RESUMO
PURPOSE: This study aimed to evaluate the epidemiology of bicycle injuries in Korea. It analyzed the injury severity of bicycle accidents by making a comparison between accidents that originated from bicycle lanes and accidents that originated in other sites since the inception of the Korea Promoting Bicycle Usage Act in 2011. METHODS: We performed a retrospective study on 23,038 cases from January 2011 to December 2014, utilizing the data from the emergent department-based, in-depth injury surveillance system. The main analysis of death was conducted by a multivariate logistic regression, using SPSS statistics ver. 18.0. We also classified bicycle accidents in accordance with the sites of accident bicycle lane and other sites, accident year, age, gender, injury location, activity, helmet use, and alcohol consumption. RESULTS: The entire study population of 23,038 patients were divided into two groups depending on accident site: 4045 from bicycle lane and 18,993 from other accident sites. According to the analysis, the percentage of accidents involving female was significantly higher in bicycle lane than in other accident sites (75.8% vs. 79.3% p<0.001). The highest bicycle accident occurred alone (77.3%) in bicycle lane and 57% in other accident sites. However, motor vehicle crash was significantly higher in other accident sites than in bicycle lane (32.9% vs. 10.2%). The result from a multivariate logistic regression demonstrates that bicycle lanes significantly decreases the severity of mortality on average (odd ratio, 0.46; 95% confidence interval 0.24-0.91). CONCLUSION: We found that bicycle lanes have a significant impact on decreasing not only general accidents caused by bicycles, but also mortality.