Police Reporting of Pedestrians and Bicyclists Treated in Hospital Emergency Rooms

Drawing on a study of injured pedestrians and bicyclists treated at hospital emergency rooms in California, New York, and North Carolina, an attempt was made to match the emergency room cases to state motor vehicle crash data, and to analyze the factors associated with the occurrence of a match. The purpose is to (1) provide additional information on the likely level of underreporting of pedestrian– and bicycle–motor vehicle collisions on state crash files and (2) examine whether cases that are reported differ in any systematic way from those that are not reported. A total of 388 pedestrian– and 255 bicycle–motor vehicle cases were available for inclusion in the analysis, with 56 percent of the pedestrian and 48 percent of the bicycle cases matched to state crash files. After adjusting for other potential confounders, pedestrians who were hospitalized or killed were 1.3 times more likely to be reported on the state crash files than were pedestrians receiving emergency room treatment only; those struck in the roadway were 1.7 times more likely to be reported than those struck in nonroadway locations; and those ages 15 to 24 were 70 percent less likely to be reported than pedestrians of all other ages. In contrast, the only factor found to be associated with police reporting of bicycle–motor vehicle crashes was the severity level of the injury: bicyclists who were hospitalized or killed were 1.4 times more likely to be reported on the state crash files than were bicyclists receiving emergency room treatment only.