Road safety report: bicycle and scooter fatalities surge in 2022

Slight decrease for motorists and motorcyclists (vs 2019), but a sharp rise in fatalities among cyclists and scooter users, linked both to increased practice and other factors.

The new road safety statistics have been published for the year, and they are clearly not good. The number of deaths has increased to 3,260, compared to 2,944 in 2021, an 11% rise which is expected because the previous year (2021) involved a lockdown. The figure is thus nearly stable compared to 2019, the pre-Covid period that is truly comparable. A bitter observation for the government aiming for 2,000 deaths… 

By type of transport, car drivers still account for nearly half of the victims, with 1,563 deaths, up from 1,414 in 2021, but down 4% from 2019 (1,622). The same applies to motorized two-wheelers, with 588 motorcyclists killed in 2022 (vs 615 in 2019) and 127 moped drivers (vs 134 in 2019).

+30% of deaths among cyclists, +340% in scooter users — why?

However, the record for soft mobility is very negative. Last year, 244 bicycle users lost their lives, compared to 227 in 2021, and notably a 30% increase from 2019, which recorded only 187 deaths.

There is an even more noticeable increase among EDCs, these personal motorized mobility devices, mostly electric scooters. The Road Safety authorities recorded 34 victims among users, compared to 24 in 2021 and 10 in 2019.

These rising figures should be put into perspective, as the practice of cycling has greatly increased in recent years. According to the cycling traffic barometer, there was a +31% increase in entries between 2019 and 2022, which correlates with the same increase in deaths. For scooters, the jump from zero in 2018 to 34 in 2022 is logical, as scooters were almost absent from streets and roads before.

Safety, the Achilles’ heel to encourage practice

This does not diminish the common feeling among all soft mobility users, including us at Mobiwisy, of vulnerability when facing cars or trucks, and the difficulty in sharing roads with these vehicles. Cyclists and scooter users now account for 8% of road deaths and even 20% of serious injuries (3,196 out of 15,932)! 

The solution is straightforward: while car use is decreasing, the rise in cycling and EDC use must be accompanied by more bike-friendly infrastructure, with reserved and separated lanes whenever possible.

Finally, note the stable pedestrian mortality in 2022 with 484 victims, but a 13% decrease in estimated serious injuries compared to 2019, with 2,009 people.

Also read: Amsterdam unveils two giant bike parking facilities