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Bike Accidents and Injuries on the Rise in Denver
Denver, Colorado is known as a bicycle-friendly city, but even riding in a community that welcomes cyclists comes with a degree of risk.
December 23, 2009 /Parenting PR News/ -- Bike Accidents and Injuries on the Rise in Denver
Article provided by The O'Connell Law Firm, P.C.
Visit us at www.coloradoinjuryattorney.net
Denver, Colorado is known as a bicycle-friendly city with approximately 350 bike routes, but even riding in a community that welcomes cyclists comes with a degree of risk. Noticing a troubling trend, emergency room physicians from the Rocky Mountain Regional Trauma Center in Denver began collecting data on bike accidents and injuries in the area.
In a report to the 2009 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons, these doctors presented their findings on Denver bike accidents. The doctors reported that the severity of injury from bike accidents has increased over the past 11 years, with 33 percent of bike accident victims suffering head injuries. Helmet use did not change appreciably during the study period. In the past five years, the rate of chest injuries from bike accidents increased 15 percent, and abdominal injuries tripled.
While injuries from bike accidents are increasing in severity, Denver is actively pushing more residents to commute by bike. Although 1.4 percent of city residents are currently bike commuters, officials would like to see these numbers rise. In August, the public works department announced its intention to spend $250,000 in federal stimulus funds to connect bike lanes and improve signage.
Will more bicyclists mean more trauma victims? The answer is not as clear-cut as it may seem. Several studies have shown that the risk of bike accident injury decreases as more people take to the roadways on bikes. Although the reason for this trend is unclear, some experts suggest that driver acclimation is a key factor contributing to the reduction in accidents. However, there is also widespread concern that driver acclimation takes time, so an increase in bike accidents may be unavoidable in the near future.
Whether more bikes will ultimately result in fewer accidents also may depend on bike lane design and cyclist safety precautions. But those factors, too, are the subject of some debate. Segregated bike lanes may be safest in the short run, but some experts worry that their long-term effects will be detrimental, forestalling driver acclimation to cyclists on the road. Even bike helmets, long touted as critical for injury prevention, are not universally acclaimed. In one study in Great Britain, researchers found that drivers gave more leeway to helmet-less riders, thus preventing accidents.
While urban planner grapple with the safest designs for bike lanes and drivers acclimate themselves to sharing the road with bikes, cyclists can also take steps to reduce the likelihood of injury. Despite the single study associating helmet use with greater risk of a bike accident, the proven effectiveness of helmets in reducing brain injury deaths and severity in individual cases would appear to warrant their continued use. Furthermore, cyclists may be able to avoid many accidents and injuries by obeying the rules of the road and remaining alert to the surroundings.
Article provided by The O'Connell Law Firm, P.C.
Visit us at www.coloradoinjuryattorney.net
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