Publication

The pre-study focused on two key factors a) avoiding a crash involving bicyclists and b) reduce shoulder injuries in the event when a crash cannot be avoided. Our hypothesis is that many crashes involving cyclist could be avoided by increasing the visibility of the cyclist. Previous research has identified a need for improved protection for bicyclists. There is a lack of actions for protection of shoulders. Therefore, this pre-study has pushed the developments by gathering several inter-disciplinary experts. During 2020 and 2021 a few inter-disciplinary workshops within the project group and with other experts on competitive cycling, injury statistics, orthopedics, injury mechanisms, smart textiles, and composite materials have been conducted.
The discussion at the workshop with other experts focused on increased daytime visibility of cyclist, a key enabler to decrease the number of accidents, and new protective concept to mitigate shoulder injuries.
It is known that shoulder injuries are common, but not how a suitable shoulder protection system should be designed to be able to protect. Knowing this opens for developing garments and materials that can avoid and protect from crashes involving cyclists.
Hopefully the outcome of the pre-study will be some follow-up projects with the aim to mitigate serious traumatic injuries through a multidisciplinary approach. As there is only limited detailed evidence in the literature on cycling-related fractures, a follow-up project has already started by studying data from the Swedish National Fracture Registry, containing information from almost 600,000 fractures. The aim is to determine the location, severity, and outcomes after cycling-related fractures in Sweden from 2011-2021. This work will give important impact to remaining work on increasing visibility and impact protection in the proposed follow-up studies.