I'm seeking data with which to compare the incidence of cyclist deaths/injury caused by motorised traffic on the road, with the incidence of death/injury from any and all causes on segregated paths.
I'm sorry if I hadn't made that clear.
Anyway, looks as though there isn't any, that we're aware of.
I'm not aware of any.
It could be tricky to collect. A lot of the segregated path injuries are likely to be minor - bloody scrapes caused by low-speed collisions and dog leads and so on. Those *are* serious enough to deter someone from using the facility, but they won't get reported to the police and they won't, mostly, go to A&E either. The moderate injuries, the collarbones and teeth, they will go to A&E but they're minor injuries so don't appear on KSI stats.
One would expect the KSI stats for segregated paths to be tiny. There's not the kinetic energy present to do massive trauma in most circumstances.
Here comes the risk assessment: in my experience the high likelihood of minor, painful, expensive and annoying injury on segregated paths versus the low likelihood of all that plus the very small risk of KSI on the roads, makes the roads my preferred route.
Novice riders overestimate the risk of KSI on the roads. I think you have to actually have a road crash with a motor vehicle before you really believe in your gut that you're not a dead man the second a car touches you.
What does exist (I think - I haven't got any references, though), is data on the sites of on-road KSI accidents. The vast majority of these occur at junctions, where conflicting priorities and the sheer processing load of looking in several directions at once, increases the odds of somebody making a mistake.
Now, most cycle paths
significantly increase the number of junctions which have to be negotiated. They also invariably cede priority to the traffic on the road where these junctions occur, so it's not unreasonable to conclude that a cycle path will be more dangerous.
Consider the common example of the shared-use pavement cyclepath: Whether you're on the road or the path, the risk points are the junctions with the side roads (as already observed, being hit from behind is actually quite rare).
1) If you're on the road, you have priority over the side roads, and you are visable to traffic from behind - the main danger is the left-hook, closely followed by by the smidsy. To avoid these, you only have to look ahead, and be aware of traffic on your right.
2) If, on the other hand, you follow the cyclepath, traffic turning onto and off the main road both have priority. Traffic waiting to pull out of the junction blocks your progress, and you have to look in
three directions at once (left, ahead and back over your shoulder) to see if it's clear to proceed. Finally, traffic turning into the junction will not be looking for fast moving bikes crossing the junction, and drivers pulling up at the side road will be watching the carriageway for hazards, not the pavement.
3) The above also applies to driveways, as RZ mentions above. Accept, of course, that at a driveway the cyclist is not likely to be doing shoulder checks for turning vehicles.
Is it any wonder that cycle paths are considered significantly more dangerous than the road?
