Cyclists need more bike lanes to prevent rapid rise in injuries
Post date: Sep 17, 2014 11:20:17 PM
17 September 2014. The number of serious injuries caused by road accidents in Victoria has not budged for a decade despite the road toll falling 26 per cent with road safety authorities admitting they are struggling to build safe cycling infrastructure quick enough to meet surging demand.
A high number of injury claims and faster processing has meant a record 22,012 injury claims to the Transport Accident Commission in 2013/14.
The senior manager of road safety at the Transport Accident Commission, Samantha Cockfield, said Victoria was doing well on reducing fatalities but faced a challenge with vulnerable road users such as cyclists and motorcyclists.
"We have been doing very well concentrating on the very serious end, particularly fatalities with road side barriers, more roundabouts, safer cars and speed limits preventing the very serious end of it," she said.
"What we have got though is upward pressure affecting day to day injuries... the really emerging group for us right now are cyclists and they are the ones that are growing faster than we can keep up with creating separated bike lanes," she said.
In the five years to March 2014, the TAC recorded 1569 cycling accidents requiring hospitalisation.
Source, read more: The Age
