Accident Analysis and Prevention 73 (2014) 47–52

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Accident Analysis and Prevention

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Evaluation of e-bike accidents in Switzerland

T. Weber a,∗ , G. Scaramuzza b , K.-U. Schmitt a
a
Working Group on Accident Mechanics (AGU), Winkelriedstrasse 27, CH-8006 Zürich, Switzerland
b
Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (bfu), Hodlerstrasse 5a, CH-3011 Bern, Switzerland

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Background: The acceptance and usage of electric bicycles has rapidly increased in Switzerland in the
Received 24 March 2014 last years. Hence this topic has been addressed by policy makers with the aim to facilitate new transport
Received in revised form 14 July 2014 modes and, moreover, to improve their safety.
Accepted 18 July 2014
Methods: Police-recorded accidents of the years 2011 and 2012 involving a total of 504 e-bikers and 871
Available online 28 August 2014
bicyclists were analysed. National figures were compared with those of a rural and an urban environment.
Results: Most e-bikers who were involved in accidents were 40–65 years old. It was found that most e-
Keywords:
bikers sustained single accidents and that helmet usage was higher in the investigated rural environment
Electric bicycle
E-bike
than in the investigated urban area. The evaluation of the injury severity of e-bikers, particularly compared
Accident characteristics to bicyclists, lead to diverging results.
Injury severity Conclusions: The findings presented in this study are intended to serve as a benchmark since basic infor-
mation on characteristics of e-bike accidents is provided. With respect to differences between the injury
severity of e-bikers and bicyclists to-date no clear statement can be drawn. It is suggested to regularly
evaluate e-bike accidents to show trends and/or identify changes.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Bastian (2013) performed an empirical analysis on e-bike accidents

In recent years electric bicycle (e-bike) sales rose considerably
and thus e-bikes have become an important transport mode in
Switzerland (velosuisse, 2014). Since cost efficiency of electric vehi-
cles is increasing the acceptance and usage in public is increasing as
well. In Switzerland in 2012 the total number of e-bike sales which
were registered since 2005 rose to about 185,000 (2011: about
135,000) (bfu, 2013). Also in context of increasing traffic and urban
transport, respectively, this topic has been politically addressed.
Hence in 2011 the new category electric bicycle was included in
Swiss police reports and hence complements Swiss accident statis-
tics.
Publications on the analysis of e-bike accidents, particularly
related to injury severity, are hardly available. The Swiss Council
for Accident Prevention (bfu, 2013) for example stated in a national
survey that in 2012 the number of slightly, severely and fatally
injured e-bikers has increased in comparison to 2011 and it was
assumed that this phenomenon is related to the strong increase
of e-bike sales. Besides, it was found that about one third of all e-
bikers, but only about one fourth of all bicyclists who were injured
in an accident sustained severe or fatal injuries. Lawinger and
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 (0) 44 251 54 30; fax: +41 (0) 44 251 54 31.
E-mail address: weber@agu.ch (T. Weber).
in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The study was based
on an in-depth analysis of the police reports seconded by qual-
itative telephone interviews with the involved e-bikers. By also
taking accidents with bicyclists into consideration it was found
with respect to injury severity that e-bikers were not involved more
often in accidents than bicyclists, but that the proportion of injured
and killed e-bikers was slightly higher than that of bicyclists. From
this finding it was deduced that consequences from an accident
could be worse for e-bikers than for bicyclists. Also Otte et al. (2014)
compared e-bike accidents to bicycle accidents in Germany. They
found that e-bikers were not injured more often or more severely
than bicyclists. In comparison to bicyclists they observed more
single accidents, higher velocities and collision speeds, but sim-
ilar helmet wearing rates in e-bikers. Furthermore, first results
of naturalistic driving observations focusing on speeds, mental
workload and travel behaviour of e-bikers were recently published
(e.g. Twisk et al., 2013; Dozza et al., 2013; Dozza and Fernandez,
2013). Amongst other results Twisk et al. found and Dozza et al.
assumed, based on their observations that e-bikers tend to drive
faster than bicyclists. Further publications particularly aiming at
e-bikes primarily address topics like usage and benefits, travel
behaviour or transport properties. In contrast, numerous publica-
tions consider accident statistics, injury mechanisms and helmet
usage in bicyclists (e.g. Kim et al., 2007; Elvik, 2011; Karkhaneh
et al., 2011).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2014.07.020
0001-4575/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
48 T. Weber et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 73 (2014) 47–52

Table 1 The underlying database contained various information on

Injured road users by injury severity.
involved persons (e.g. gender, age, protective systems, injury sever-
Road users Injury severity Year ity), vehicles (e.g. type of vehicle, brand, number plates), accident
locations (e.g. signalisation, type of street, weather) and accident
2011 2012
characteristics (e.g. type of accident, trip purpose, accident causa-
All Slightly injured 18,805 18,016
tion).
Severely injured 4,437 4,202
Fatally injured 320 339
Total 23,562 22,557 2.2. Evaluation
E-bike Slightly injured 127 166
Severely injured 67 78
Fatally injured 2 8 The chi-square test was applied to statistically analyse dif-
Total 196 252 ferences between the groups/categories presented below. A
Bicycle Slightly injured 2,409 2,193 significance level of ˛ = 0.05 was chosen. In cases with small
Severely injured 800 840
expected numbers (i.e. <5) the statistical validity of the chi-square
Fatally injured 37 28
Total 3,246 3,061 test might be affected, which was considered in the interpretation
of the results. The analysis was accomplished by using IBM SPSS
Statistics and Microsoft Excel.
The aim of this study was to analyse e-bike accidents and to In this study focus was set on the analysis of age distribution,
compare the findings with bicycle accidents in the same data set. helmet usage, injury severity and the type of accident among e-
Various parameters such as age distribution, type of accident, hel- bikers and bicyclists who were involved in an accident as well as on
met usage and injury severity as well as analyses considering the evaluation of relations between some of those characteristics.
relations between some of those characteristics were investigated. For an analysis of the age distribution five groups were estab-
An analysis and comparison of accidents in the whole country, in a lished: below 23, 23–39, 40–65, 66+ years of age and unknown. An
rural and in an urban environment was accomplished for the first exclusion of school-age children, i.e. the age group below 14 years
time in Switzerland. of age, was not conducted due to small case numbers (see Section
3). In the evaluation of the type of accident it was differentiated
between single accidents (i.e. single-vehicle crashes only), crossing
2. Methods accidents, turning accidents and other accidents. According to the
classifications in Swiss police reports the helmet usage was cat-
2.1. Source of data egorised into helmet, no helmet and unknown and for the injury
severity it was distinguished between uninjured, slightly injured,
In Switzerland in 2011 a total of 23,562 road users were injured severely injured and fatally injured. To eliminate age effects the
in an accident including 196 e-bikers and 3246 bicyclists. In 2012 a injury severity was analysed for only one age group (40–65 y.o.).
total of 22,557 road users who were injured in an accident includ- To investigate relations between the injury severity and the type of
ing 252 e-bikers and 3061 bicyclists was reported by the police. accident, only two types of accidents (i.e. single accidents and col-
The individual distributions with respect to injury severity are pre- lisions) as well as two age groups of younger (0–39 y.o.) and older
sented in Table 1. (40+ y.o.) e-bikers and bicyclists were chosen.
Accidents involving 504 e-bikers and 871 bicyclists were
selected from the database of the Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) in
3. Results
order to compare accidents in the whole country, in a rural and
in an urban environment. In contrast to e-bike accidents where all 3.1. Age distribution
cases of 2011 and 2012 were analysed, only bicycle accidents of
the month September were evaluated and compared. By conduct- Regarding the different age categories, it was checked whether
ing a statistical matching the criterion “month” was identified not school-age road users account for a particularly large amount in the
to enforce data polarisation and to ensure that cases of this month youngest age group. The number of bicycle accidents with school-
are representative. This limitation was chosen since it was assumed age children was determined using a cut-off at the age of 14 years.
that influencing factors, such as for instance “less bicyclists being From this age children are allowed to ride an e-bike in Switzerland.
on the roads because of bad/cold weather or holidays” or “bicy- It was found that nationwide only 13% of the bicyclists were below
clists being insecure and thus driving more careful because of not 14 years of age; in the urban area the rate was slightly less and in the
using their bicycle in the winter months”, could be eliminated to rural area slightly higher. Due to these low case numbers, school-
the greatest possible extent. age children were not analysed separately and remained within the
As rural area the Canton of Zurich and as urban area the City of youngest age category.
Zurich were chosen since both hold the highest population among In the three investigated areas (whole country, rural and urban
all other Swiss cantons and cities. Furthermore, in the City of Zurich environment) most e-bikers who sustained an accident were 40–65
in 2012 a roadmap called “Masterplan Velo” was introduced with years old and only few accidents with e-bikers below 23 years of
the aim to distinctively increase the rate of bicyclists in traffic until age were reported. However, the distributions between e-bikers in
the year 2025. For the analysis in the urban environment only acci- a rural and e-bikers in an urban environment were found to be sta-
dents reported in the City of Zurich and for the analysis in the rural tistically significant (p = 0.006). The nationwide analysis revealed
environment only accidents registered in the Canton of Zurich were that most accident-involved bicyclists were 40–65 years old which
selected, however, for the analysis in the rural environment acci- is similar to e-bikers. In the analysed rural environment, however,
dents which occurred in other cities of the Canton of Zurich were most bicyclists were 40–65 and below 23 years old (equally dis-
excluded. The nationwide analysis included accidents of all can- tributed) and in the urban area most bicyclists were 23–39 years
tons and cities, but accidents in the Canton of Zurich and in the City old. Thus differences between the distributions of e-bikers and
of Zurich. A total of 172 additional police reports containing short bicyclists in the whole country, in the rural environment as well
descriptions and sketches of accidents in the Canton and the City as in the urban environment were found to be statistically signifi-
of Zurich allowed a detailed investigation of the local conditions of cant (see Table 2). For the statistical evaluation the group unknown
selected accidents. was excluded due to small numbers.
 T. Weber et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 73 (2014) 47–52
Table 2
Age distribution of e-bikers and bicyclists who sustained an accident. The totals of the percentages given in brackets may differ from 100% due to rounding effects.
Age Whole country
E-bike [n] Bicycle [n]
Below 23 30 (7%) 181 (27%)
23–39 58 (14%) 131 (20%)
40–65 240 (57%) 264 (40%)
66+ 95 (22%) 69 (10%)
Unknown 1 (0%) 14 (2%)
Total 424 659
p-Value 1.82E − 21*
*
p-Value indicating a statistically significant difference
3.2. Type of accident
All age groups were considered in the investigation of the type
of accident. The analysis of the whole country and the investi-
gated rural environment revealed e-bikers to be involved in single
accidents most frequently. In contrast, in the whole country most
bicyclists sustained crossing accidents and in the rural environment
most bicyclists sustained crossing- and single accidents, both being
equally distributed. In the investigated urban environment e-bikers
sustained other accidents and bicyclists crossing accidents most
frequently (see Table 3). Thus differences between the distributions
of e-bikers and bicyclists in the whole country and of e-bikers and
bicyclists in the investigated urban area were found to be statisti-
cally significant. E-bikers in the urban area sustained less single and
crossing accidents and more turning and other accidents compared
to e-bikers in the rural area. The corresponding distributions were
also found to be statistically significant (p = 5.28E − 04). Moreover,
significantly different distributions were discovered between bicy-
clists in the whole country and in the rural area (p = 0.014) as well
as between bicyclists in the rural and in the urban environment
(p = 0.049).
3.3. Helmet usage
Again all age groups were taken into consideration. In the whole
country and in the investigated rural environment most of the
accident-involved e-bikers wore helmets. In contrast, a clearly less
frequent helmet usage was found in accident-involved e-bikers
in the urban area. In comparison to e-bikers, however, bicyclists
wore helmets clearly less frequently in all investigated areas (see
Table 4). Differences between the distributions of e-bikers and bicy-
clists in the whole country as well as of e-bikers and bicyclists
in the investigated rural area were statistically significant; in the
urban area helmet usage was comparatively low in both, e-bikers
and bicyclists. Besides, statistically significant differences were
determined between the distributions of e-bikers in the rural and
e-bikers in the urban area (p = 0.031) as well as of bicyclists in the
whole country and bicyclists in the urban environment (p = 0.046).
3.4. Injury severity
To eliminate age effects related to injury severity (i.e. elderly
may suffer from more severe injuries than younger people) only
accidents with e-bikers and bicyclists of the age group 40–65 years
of age were analysed.
Nationwide more than half of the accident-involved e-bikers
and bicyclists were slightly injured. The second largest group was
severely injured and two e-bikers as well as three bicyclists were
fatally injured. However, the distribution was statistically not sig-
nificantly different (see Table 5). To ensure sufficiently large groups
as required by the chi-square test (a) severely and fatally injured
were put into one group and (b) only slightly and severely injured
49
Rural environment Urban environment
E-bike [n] Bicycle [n] E-bike [n] Bicycle [n]
4 (8%) 45 (34%) 2 (7%) 24 (30%)
4 (8%) 25 (19%) 9 (32%) 29 (36%)
29 (56%) 44 (33%) 16 (57%) 18 (23%)
15 (29%) 12 (9%) 1 (4%) 5 (6%)
0 (0%) 6 (5%) 0 (0%) 4 (5%)
52 132 28 80
6.50E − 06* 0.006*
were taken into consideration. By conducting both methods dif-
ferences between the distributions of e-bikers and bicyclists were
revealed to be statistically significant.
In the rural and urban environments most e-bikers and bicy-
clists were also slightly injured, but in contrast to the distribution
of the whole country, e-bikers were uninjured to the same extent
and in bicyclists the uninjured formed the second largest group.
Moreover, only one bicyclist was killed. The distributions between
e-bikers and bicyclists were in both investigated areas not found to
be statistically significantly different, even when considering the
methods described above. Eventually, differences between the dis-
tributions of e-bikers in the whole country and e-bikers in the rural
area (p = 1.74E − 06), of e-bikers in the whole country and e-bikers
in the urban area (p = 0.0004) as well as of bicyclists in the whole
country and bicyclists in the rural area (p = 0.014) were found to be
statistically significant.
3.5. Helmet usage and type of accident
For the investigation of relations between the helmet usage
and the type of accident again all age groups were considered. It
was found that e-bikers with or without helmet sustained single
accidents most frequently in the whole country as well as in the
investigated rural environment. Thus the distributions between
e-bikers with and without helmet were not statistically signifi-
cantly different. Most bicyclists who sustained an accident in the
whole country with or without helmet were involved in crossing or
rather other accidents. In the investigated rural area most bicyclists
with helmet sustained single accidents and most bicyclists with-
out helmet sustained crossing accidents. Differences between the
distributions of bicyclists with and without helmet were in both
investigated areas not statistically significant which is similar to
what was found in e-bikers. Table 6 illustrates that in the urban
environment the distributions between e-bikers with and without
helmet are apparently different; the same holds true for bicyclists.
However, due to small numbers the chi-square test was not applied
to the analysis of the urban environment.
3.6. Injury severity and type of accident
For the investigation of relations between the injury severity
and the type of accident only two types of accidents (single acci-
dents and collisions) and two age groups (0–39 and 40+) were
selected. The age groups were specifically considered in order to
determine differences between younger and older e-bikers and
bicyclists. This selection, however, only allowed a statistical eval-
uation of the nationwide distributions (see Table 7). In the rural
and urban environments the selection applied lead to even smaller
total numbers of cases and was thus neglected.
Younger e-bikers who sustained single accidents were in most
cases slightly or severely injured and younger e-bikers who were
involved in collisions were most frequently slightly injured or
50 T. Weber et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 73 (2014) 47–52

Table 3
Type of accident of e-bikers and bicyclists. The totals of the percentages given in brackets may differ from 100% due to rounding effects.

Type of Whole country Rural environment Urban environment

accident
E-bike [n] Bicycle [n] E-bike [n] Bicycle [n] E-bike [n] Bicycle [n]

Single 177 (42%) 161 (24%) 25 (48%) 46 (35%) 10 (36%) 16 (20%)

Turning 52 (12%) 98 (15%) 4 (8%) 15 (11%) 4 (14%) 14 (18%)
Crossing 121 (29%) 204 (31%) 17 (33%) 46 (35%) 1 (4%) 26 (33%)
Other 74 (17%) 196 (30%) 6 (12%) 25 (19%) 13 (46%) 24 (30%)
Total 424 659 52 132 28 80
p-Value 3.67E − 09* 0.328 0.012*
*
p-Value indicating a statistically significant difference.

Table 4
Protection system of e-bikers and bicyclists who sustained an accident. The totals of the percentages given in brackets may differ from 100% due to rounding effects. The
exclusion of cases in which “belt worn” was reported explains variations in the total numbers.

Protection Whole country Rural environment Urban environment

system
E-bike [n] Bicycle [n] E-bike [n] Bicycle [n] E-bike [n] Bicycle [n]

Helmet 221 (52%) 269 (41%) 33 (63%) 53 (40%) 10 (37%) 24 (30%)

No helmet 189 (45%) 356 (54%) 17 (33%) 75 (57%) 15 (56%) 53 (66%)
Unknown 12 (3%) 32 (5%) 2 (4%) 4 (3%) 2 (7%) 3 (4%)
Total 422 657 52 132 27 80
P-value p = 6.19E − 04* p = 0.003* p = 0.416
*
p-Value indicating a statistically significant difference.

Table 5
Injury severity of 40–65 year old e-bikers and bicyclists who sustained an accident. The totals of the percentages given in brackets may differ from 100% due to rounding
effects.

Age Injury Whole country Rural environment Urban environment

severity
E-bike [n] Bicycle [n] E-bike [n] Bicycle [n] E-bike [n] Bicycle [n]

40–65 Uninjured 16 (7%) 25 (9%) 11 (38%) 11 (25%) 6 (38%) 4 (22%)

Slightly injured 136 (57%) 168 (64%) 14 (48%) 26 (59%) 6 (38%) 11 (61%)
Severely injured 86 (36%) 68 (26%) 4 (14%) 6 (14%) 4 (25%) 3 (17%)
Fatally injured 2 (1%) 3 (1%) 0 (0%) 1 (2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Total 240 264 29 44 16 18
p-Value1 0.089 0.572 0.386
p-Value2 0.049* 0.498 0.386
p-Value3 0.023* 0.541 0.267
1
Chi-square test applied to all levels of injury severity.
2
Chi-square test applied with severely and fatally injured in one group.
3
Chi-square test applied to slightly and severely injured only.
*
p-Value indicating a statistically significant difference.

uninjured. Differences between these groups were not found to be
statistically significant.
Older e-bikers who sustained single accidents or collisions were
in most cases slightly or severely injured, but the rate of severely
injured (older) e-bikers who were involved in single accidents was
higher than of those who sustained collisions. Thus distributions
between these groups were found to be statistically significantly
different.
Moreover, the distributions between younger and older e-bikers
who sustained collisions significantly differed (p = 0.008); in this
regard older e-bikers were more often severely and fatally injured
compared to younger e-bikers.
Younger and older bicyclists exhibit similar distributions as
younger and older e-bikers. However, younger bicyclists who sus-
tained single accidents proportionally suffered from more severe
and fatal injuries than younger bicyclists who were involved in

Table 6
Type of accident related to helmet usage for e-bikers and bicyclists. The totals of the percentages given in brackets may differ from 100% due to rounding effects.

Protection Type of Whole country Rural environment Urban environment

system accident
p-Value

p-Value

p-Value

p-Value

p-Value

p-Value

E-bike [n] Bicycle [n] E-bike [n] Bicycle [n] E-bike [n] Bicycle [n]

Helmet Single 91 (41%) 65 (24%) 15 (45%) 21 (40%) 2 (20%) 4 (17%)

Turning 34 (15%) 52 (19%) 2 (6%) 8 (15%) 2 (20%) 7 (29%)
Crossing 59 (27%) 74 (28%) 11 (33%) 14 (26%) 1 (10%) 5 (21%)
Other 37 (17%) 78 (29%) 5 (15%) 10 (19%) 5 (50%) 8 (33%)
0.711

0.959

0.798
0.401

n.a.

n.a.

Total 221 269 33 53 10 24

No helmet Single 83 (44%) 90 (25%) 10 (59%) 22 (29%) 8 (53%) 11 (21%)
Turning 16 (8%) 43 (12%) 2 (12%) 7 (9%) 2 (13%) 7 (13%)
Crossing 56 (30%) 120 (34%) 4 (24%) 31 (41%) 0 (0%) 21 (40%)
Other 34 (18%) 103 (29%) 1 (6%) 15 (20%) 5 (33%) 14 (26%)
Total 189 356 17 75 15 53
 T. Weber et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 73 (2014) 47–52 51

Table 7
Injury severity related to the type of accident for specific age groups of e-bikers and bicyclists. The totals of the percentages given in brackets may differ from 100% due to
rounding effects.

Age Type of Injury Whole country

accident severity

p-Value

p-Value
E-bike [n] Bicycle [n]

0–39 Single Uninjured 3 (11%) 8 (13%)

Slightly injured 16 (59%) 36 (56%)
Severely injured 8 (30%) 21 (33%)

0.010*
Fatally injured 0 (0%) 1 (2%)

0.121
Total 27 64
Collision Uninjured 9 (15%) 30 (13%)
Slightly injured 44 (73%) 165 (71%)
Severely injured 7 (12%) 36 (16%)
Fatally injured 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Total 60 231
40+ Single Uninjured 5 (3%) 4 (4%)
Slightly injured 75 (50%) 47 (50%)

3.29E − 05*
Severely injured 66 (44%) 41 (44%)

0.005*
Fatally injured 4 (3%) 2 (2%)
Total 150 94
Collision Uninjured 10 (6%) 23 (11%)
Slightly injured 109 (64%) 150 (68%)
Severely injured 46 (27%) 43 (20%)
Fatally injured 6 (4%) 3 (1%)
Total 171 219
*
p-Value indicating a statistically significant difference.

collisions; the corresponding distributions revealed statistically
significant differences. The same was found in older bicyclists.
4. Discussion
For the first time an evaluation of e-bike accidents in
Switzerland was conducted with the aim to compare the find-
ings with bicycle accidents. Accidents of the years 2011 and 2012
involving 504 e-bikers and 871 bicyclists were analysed. Lawinger
and Bastian (2013), for instance, studied 126 and Otte et al. (2014)
investigated 30 accidents with e-bikers involved. The total number
of reported e-bike cases in this study is higher than in compara-
ble studies and thus provides a good basis to illustrate relevant
characteristics related to accidents.
It must be considered that the investigated database only
includes accidents which were recorded by police forces, i.e. if, for
instance, a helmet prevented an injury the accident might not be
officially reported. Hence the bias of under-reporting or rather the
(currently unknown) estimated number of unreported cases, par-
ticularly in e-bikers, might be regarded as a limitation of this study.
In this context Thoma (1990) investigated road traffic accidents in
Switzerland and evaluated estimated numbers of unreported cases
in different types of vehicles. In bicyclists, for example, he found
that the number of injured should be higher than actually reported.
A factor of 6.3 for slightly injured, of 4.0 for severely injured and of
1.0 for fatally injured bicyclists was determined; for very slightly
injured bicyclists an even higher factor of up to 32 was suggested.
In this regard also Elvik and Mysen (1999) analysed data from 13
countries and showed that reporting was incomplete in all levels
of injury severity. Reporting levels tended to be the highest in car
occupants and the lowest in cyclists. To what extent the findings
of these two studies are transferable to accident-involved e-bikers
currently remains unclear.
In the analysis of the injury severity it might be regarded as a
limitation that only one age group was analysed. However, this was
specifically done to eliminate age effects. In this study we found
that most e-bikers who were involved in an accident were 40–65
years old and thus older than most accident-involved bicyclists.
This result is in line with what was observed by Lawinger and
Bastian (2013) and Otte et al. (2014). Otte et al. (2014), for instance,
found that about 80% of the accident-involved e-bikers were older
than 40 years of age and more than 50% were older than 61 years of
age. Moreover, we determined that accident-involved e-bikers and
bicyclists tend to be younger in an urban than in a rural environ-
ment. Contrary to bicyclists only few accidents with e-bikers below
23 years of age were reported. Thus it can be assumed that in urban
areas only few young people own e-bikes and, hence, bicycles are
used more frequently which might have an impact on the distri-
butions analysed. Investigations taking the exclusion of school-age
children (i.e. below 14 years of age) or rather the youngest age group
(i.e. below 23 years of age) into account, however, revealed no sta-
tistical effects. Since the amount of school-age bicyclists was found
to be nationwide only about 13% it was decided to not specifically
exclude them from the analyses.
The analysis of the type of accident revealed e-bikers to be
involved in single accidents most frequently, however, bicyclists
sustained crossing accidents in most cases. Again these findings
are similar to what was observed by Lawinger and Bastian (2013)
and Otte et al. (2014). In both studies it is assumed that the higher
number of single accidents in e-bikes might be related to higher
velocities. First naturalistic driving studies (e.g. Twisk et al., 2013;
Dozza et al., 2013; Dozza and Fernandez, 2013) emphasize these
findings by indicating higher velocities in e-bikers compared to
bicyclists.
Nationwide 52% of the accident-involved e-bikers wore helmets.
In the rural area helmet usage was higher and in the urban environ-
ment it was less, while bicyclists wore helmets less frequently in all
investigated areas. Based on these findings it could be assumed that
e-bikers might have another risk awareness than bicyclists. How-
ever, it also needs to be considered that this result might (only)
reflect differences in exposure. Since exclusively police-reported
data was analysed, no information on exposure is available which
can be regarded as another limitation. Lawinger and Bastian (2013)
reported a helmet usage rate in accident-involved e-bikers of about
50% which is similar to the overall helmet usage rate presented
above. In contrast, Otte et al. (2014) determined a clearly less fre-
quent helmet usage rate in accident-involved e-bikers of only about
17%. The small number of investigated e-bike cases in comparison
to the underlying study as well as to the study of Lawinger might
explain this rather big difference.
52 T. Weber et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 73 (2014) 47–52
The methods and selections applied to the analysis of the injury
severity of e-bikers and bicyclists lead to diverging results. At this
point it remains unclear which of the methods described in the
results section is more appropriate. In this context the conclusions
of Lawinger and Bastian (2013) and Otte et al. (2014) also differ.
With regard to injury severity another study analysing the
same Swiss accident data for 2011 did assign AIS (abbreviated
injury scale) codes for all casualties who were admitted to hos-
pital (Schmitt et al., 2014). AIS codes were derived from diagnosis
codes (ICD) of the hospital statistics. No statistically significantly
different distribution between the AIS codes of e-bikers and bicy-
clists was found. Otte et al. (2014) also assigned (M)AIS codes for
all casualties and stated that the injury severity of e-bikers was
not more severe than the injury severity of bicyclists. In contrast,
Lawinger and Bastian (2013) evaluated the injury frequency and
severity by using the descriptions of interviewed persons as well
as descriptions written in police reports. They found that e-bikers
were not involved in accidents more often than bicyclists, but it
was assumed that consequences from an accident could be worse
for e-bikers than for bicyclists. As can be seen the results differ and
are not conclusive yet. Hence analyses of the distributions of the
following years and/or the use of medical data as a basis for further
investigations is suggested.
For the investigation of relations between injury severity and
type of accident a statistical evaluation was only established for
the nationwide distribution. Based on our findings it can be con-
cluded that e-bikers aged 40+ are at higher risk of sustaining severe
injuries than e-bikers aged 0–39. In a previous study with focus on
bicycle accidents Otte et al. (2013) reported similar results in bicy-
clists. They determined a significant increase in the severity of head
injuries in bicyclists (without helmet) aged 40+. It was concluded
that with increasing age the injury severity of bicyclists (without
helmet) in a head impact also increases.
With the underlying data an investigation of relations between
injury severity and helmet usage was inappropriate since to-date’s
police reports do not provide any information on the localisation
of injuries. Therefore it is impossible to evaluate if a helmet had
a suitable effect. To resolve this problem, the authors suggest to
implement the injury localisation in police reports and, again, to
classify the injury severity via (M)AIS. Both methods were already
applied in the investigations of Otte et al. (2014) and allowed
assessing relations between injury severity and helmet usage as
well as other criteria. Hence in terms of the evaluation of injuries
an enormous profit is expected.
The results of this study provide an initial status in the evalu-
ation of e-bike accidents in Switzerland and complement existing
studies.
5. Conclusions
In this study the first comprehensive evaluation of e-bike acci-
dents in Switzerland was conducted. The findings presented here
are intended to serve as a benchmark since basic information on
e-bike accidents is provided. Thus it is recommended to regularly
investigate e-bike accidents in order to show trends and/or identify
changes. Improvements are proposed in terms of the optimisation
of police reports. In this regard the authors suggest an implemen-
tation of the localisation of injuries or rather to classify the injury
severity by (M)AIS.
Acknowledgements
We highly appreciate the support by the Police of the Canton
of Zurich and the Police of the City of Zurich as well as by the
Federal Roads Office (FEDRO). This study was funded by the State
Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) (Grant no.
C12.0027) and conducted under the scope of COST Action TU1101
(“Towards safer bicycling through optimization of bicycle helmets
and usage”).
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