Press release

There are fewer collisions between cars and cyclists on urban roundabouts with separate cycle tracks where cyclists do not have priority than on roundabouts where they do have priority. If, on all these roundabouts, cars had priority above cyclists, this would save 50-70 in-patients a year. This is a result of a SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research study.

Roundabout safer than ordinary crossroads
If an ordinary crossroads is rebuilt as a roundabout, the number of casualties is reduced by about 75%. About 2000 'complete' roundabouts have been installed in the Netherlands during the last 20 years, mainly because of the road safety benefit. A complete roundabout has an outside diameter of more than 32 metres and has special roundabout road signs. For cyclists, roundabouts can be designed in various ways: some have cycle lanes and others have separate bicycle paths. This last is preferred; on those with bicycle paths there are a lot less casualties.

Cyclist safer without priority
In the Netherlands, the layout of roundabouts varies quite a lot, and the priority rules are not the same on all roundabouts. Although on rural roundabouts the official rule is "no priority for cyclists", on urban ones there is no single rule. Roughly estimated, there are about 600-800 urban roundabouts with separate cycle tracks, and on 60% of them cyclists have priority.

SWOV made a study of what would happen if the priority rule were to be the same on all these roundabouts: either " priority for cyclists " everywhere, or "no priority for cyclists " everywhere. There would be more collisions between cyclists and motor vehicles on the "priority for cyclists" roundabouts than on the "no priority for cyclists" variation. Expressed in casualties, this means that there would be 50-70 more in-patients a year if cyclists have right of way on all urban roundabouts.

Not yet clear why
Based on the study, SWOV is entitled to draw the conclusion that roundabouts with "no priority for cyclists" are safer, but not why this is so. The crash data analysis does not enable us to explain it. There are two possible explanations. The first explanation is that motorists assume incorrectly that they have right of way (over cyclists). This could partly be caused by the fact that in the Netherlands, there is no uniform priority rule for urban roundabouts. The second explanation is that motorists, when approaching, driving on, and leaving a roundabout, have to make so many observations within a short time that they do not notice the cyclist. Behaviour studies could shed more light on this subject.

Recommendation: no priority for cyclists
Since 1998 the recommendation has been that cyclists on separate bicycle paths should have priority, provided that the roundabout is laid out according to the CROW recommendations. SWOV also expected that such roundabouts would be really safer that those deviating from the CROW recommendation. Unfortunately, the practical situation is that many roundabouts deviate from the recommendation, or if they do conform, the safety benefit can not be proved. We therefore recommend that, for safety's sake, cyclists on roundabouts should no longer have priority.