Detailed description of bicycle and passenger car collisions based on insurance claims

A dataset of 882 collisions between bicycles and passenger cars in Sweden (2005-2012) was used for analysis (Isaksson-Hellman, 2012). Results showed that in over 78% of all bicycle-car collisions, the bicycle and car crossed each other's paths. In over 53% of these collisions, the cyclist crossed the roadway while following a bicycle path. In about half of these collisions the drivers reported that they did not see the cyclists beforehand. Collisions in which the bicycle and car were traveling in the same/opposite direction, the next most frequent type of collision, were less frequent (11%), but the injury severity was on average higher. These novel data, which cannot be found in other data sources, will enable new analyses, contributing to a better understanding of bicycle-car collisions in real road traffic situations.