New Delhi: Most bicycle crashes in the city go unreported, a new study by IIT-Delhi based on last year’s data has revealed. According to the report, only 2.8% of bicycle crashes in Delhi were reported to police.The study, which examined bicycle crashes through self-assessment-reported data, found that half of all self-reported cases involved collisions with motorcycles while most of the police-reported cases involved trucks.The report, titled ‘Characteristics and Incidence Rates of Self-Reported Bicycle Crashes in Delhi: A Cohort Study’, examined bicycle crashes through self-reported data collected from cyclists in Delhi. Of the 218 self-reported crashes, motorcycles were the striking vehicle in half of the crashes, followed by cars (25%) and electric three-wheeled rickshaws (11%).“Motorcycles constitute the majority of vehicles in Indian cities. In addition, motorcycles often occupy kerbside lanes where cyclists usually ride, particularly during congestion. These findings highlight the need for cycling safety research in settings where motorcycles are a dominant mode of transport,” said the study, which was conducted by Srishti Agarwal and Rahul Goel of IIT-Delhi’s Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre.Only 2% were single-bicycle crashes, which were classified as crashes in which other road users were not involved, including loss-of-control events, such as sudden braking or manoeuvring to avoid collisions, or those resulting from a bicycle mechanical failure or striking an object or pothole.The researchers noted that the near absence of single-bicycle crashes in the data differed from findings from Australia, Europe and the US, where such crashes account for 40-70% of bicycle crashes. They attributed this partly to lower cycling speeds in Delhi.The study is based on on-road intercept surveys involving 844 cyclists at 27 locations in Delhi last year. A total of 742 cyclists provided crash and exposure information in at least one follow-up and were included in the prospective cohort, which was followed for an average of 4.8 months.The study also found differences between self-reported and police-reported crashes. Police records had a higher proportion of trucks and a lower proportion of motorcycles as the striking vehicle. All police-reported non-fatal crashes resulted in injury and received medical treatment.In comparison, 78% of self-reported crashes resulted in injury, of which 67% sought medical treatment. Knee and lower-leg injuries accounted for 60.4% of injuries, followed by wrist, hand and finger injuries at 27.8%, while head injuries accounted for 14.8%.“The rate of crashes resulting in an injury is 28.6 per million km cycled. It was 60-200 times higher than in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, countries with extensive cycling infrastructure, supporting the critical role of infrastructure improvements for reducing bicyclist injuries,” said the study.It added that the absence of single-bicycle crashes and the high share of motorcycles among colliding vehicles for non-fatal bicycle crashes, unlike many high-income settings, highlight the need for context-specific evidence to inform safety interventions.
