Cycling Health and Safety An overview of cycling health and safety research
Prepared By: *Chris Cavacuiti BA, MD, CCFP, MHSc, ASAM* Staff Physician, St. Michael's Hopsital, Department of Family and Community Medicine Toronto, Ontario Introduction
In my cycling-related research work with Share the Road and the St. Michael’s Dept. of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, I’ve been truly impressed with the breadth and quality of the studies that have been published on this topic. As anyone who has an interest in cycling health and safety research will tell you, there are some incredibly smart and dedicated researchers out there who have made this topic their life’s work.
When I speak to other cycling researchers and advocates, one of the biggest challenges they tell me that they face is finding and organizing the wealth of data that is already out there. I am often approached by journalists, researchers and advocates who are looking for more information on a particular area of cycling research, but there was usually nowhere I could send them for quick and easy access to the information they wanted.
These experiences made me realize that what I and many others needed was a well-organized, well cited and text-searchable overview of key cycling research that would contain many of the most important facts, figures and findings in this field.
I approached Eleanor McMahon at Share the Road with this idea and asked her if Share the Road would be interested in helping to organize this overview and host it on their website. Share the Road thought this was a great idea and kindly agreed to help. So in the summer of 2012, Share the Road and I hired a very bright and capable young summer student (Matthew Cheah), to help us put together this overview.
I’d like to personally thank Eleanor McMahon and Matthew Cheah for all their work in helping make this overview a reality.
I’d also like to thank Cary Moretti for his IT input and support with this project (…and for putting up with me talking about this project on more than a few of our long rides together!)
One final word - we’ve made every effort to keep the statistics and wording in this overview as close to the original documents as possible and to correctly cite each and every fact, figure and quotation we’ve included. However, this document is no replacement for reading the original articles and we’d encourage those who are using this overview to cross-reference our statistics with the original documents. Believe us - they are well worth the read!
Happy searching! http://www.sharetheroad.ca/files/Cycling_Safety_Overview___2012_12_05.pdf