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Key facts about cycling safety

It takes over 3,000 years of average cycling to suffer a serious head injury. [1]
Road cyclists account for less than 1% of serious head injuries seen by hospitals in the UK. [2]
Only 1 in 350 emergency admissions to hospital are due to any kind of cycling injury.
Around 1 in 1,000 are due to head injury. [3]
The most effective way to reduce the likelihood of injury when cycling is to increase the number of people who cycle. When cycle use doubles, the risk of injury per cyclist falls by 35% to 40%. [4]

References

[1] Derived from data from Transport Statistics Great Britain 2001, National Travel Survey 1998 - 2000, and reference [3].
[2] Derived from data from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, and
Thornhill S, Teasdale GM, Murray GD, McEwen J, Roy CW, Penny KI. Disability in young people and adults one year after head injury: prospective cohort study. BMJ, 2000 v320 p1631-5.
[3] Cook A, Sheikh A. Trends in serious head injuries among cyclists in England: analysis of routinely collected data. BMJ, 2000;321:1055.
[4] Wardlaw MJ. Assessing the actual risks faced by cyclists Dec 2002 Traffic Engineering and Control.

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