More cyclists, fewer accidents? – Drive

According to the news, every year more people get on bikes in Hungary. Budapest is at the forefront of painting bike lanes almost anywhere, closing key road sections for the weekend or even for long weeks. In addition, of course, the inconvenient use of various sophisticated and less sophisticated methods of car transport continues non-stop.

It’s true, this was promised, because despite the many new bike paths and various developments, cyclists just don’t want to overrun the city. Thus, instead of making cycling more attractive, they focus more on making car traffic impossible. Two years ago, at a press conference presenting the results of a cycling survey, this was communicated verbatim as follows:

“There is a tendency to cautiously increase agreement with making other modes of transportation more difficult, and the importance of positive factors decreases. This may indicate that the idea that car traffic should be made more difficult in order to increase cycling is becoming somewhat accepted.”

Doesn’t sound too good, does it?

How many people ride bikes in Hungary?

2018-ban, 2020in, then 2022in , we had an easy time when looking for the answer to this question. At that time, on behalf of the Hungarian Cycling Club and with the support of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology, Median prepared the representative survey by interviewing 3,000 people online.

However, this series was interrupted by 2024, the survey, which had been completed every two years until now, was missed this year, and we waited in vain for the latest results. We contacted the State Secretariat for Active Hungary to find out the reason for this, from which we received the following answer:

“The Hungarian Cycling Club, with the support of our State Secretariat, carried out Ride to Work! campaign this year for communication and Bring to Work! focused on the development of the application, besides which it was no longer possible to prepare the research entitled “This is how Hungary bikes” this year.
According to our plans for 2025, the survey will continue with the usual schedule, with a sample taken in June.”

In other words, the resource was needed for something else, but according to the promise, they will measure again next year what has changed in the past not two, but three years of bicycle use. If, on the other hand, we compare the data from 2018, 2020 and 2022, no significant change is visible between the measurements. It’s true that we don’t get numbers here, but percentages, but that’s more than nothing.

According to this, in 2018, 17 percent of adults in Hungary used bicycles as their primary means of transportation, which decreased by one percent to 16 percent by 2020, and then remained unchanged by 2022. In Budapest, where bicycle lanes have been painted head-to-head for years, despite all efforts, the proportion of cyclists has also decreased, the 2018-as from 6 to 5 percent. In fact, there is much more pessimistic data, but more on that later.

They proudly announce that, with this result, Hungary ranks third in Europe (!) in terms of the proportion of people who travel primarily by bicycle, only the Netherlands and Denmark are ahead of Hungary. Let’s not discuss why the majority of people in the Southern Great Plain travel by bicycle, because we are afraid that the answer will not be because it is healthy or green. Simply because that’s all there is.

BKK traffic measurement

With survey research, we can probably get more accurate data if we look for the results of real measurements. There is one on the BKK site interactive diagramwhere data from various measurement points can be filtered by time and location. Devices placed at four selected locations in Budapest – Bem tér, Hungária körút, Weiss Manfréd út and Árpád bridge – continuously measure the number of cyclists passing by. This chart includes data from January 2017, which can be browsed in a daily breakdown, or even filtered for separate measurement points.

Here, we have put the first data from 2017 and this year’s data from 2024 side by side, in order to see how many people got interested in cycling due to the cycling developments of the past seven years. Although we had planned the comparison until today, unfortunately one measurement point was dropped: “Due to the failure of the Weiss Manfréd út meter, the bicycle traffic data will be uploaded later” is on the BKK website. Thus, November last year is the last date for which there is still data, and since then there has been no news on the BKK website that either the lost data or the measuring instrument has been replaced.

Below you can compare the bicycle traffic measured at measuring points in the first quarter of 2017 and 2024. The green columns indicate weekdays, the red columns indicate weekends and public holidays:

It is interesting to see that, in seven years, cyclists either got used to winter cycling, or the appearance of bicycle messengers, which increased during the Covid epidemic, increased the traffic in the first quarter, which was not exactly a time for cyclists. It doesn’t matter why, but the increase in traffic in the first quarter is clearly visible, even despite the missing data from the faulty measuring point.

And this is the graph of the summer measurements of 2017 and 2023 – from the beginning of June to the end of August:

Here, on the other hand, the bicycle traffic of the two summers is roughly balanced, and a cautious decline can also be seen in the charts. What is definitely not in the picture, however, is the enormous increase in bicycle traffic. In addition, it can be seen that significantly fewer people cycle on weekends than on weekdays.

There is no great improvement nationally, in fact, while 2018-ban 67 percent of the adult population had their own bicycle, until then this figure decreased to 59 percent by 2022. At the same time, in the absence of one’s own bike, the possibility of access to other bicycles also deteriorated significantly, and while in 2018 17 percent of adults had no contact with a bicycle, by 2022 this proportion had almost doubled to 30 percent. All this while Bubi has been constantly expanding, so in theory public bikes are available to all Budapest residents.

We mentioned above that there is also a more pessimistic figure for the proportion of cyclists, which puts the proportion of cyclists in the capital at 2 percent. This can probably be the exact data, since a Budapest Mobility Planthis ratio is also listed as data for 2021. I want this To knead five times by 2030to 10 percent. It doesn’t seem feasible, since their share stood at 2 percent in 2014 and seven years later, in 2021, so I wouldn’t bet on it reaching 10 percent by 2030.

What about cars?

However, with the increase in parking fees, the postponement of the chargeable period until ten in the evening – since paid parking is a traffic control tool, not a source of income – as well as the strange one-way streets, and the designation of road sections and waiting areas used only by local residents, in theory there should be fewer cars every year in Budapest. Moreover, a note by the mayor by adopting a parking reformwith the drastic price increase and the cancellation of the fee exemption for environmentally friendly cars, Budapest will become even more anti-car.

According to KSH data, there were only 2,482,827 passenger cars in circulation nationwide in 2001, which swelled to 4,168,651 by 2023. The expansion did not stop in Budapest either, while in 2018 there were 376 passenger cars per thousand inhabitants, by 2022 this number had already increased to 425. In other words, even though it is increasingly problematic and expensive to keep a car in the capital, it seems that for people it is still a much more attractive alternative than cycling.

More road users, more accidents?

It would be logical, but it is not. In 2018, there were 3,745 traffic accidents involving personal injuries in Budapest, which decreased significantly during the Covid epidemic, with road traffic almost completely stopped. However, the statistics remained better even after life resumed, with 3,094 cases recorded in 2023.

Most of the accidents are caused by car drivers – their share is also the highest among road users – which is surprising, however, as cyclists are in second place. In Budapest, in 1,807 cases the driver was at fault in personal injury accidents and in 296 cases the cyclist was at fault. If we take into account that 2 percent of the capital’s commuters ride bicycles and 35 percent drive cars, it turns out that, compared to their share, cyclists are among the most dangerous commuters and cause far more accidents than car drivers.

Drunk driving

While the bicycle is the only means of transport that can be driven while drunk, there is zero tolerance for car drivers. This can also be seen in the number of accidents caused According to data from the National Police Headquarters between 2015 and 2018, 3,309 accidents were caused by cars while intoxicated, and 1,385 by bicycles during the same period.

According to KSH data, in 2019, out of the accidents caused by drunkenness, 786 cases were caused by car drivers and 307 cases by cyclists. By 2023, this statistic has also improved, in 672 cases the driver was at fault and in 128 cases the cyclist was at fault. The improvement is clearly visible in both categories.

Accident prevention

In Budapest, there are relatively simple methods when it comes to preventing accidents or reducing their number. Since speeding is cited as the cause of most accidents, and failure to yield the right of way was the leading cause of accidents in the capital in 2023, it is not surprising that the greatest emphasis is placed on controlling this.

Either new traffic lights are installed and fines are issued, or lower permitted speeds than before are introduced on new and new sections. The BKK justifies these strictures with the fact that 90 percent of accidents involving personal injury are caused by drivers. However, let’s not forget that although everyone tends to think only of car drivers when they think of a driver, this statistic of unknown origin also includes accidents caused by cyclists and people using other micromobility devices. However, these accidents will not be affected by the 50 sign posted on the 70 section, or a 30 zone downtown.

However, there might be another way to reduce the number of accidents. For example, all road users should know the KRESZ, and compliance with the rules should not only be held accountable on one level – typically the drivers. But also on irregular cyclists and even pedestrians.