Are Statewide Cycling Policies Correlated with Cycling Safety? Elizabeth Luther | Michal Pinto UP 504 Project Proposal | March 19, 2008
OVERVIEW	Among contested issues in cycling policy is debate between treating cyclists more as vehicles that should ride with traffic, or more as extensions of pedestrian behavior that should be relegated to sidewalks or bike lanes. Some states focus their policies on addressing the issues of cycling amongst vehicles (on roads), others both internationally (Dutch cities are often cited as prime examples) and in the United States focus their policies on creating designated bikeways (parallel to roads but separated from them), and some encourage cycling on the sidewalk. Additionally, some states have helmet laws for cyclists, while others do not. Proponents of all of these policies base their arguments on safety.
RESEARCH QUESTION	Which factors and cycling policies yield the safest cycling environment: policies promoting bikeway use, those promoting the treatment of cyclists as vehicular traffic, those promoting sidewalk use, those requiring helmets, or some combination of these factors?
HYPOTHESES	1. State policies that encourage cyclists to ride on roads without requiring helmets will result in a greater number of cycling fatalities annually. 2. State policies that encourage cyclists to use designated bikeways and require helmets will result in fewer fatalities annually.
UNIT OF ANALYSIS	We will research this question using state-level data.
DATA/SOURCES	1. Our measure of safety will be cyclist fatalities per capita in 2005, derived from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the US Census Bureau. 2. We will obtain State cycling policy data from state government websites. 3. Bicycle helmet regulation data will come from the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation (BHRF). 4. Data on miles of existing bikeways in each location will come from state departments of transportation.
METHODOLOGY	1. Collect cycling policy data from a range of states, and divide them into categories based on the categories in our research question. 2. Collect data on cyclist fatalities and convert to percentage of the statewide population. 3. Incorporate additional data that may contribute to cyclist safety, i.e. whether the state has helmet regulations, if the state endures snowy winters, how many miles of bike lanes it has, etc. 4. Collate data and run descriptive statistics to find possible correlations, missing data, etc. 5. Create a set of graphs, charts and tables that address our research question; also run regression for a more rigorous statistical analysis if we have enough continuous data to do so. 6. Compose a written analysis of findings and publish it on the web.
ANTICIPATED RESULTS	The results might not be as clear due to differences in levels of ridership and the existence of relevant policies in each state. One possible problem is that in states with bikeways, ridership might be higher than in states that encourage cyclists to ride on roads, and will therefore have higher incidents of cyclist fatalities. Additionally, a cursory analysis indicates that fatalities are higher in more moderate climates. We plan to account for these patterns, but will not be able to address them all without a more in-depth study.
REFERENCES	1. Bureau of Transportation Statistics 2. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety 3. Forester, John. The Bicycle Transportation Controversy. Transportation Quarterly, Spring 2001, Vol 55 No 2) 4. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 5. State government websites 6. Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation