Male cyclists crash much more often than women and one in five cycling crashes in Ireland results in the victim being admitted to an intensive care unit, a new study on cycling crashes and injuries has found.
The new research also revealed that of the cycling injuries
studied only 30 per cent were recorded as having been sustained in a crash
between a cyclist and a driver in a vehicle.
However, that number may be artificially low because in
many cases when cyclists were injured in crashes, the cause of the collision was
not officially recorded.
The study - Cycling related major trauma in Ireland - analysed
410 cycling collisions between 2014 and 2016.
During that period the Trauma and Research Network (TARN)
from hospitals recorded 9,312 major trauma cases, from all kinds of incidents
and accidents.
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Of those, 410 were cycling-related, meaning only 4.4 per
cent of trauma cases recorded in Ireland arise from cycling crashes.
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In the overall figure of 9,312 cases of trauma, men
account for 58 per cent of the injuries and women 42 per cent. But when it came
to the cycling injuries, 79 per cent of the victims were male; perhaps because
more men cycling than women.
Some 20 per cent of cycling injuries were sustained in
crashes during rush-hour traffic. Aside from crashes between a cyclist and a
driver in the vehicle, potholes, kerbs and tress were cited as factors in some
of the cycling crashes.
Of the 410 cycling crashes 250 cyclists, or 61 per cent,
were wearing a helmet at the time they crashed.
A total of 27.5 per cent of cyclists who were wearing a
helmet suffered a head injury of some description.
That head injury figure was also double, 52.2 per cent,
for the group of cyclists who were not wearing a helmet when they crashed.
Of the 410 injured cyclists, about one in five were
admitted to intensive care and 12 died as a result of their injuries.
In more than one quarter of the total 410 cycling injury
cases, head injuries were recorded as the most severe injury sustained followed
by limb and abdomen injuries.
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