By Charles Pekow — If you get in a bike crash – or even witness one or lose a loved one via one – would it change your riding behavior? The Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California said the question hasn’t been studied much, so it interviewed eight experts from different fields (medicine, advocacy, etc.) and got different perspectives.
A collision or those caregiving for collision victims could led to changing modes of transportation, taking a new route, or riding on the sidewalk instead of the street. But the results indicated that few people gave up cycling permanently though some did for a while. The main reason for giving up cycling completely seemed to be the need to recover from injuries rather than newfound fear. Near misses didn’t seem to scare bikers from continuing.
The project declined to interview victims or witnesses because the researchers felt that the state of the art of questioning them about such incidents isn’t reliable enough.
See “Effects of Road Collisions on the Travel Behavior of Vulnerable Groups: Expert Interview Findings” at https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2gf1409z
