Understanding safety critical interactions between bicycles and motor vehicles in Europe by means of Naturalistic Driving techniques

Although prevention of bicycle–motorized-vehicle-crashes will result in significant improvements in bicycle mortality rates, little is known about the actual safety critical events leading up to these crashes. This paper discusses the strength and weaknesses of the application of Naturalistic Driving (ND) observations for identifying safety critical events and contributing fac-tors and illustrates the potential of ND with additional analysis on the data from the European projects PROLOGUE and INTERACTION. In addition, the paper presents the objectives and de-sign of the large scale ND study UDRIVE in which 440 motorized vehicles will be equipped with cameras and sensors. In contrast to previous ND studies, UDRIVE is specifically addressing interactions with cyclists and pedestrians.