Casualty risk of e-bike rider struck by passenger vehicle using China in-depth accident data

Abstract

Objective: Traffic deaths involving e-bike (electric bike) riders are increasing in China. This study aims to quantitatively investigate the association between e-bike rider casualty and impact speed in electric bike-passenger vehicle collisions based on China in-depth accident study data.

Methods: According to the collision location and driving direction of the e-bike and the vehicle, electric bike-passenger vehicle collisions are divided into five collision types: frontal collision, e-bike side collision, vehicle side collision, scrape collision and rear-end collision. Since e-bike side collision (the side of e-bike impacted with the front of vehicle) is the leading type and has the highest likelihood of severe or fatal injury in all collision types, e-bike side collisions are further selected to build the casualty risk functions of e-bike rider in relation to the rider age and the impact speed (vehicle impact speed and e-bike impact speed).

Results: The analysis results show that, as for e-bike side collisions and e-bike impact speed is 20 km/h, the fatality risk of riders is approximately 2.9% at vehicle impact speed of 30 km/h, 23% at 50 km/h, 50% at 60 km/h, and 90% at 80 km/h. Rider age is also significantly associated with a higher risk of severe and fatality injury. The e-bike impact speed is not significantly associated with the severe and fatality risk in e-bike side collisions.

Conclusions: The findings of this study provide meaningful insights to formulate effective policies especially for speed limit management to improve the safety of e-bikes.

Keywords:

• E-bike accident
• fatality risk
• impact speed
• age

Additional information

Funding

This work was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 51875049/51775178) and Hunan Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (Project No. 2019JJ1017) and The Science and Technology Project of Changsha of China (Project No. KQ1801055). This work is also supported by Open Fund of Ministry of Education Engineering Research Center of Catastrophic Prophylaxis and Treatment of Road & Traffic Safety (Changsha University of Science & Technology) under research grant kfj130301 and Open Fund of Ministry of the Key Laboratory of Highway Engineering of Ministry of Education (Changsha University of Science & Technology) under research grant kfj190202.