Elsevier

Accident Analysis & Prevention

Volume 39, Issue 6, November 2007, Pages 1162-1169
Accident Analysis & Prevention

Total costs of bicycle injuries in Norway: Correcting injury figures and indicating data needs

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2007.03.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Bicycle injuries and fatalities are reported by the police to Statistics Norway. Fatality records from the police are then corrected with Vital Statistics records. However, there is no complete hospital recording that could provide more correct data for bicycle injuries. Bicycle injuries are underreported in official data. There is a nearly complete omission of single bicycle accidents. This disguises societal accident costs and curtails the identification of black spots and effective infrastructure improvements.

This paper provides an estimate of total bicycle injuries in Norway and the total costs of these injuries. Application of case study hospital data from Norwegian towns enabled an estimation of the relationship between these data and the official data, including the distribution of injuries by severity. Costs were then assessed by applying official monetary values for given levels of injury severity.

Total annual bicycle injury costs are huge, but these costs must be balanced against the benefits of bicycling, related to health and environment. Accident reporting and data should be enhanced to enable a reduction of bicycle injuries.

Introduction

Bicycle accidents and injuries are underreported in all countries (Elvik and Mysen, 1999). In Norway official accident statistics are based on police reports. The official data exclude the large majority of bicycle accidents and injuries, since many do not involve other road users (Elvik et al., 1997). Earlier evaluations of the actual total number of bicycle injuries in Norway have been based on additional data, primarily from hospitals, that also include single accidents (Alvær, 2000).

A complete and accurate recording of accidents and injuries is vital for the assessment of injury costs and the implementation of safety measures to reduce bicyclist injury risk. In addition to obtaining correct accident numbers, this registration should include data on where, when and how the accident occurred, injury severity and characteristics of the cyclist. The estimated costs of bicycle injury, based on correct data, can be weighed against health benefits from increased cycling and reduced pollution and congestion by cars (Pucher and Dijkstra, 2000, Sælensminde, 2004).

This paper provides a new assessment of bicycle accidents and injuries in Norway. The combination of official data from Statistics Norway and samples of hospital data are applied to estimate overall bicycle injuries and their costs for Norway. This assessment also includes injury severity, which is vital for the assessment of injury costs and injury risk of cycling.

The rest of the article is arranged as follows: the next section describes the under-reporting and describes a methodology for how a more correct estimation of bicycle accidents can be obtained, including injury severity, and how this can be applied for the subsequent cost estimates. The third section presents the results of the proposed methodology, where total bicycle injury costs are based on adjusted official monetary values for a given injury severity. In the fourth section the methodology and results are discussed, and this section also points ahead towards the needed quality of injury data and how these data can be applied to reduce bicycle accidents. The last section summarises the findings.

Section snippets

Recorded injuries by police/official statistics

Police data forms the basis for official records of bicycle injuries in Norway. The police are mostly involved with accidents where cyclists are struck by cars or vice versa. To a much less degree one will find in police reports cyclist having crashed with other cyclists, pedestrians or animals, and practically no record of cyclists injured due to overturns, skidding or crashing with railings or kerbstones. The underreporting is higher for slight injuries than for more serious injuries (Elvik

Recorded injuries by police/official statistics

Total officially registered bicycle injuries from 1996 to 2004, distributed by severity, are given in Table 1. The injury severity classification for road accidents applied by the police, and thus the statistical authorities and the road authorities, is slightly less detailed than the AIS applied by hospitals. Compared to the AIS it is the lower and higher injury severities that are less specified in police data. Thus “slight injuries” as given in Table 1 would comprise “minor and moderate

Discussion

Underreporting of injuries from road traffic accidents is a common problem for all transport modes, but it is most extensive for bicycling (Elvik and Vaa, 2004). This article has provided an assessment of the true extent of bicycle injuries in Norway, specified by injury severity based on AIS. Our use of hospital records versus official records represents the most accessible and applied method to assess the underreporting in police records and official statistics.

Both the small difference in

Concluding remarks

Annual economic costs of bicycle injuries in Norway were estimated to approximately €300 million, approximately half of this being costs materialising in financial accounts of private and public sectors. Applied to economic analysis these are ex ante value measures, showing negative benefits from cycling that could be compared with positive health benefits from cycling, e.g., related to facilities that increase cycling and/or prevent bicycle accidents. An improved and complete accident

Acknowledgements

The research reported was primarily funded by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. Valuable inputs from Finn Blakstad, Roger Hallgren, Bjarne Hillesund, Trine Stene and Tore Vaaje are also gratefully acknowledged, as well as the constructive comments from two anonymous referees of this journal. The usual disclaimer applies.

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