Citation

Bajanowski TH, Kunz P, Brinkmann B. J. Traffic Med. 1994; 22(1): 33-38.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, International Association for Accident and Traffic Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

In a region like Munsterland where cycling is commonplace cyclists not only make up a considerable part of traffic on the roads, but are also involved in traffic accidents. Out of the 108 cases where cyclists were killed in road accidents between 1985 and 1990, postmortems were carried out on 48 of the victims in the Institute of Legal Medicine in Munster. The types of injury and the causes of accidents were analyzed as well as the epidemiological data. Two-thirds of all cases were caused by the cyclists themselves. In one-third of the 27 cases where the level of alcohol in the blood was checked, positive results up to 3 o/oo were found. 91.6% of cases had head injuries. This once again highlighted the necessity of bicycle safety helmets. Finally the investigations carried out by the legal medicine department were successful and contributed to the accident analysis or were useful in answering special questions about the accident.