends in Canadian cities

Abstract

Safety concerns are a barrier to increasing bicycling. BikeMaps.org, a tool for crowdsourcing bicycling collisions, near misses, and falls, offers rich data on local bicycling safety concerns. Our goal is to characterize dominant bicycling safety issues reported in nine Canadian cities. We analyzed 2,513 BikeMaps.org reports (522 collisions, 151 falls, 1840 near misses), and summarized the types of incidents reported, ratios of near misses to collisions by incident type and by city, and injuries resulting from various types of crashes. Incidents categorized as a ‘dangerous pass, overtake at midblock’, were most commonly reported and had the highest ratio of near misses to collision reports (9:1). Cities with a high commute mode share for bicycling had lower near miss to collision reporting ratios. Overall, 40.3% of reported collisions or falls required medical treatment. Incident types with the most severe outcomes were ‘left cross at an intersection’ (58.4% reported needing medical treatment); ‘vehicles failing to stop at intersection or yield to bike’ (54.0%); and ‘multi-use paths, vehicle conflicts at intersection’ (48.5%). Mitigating conditions leading to real or perceived concerns over dangerous passes by vehicles should improve bicycling comfort. Bicycling injuries will be reduced by safety improvements at intersections including those with multi-use paths.