Single unprotected road user crashes: Europe we have a problem!

Unprotected Road Users (URU) are a subset of Vulnerable Road Users (VRU) who are not protected in their vehicles: pedestrians, cyclists and powered two-wheelers. EU statistics for 2014 show that their share in road traffic fatalities was 22% for pedestrians, 8% for cyclists and 18% for Powered Two-Wheelers, in total 47% of the fatalities. From explorative studies regarding injured road traffic casualties it is found that about two thirds of the transportation casualties are Unprotected Road Users, of which two thirds are single accidents, i.e. crashes where no other road user is involved. Most of these single crashes are not (yet) detected in the standard police reported accident statistics, but do represent costs to society that probably exceed crash costs of car related crashes. It can be expected that the shares of URU fatal and injury crashes will increase, particularly because of the ageing of the population, urbanization and despite ICT/ITS developments. Some of these crashes can be prevented by relatively simple measures, others need more investments e.g. infrastructure, legislation or enforcement. From a policy point of view it will be wise to address this issue, not only for road safety reasons, but also because the elderly are getting more numerous and a serious economic and political factor.