More than 1,600 cyclists have suffered serious crash injuries on Irish roads over the last seven years, 25 times more than lost their lives, according to new data compiled by the Road Safety Authority (RSA).
An analysis of collisions over the period also found the cyclists most likely to be killed were overwhelmingly male, middle-aged and travelling on high-speed rural roads.
Those badly injured – a term that includes broken bones, internal bleeding and “crushing” – were most often cycling for “social purposes” during summer months and more likely on straight roads in urban settings.
The seven-year snapshot was published by the Authority on Thursday at the launch of a new safety drive. Irish professional cyclist Imogen Cotter is the face of its social media campaign having survived major injuries sustained in a head-on collision with a car in Spain in 2022.
In Ireland, where serious injuries in road crashes are less well publicised than fatalities, the RSA said there had been 1,636 since 2016, an average of 234 per year, reaching as high of 307 in 2019. Over the same period there were 65 deaths, accounting for just 4.5 per cent of total crashes.
The Authority is urging drivers to give sufficient space to cyclists when overtaking and to check mirrors and blind spots. However, while a law on dangerous overtaking was introduced in 2019, garda data supplied to The Irish Times shows fixed charge notices have been issued in just 75 cases.
RSA chief executive Sam Waide said their role was to raise awareness of vulnerable road users including cyclists to encourage safe driving practices by motorists.
“[The] two simple messages from the cycling campaign today is for drivers to reduce their speed when they are in close proximity to cyclists…and distance, keeping your distance,” he said, noting urban areas in particular were problematic.
“I would challenge the view that there’s this war between drivers and cyclists. Post-Covid more and more drivers actually are gaining the experience of what it feels like to be a cyclist and to be more fearful of that speed and distance. There has been a positive change in the culture.”
Cyclists have accounted for between 4.5 and 9 per cent of total road deaths over the last seven years. Ireland’s current Road Safety Strategy aims to halve all fatalities and serious injury over the ten-year period to 2030.
However, Velma Burns, RSA research manager, said there was in increasing trend of serious injuries among cyclists.
“It’s very much a midweek phenomenon [with] 62 per cent of cyclists’ injuries occurring early to midweek, Monday to Thursday,” she said.
“Eight in ten of cyclists’ serious injuries occur in urban areas, so on the roads in our cities, towns, villages where the speed limit is 60km/h or less. So that’s where there are great opportunities for conflict” between bikes and cars.
Almost half of serious crashes occur at junctions (46 per cent). In about 40 per cent, cars were making a turn, while the majority of cyclists were moving straight on.
The vast majority involve other vehicles, particularly cars but also light goods vehicles.
Serious injuries were most common among middle-aged cyclists, and particularly those in the 36 to 45 bracket, while men accounted for 77 per cent of the total and generally in daytime hours, but notably between 4 and 8pm.
Although most fatalities occur in rural areas, just over 80 per cent of serious injuries are in built up urban settings on straight stretches of road.
