58.1% of cyclists have been involved in an accident

Recently we released a survey to the audience of londoncyclist.co.uk. Today, I want to present you with the results.

The survey was completed by 1,152 cyclists.

We asked:

Have you ever been in an incident with another road user?
By that I mean anything from a minor bump to a larger incident.

You said:

Minor – 47.2%
Major – 10.9%
No, I’ve never been involved in an incident – 41.9%

I personally fall in the minor incident camp. I’ve had pedestrians walk in to the bicycle path without the time to avoid, I’ve had cars pulling out of side lanes when I’m in full view. Therefore, I’m not surprised at the minor incident numbers.

The more shocking stat is that 11% of respondents have been involved in more serious incidents. This of course begs the question – did they then decide to claim?

“No, I was in shock, it was wet and I was cold. I cycled home as best as I could.”

It was an open ended question so we had to categorise answers ourselves but around 22% did launch a claim. The reasons given for not claiming were mainly that no harm was done or that they were in too much shock.

“Nope – didn’t know how to as the car drove off”

Some people said they didn’t know how to because the car drove off. In fact in this scenario you can claim against the motor insurers bureau.

Onwards to the rest of the results…

We asked:

Who was involved in the incident?

You said:

By far the vast majority were incidents involving cars. Interestingly, many of the other answers given were another cyclist.

We asked:

Was your bike damaged in the incident?

You said:

No – 56%
Yes – 44%

This highlighted the importance of getting the other individuals details in an incident.

We asked:

Did you get witness details?

You said:

No – 82.9%
Yes – 17.1%

Witness details are not always necessary but can be helpful if you needed to claim for damages.

We asked:

Are you aware that accident claims can be filed for incidents that happened up to 3 years ago?

You said:

No – 75.7%
Yes –  24.3%

Most people don’t realise they can claim for a cycling accident up to three years in the past.

Main takeaways from survey

1. There’s no way to sugar coat the issue that cycling can at times be dangerous. Fortunately, the majority of people reported they have either never been in an incident or they have been in a minor incident. More should be done to create the kind of environment that makes cycling as safe as possible.
2. If you are injured in an accident or your bike is damaged, then you should get the drivers details and make a claim. Most people don’t realise that this is fairly easy to do. We’ve partnered with CAMS to offer London Cyclist readers this option, but there are many alternative companies out there.