More Bicycle Injuries in the First Year of COVID-19, Even With Fewer Cars on the Road

The puzzle

When stay-at-home orders began early in the pandemic, vehicle miles traveled fell 40% in April 2020 compared with April 2019, and 13% for the year. Yet pedal cyclist deaths in traffic crashes rose 10%, from 859 in 2019 to 948 in 2020, and reached 966 in 2021 — the most since 1975. So CDC compared emergency department (ED) visits for nonfatal pedal cyclist injuries in 2019 and 2020.

How it was measured

Data came from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System–All Injury Program, a probability sample of hospitals that gives national estimates of ED visits for nonfatal injuries. A pedal cyclist injury is an injury to the rider of a bicycle, tricycle, mountain bike or unicycle from a collision, loss of control, crash or other event — not, say, from repairing a bike or tripping over one — whether in traffic, off-road (a driveway or bike trail) or somewhere unrecorded. The study compared the share of all injury-related ED visits that were for cycling injuries, month by month.

What was found

• In March–April 2020, ED visits for all nonfatal injuries fell 31% from the year before, and 15% for the whole year.
• But pedal cyclist injury visits rose 8%, to an estimated 356,630 in 2020 from 328,903 in 2019.
• Cycling's share of injury visits was significantly higher in March–August and November 2020 than a year earlier.

• Children and teens had the largest increase in most months, sustained from February to November 2020; among adults, increases came mainly in March–June.
• Males always had the higher share, but increases were bigger among females in March–May and July–August, and lasted from March through August; for males, February through June.
• In 2020, 37% of cycling injuries happened in traffic, 27% did not, and 37% couldn't be determined.

What can help

Cycling injuries rose in the pandemic's first year — most among children and teens, adults 50 and older, and women — and cycling deaths have climbed too, showing the need for more cycling safety measures:

• road engineering and design with cyclist safety features, such as bike lanes;
• helmet laws for cyclists of all ages, to raise helmet use.

Sources

Based on Livia Navon, Keming Yuan and Laurie Beck, "Notes from the Field: Emergency Department Visits for Nonfatal Pedal Cyclist Injuries Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic, United States, 2019–2020," MMWR, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain.