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Cycling and designing for cyclist in Germany: an overview of road safety, research and guidelines
(2016)
Cycling is considered a social, eco-friendly, pollution-free, low noise and healthy activity and mode of transportation. There are currently around 67 million bicycles in Germany. This number is expected to increase in the near future with greater use of electromotive assisted bicycles. Regarding the expected increase, there should be additional attention given to road traffic accidents involving cyclists. In 2014, 396 cyclists were killed in road accidents in Germany, which is 12 % of all road fatalities. Also in 2014, Germany reported over 78,000 injuries to cyclists. The majority of the fatalities (about 58 %) and 83 % of the serious injuries to cyclists occurred in urban areas. This paper will examine three aspects concerning cyclists. First, the paper will show the main current developments, for example the National Cycling Plan 2020, the effects of the road safety programme and provide an analysis of the German national accident statistics. Second, the paper will give an overview of the regulations, guidelines for road traffic and designing of cycling facilities. Lastly, this study will detail the current and completed research in Germany addressing cyclist. For example, the paper will discuss the topic "Accidents between Turning-off Trucks and Cyclists" Accidents between right turning trucks and straight riding cyclists often show massive consequences. Accident severity is much higher than in other accidents. The situation is critical especially due to the fact that, in spite of the six mirrors that are mandatory for ensuring a minimum field of sight for the truck drivers, cyclists in some situations cannot be seen or are not seen by the driver. Either the cyclist is overlooked or is in a blind spot area that results from the turning manoeuvre of the truck. At present driver assistance systems are discussed that can support the driver in the turning situation by giving a warning when cyclists are riding parallel to the truck just before or in the turning manoeuvre. The paper will describe the requirements for turning assist systems for trucks. The outcome of the study is an overview of the accident situation between right turning trucks and straight driving cyclists in Germany as well as a corresponding test procedure for driver assistance systems. Below are several other projects which will be investigated, too: Accident Risk and Acceptance of Traffic-Rules by Cyclists ; Safety Improvement in Terms of Using Bicycle Paths in the Opposite Direction ; Cycling in Mixed-Traffic ; Observation of Pedal Electric Cycles Riders to Identify Safety Concerns. These three aspects will provide the current situation on the topic of cyclist safety in Germany.
Accidents between right turning trucks and straight driving cyclists often show massive consequences. Accident severity in terms of seriously or fatally injured cyclists that are involved is much higher than in accidents of other traffic participants in other situations. It seems clear that adding additional mirrors will very likely not improve the situation. At ESV 2015, a methodology to derive test procedures and first test cases as well as requirements for a driver assist system to address blind spot accidents has been presented. However, it was unclear if and how testing of these cases is feasible, to what extent characteristics of different truck concepts (e.g. articulated vehicles, rigid vehicles) influence the test conduction and outcome, and what tolerances should be selected for the different variables. This work is important for the acceptance of a draft regulation in the UN working group on general safety. In the meantime, three test series using a single tractor vehicle, a tractor-semitrailer combination and a rigid vehicle have been conducted. The test tools (e.g. surrogate devices) have been refined. A fully crashable, commercially available bicycle dummy has been tested. If used correct, this dummy does follow a straight line quite precisely and it does not cause any damage to the truck under test in case of accidental impact. The dummy specifications are freely available. During testing, the different vehicle categories resulted in different trajectories being driven. Articulated vehicle combinations did first execute a turn into the opposite direction, and on the other hand, single tractor vehicles did behave comparable to passenger cars. A possible solution to take these behaviors into account is to require the vehicles to drive through a corridor that is narrow for a precise straight-driving phase and extends during the turn. Other investigated parameters are the dummy and vehicle speed tolerances. The results from this research make it possible to draft a regulation for a driver assistance system that helps to avoid blind spot accidents: test cases have been refined, their feasibility has been checked, and corridors for the vehicles and for important parameters (e.g. test speeds) have been set. The test procedure is applicable to all types of heavy goods vehicles. In combination with the accidentology (ESV 2015 paper), the work provides the basis for a regulation for such an assistance system.