Citation

Epperson B. Transp. Res. Rec. 1995; 1502: 58-64.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to compare the demographic and economic characteristics of bicyclists involved in bicycle-motor vehicle accidents in the large urban area of Dade County, Florida. This comparison is done in an attempt to discern meaningful statistical relationships between those characteristics and the accidents. For this project, police reports of bicycle-motor vehicle accidents occurring in the Miami metropolitan area from January 1, 1990, to December 31, 1991, were collected. The data from these 1,777 accidents were subjected to two reviews. The first was a general comparison of accident patterns between black and nonblack bicycling accident victims. A second review tabulated accidents and accident rates by census tract, which were then compared with 14 economic and demographic characteristics for each census track using a stepwise linear regression technique. The results of this analysis indicate that economic factors (particularly the percentage of poor households within a neighborhood) play an important role in the prediction of areas with high bicycle accident rates. Limited evidence, in the form of a comparison in accident rates by age between all bicyclists and black bicyclists, suggests that this is probably the result of increased bicycle use. The study concludes that bicycle planners should give greater attention to neighborhoods of lower-than-average affluence, particularly where extreme poverty exists and where transit availability is inferior. It appears likely that rather than being the transportation method of choice, the bicycle is often the mode of last resort.

Language: en

Keywords

Economics; Highway accidents; Regression analysis; Statistics; Bicycles; Nonmotorized transportation; Ground vehicles; Urban planning