Effects of COVID and Spatial Demography on the Reporting of Cyclists Struck by a Motor Vehicle
Presented by Mickey Edwards, MPA PhD
Motor Vehicle Data Linkage Project
The equitable distribution of resources intended to mitigate the
damage caused to communities when a cyclist is struck by a motor vehicle
depends upon an accurate accounting of incidents. The need for accurate
accounting applies not only to the total number of incidents but upon
whom the burden disproportionately befalls. By relying on crash data
alone, policymakers may make allocation decisions using incomplete
information. As a result, those communities most in need of resources to
protect vulnerable road users may be missing out because of higher
rates of unreported struck cyclists. By relying on police crash reports
alone by officials, unreported struck cyclists may remain officially
unseen.
Having access to crash data provided by the Illinois Department of Transportation and
hospital discharge data provided by the Illinois Department of Public
Health, the Motor Vehicle Data Linkage (MVDL) team at the University of
Illinois Springfield (UIS) is uniquely positioned to investigate the
burden of unreported cyclist crashes. This paper seeks to overcome prior
data obstacles to investigate the incidence of unreported struck
cyclists by first linking crash and hospital data files, and then by
examining those incidents in the hospital file for which no
corresponding report can be found.
