College of Nursing, University of Rhode Island, USA.
Department of Economics, University of Rhode Island, USA.
Accid Anal Prev. 2022 Jan;164:106475. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2021.106475. Epub 2021 Nov 16.
Bicycles gained significant popularity among Americans in 2020. Greater investment in adequate bicycle safety facilities will be needed. Crash data from police will undoubtedly play a role in decision-making. This research evaluated the data quality of text narratives in police reports on bicycle crashes. The aims were to identify situations in which police officers wrote more detail in the narrative text, investigate if longer reports translate to more in-depth crash descriptions, examine the extent to which narrative texts cover details useful for those charged with bicycle safety. This is a 4-year retrospective cohort study of vehicle-vs-bicycle crashes that occurred between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2012, in Boston, Massachusetts (USA). Police reports were matched with the Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Analysis Tool (PBCAT) to measure how much information was captured and when reports were more likely to capture more information. Police reports only captured most information in one area of the standardized form (Crash Typing), with average total missingness of over 75%. Longer reports did reduce the amount of missingness, and officers were more likely to write longer reports when they were on the crash site, when there was an injury, when the crash involved an extended car door, and during the day. A 100% increase in the report's words was associated with a four-percentage point reduction in PBCAT missingness. While longer reports result in less missingness when measured against the standardized crash form, the average report still misses most of the information that the form would capture. We recommend that police departments adopt a standardized form to facilitate information capture at the scene of bicycle-vehicle crashes.
2020 年，自行车在美国变得非常流行。需要加大对自行车安全设施的投资。警方的碰撞数据无疑将在决策中发挥作用。本研究评估了警方自行车事故报告中文字叙述的数据质量。目的是确定警察在叙述文本中写更多细节的情况，调查报告篇幅较长是否意味着碰撞描述更深入，以及叙述文本涵盖对负责自行车安全人员有用的细节的程度。这是一项为期 4 年的回顾性队列研究，涉及 2009 年 1 月 1 日至 2012 年 12 月 31 日期间在美国马萨诸塞州波士顿发生的车辆与自行车碰撞事故。警方报告与行人与自行车碰撞分析工具（PBCAT）相匹配，以衡量有多少信息被捕获以及报告何时更有可能捕获更多信息。警方报告仅在标准化表格的一个区域（碰撞类型）中捕获了大部分信息，平均缺失率超过 75%。较长的报告确实减少了缺失信息的数量，当警察在事故现场、有受伤情况、碰撞涉及延长的汽车门和白天时，他们更有可能写更长的报告。报告字数增加 100%，与 PBCAT 缺失率降低四个百分点相关。虽然与标准化碰撞表格相比，较长的报告在缺失率方面有所降低，但平均报告仍遗漏了表格本应捕获的大部分信息。我们建议警察部门采用标准化表格，以方便在自行车与车辆碰撞现场收集信息。
