Bike riders fear crashing above all else and when out on the bike they choose to take what they perceive to be the safest route for their journey. Or do they?
Apparently not. A new study has confirmed what researchers have been uncovering for decades: there are many factors that riders take into account when making a route choice, and safety is not always top of the list.
Choosing the shortest route is often the key factor, but riders are also attracted to routes that avoid hills, that have lower traffic volumes, bike lanes of some sort, and traffic signals at intersections.
Researchers in the German city of Dresden provided bike riders with an app that recorded about 4000 trips totalling 17,500 kilometres.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666691X24000150
They compared the rider-selected routes with available alternatives and frequently the routes riders chose had worse crash histories than other options.
The researchers also interviewed riders and asked them which routes they considered had more safety risks, and yes, they were the ones they chose to ride on.
Overall, safety issues had only a slight influence over where cyclists chose to ride.
Does this mean anything for us in Australia where we are all very intent on investing in safer infrastructure?
If it means anything it is that we should continue to invest in better infrastructure, but after ensuring that the route is direct and quick and takes riders to their desired destination.
Local authorities are often tempted to take their bike routes the long way around: it can be cheaper; it might preserve more car parking, and it might enable more physical separation from vehicles.
But if riders don’t choose it, that investment is wasted.
The job is always to get the most riders, and, achieve the lowest risk – two elements that can be in tension. But both must always be considered.
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