Quebec experienced a marked increase in the number of cyclists hospitalized during the pandemic, a phenomenon completely opposite to the trend in the rest of the population.
Posted at 5:00 p.m.
According to data released Tuesday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), the number of hospitalizations due to bicycle injury increased by 20% for the period from 1er April 2020 to March 31, 2021. Some 1,199 cyclists ended up in the emergency room during this period, compared to 1,001 for the same period the previous year.
Meanwhile, when Quebecers were asked to stay at home, the number of hospitalizations fell sharply, from 67,374 to 60,792 compared to the previous year, a decrease of about 10%.
CIHI’s hypothesis to explain these statics is very simple: the number of cyclists has increased tenfold during the pandemic, for lack of other sports options available.
More followers, more injuries
“It is possible that certain public health measures have had an impact on this. When team sports were not available, people spent a lot of time outdoors and turned to cycling,” rightly points out CIHI Clinical and Administrative Data Manager Tanya Khang.
Same story with the Vélo Québec organization whose president, Jean-François Rheault, is not overly concerned about these figures.
Citing data from the Société d’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) exposed in the report The state of cycling in Quebec published by his organization in 2020, he points out that the number of collisions between cyclists and motorists tends to decrease over the years.
As long as interactions with vehicles are down, we can hypothesize that [la hausse des hospitalisations de cyclistes] does not necessarily come from interactions with vehicles. By deduction it can be collisions between cyclists, between cyclists and pedestrians or cyclists alone.
Jean-François Rheault, President and CEO of Vélo Québec
He therefore also associates this phenomenon with an increase in the number of cyclists in Quebec, a figure that is difficult to measure, but that can be deduced from the significant increase in bicycle sales during the pandemic, of the order of 20 at 30%.
For his part, the president of the Quebec Association of Sports and Exercise Physicians, Dr.r Luc De Garie, suspects the presence of many beginner cyclists, more prone to injuries, to explain these statistics.
no more dangerous
What’s more, compared to other sports, cycling does not appear to be particularly dangerous, underlines Jean-François Rheault.
Indeed, the annual rate of injuries serious enough to require a medical consultation is 23 per 1000 cyclists while it is 20 per 1000 golfers, according to figures published by the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec in 2019.
“Generally speaking, in recent decades, cycling has become increasingly safer and things will get better,” says Jean-François Rheault. Two approaches are likely to improve the safety of cycling, he believes, namely “the construction of infrastructure separated from traffic […]then reducing the speed of cars”.
A Canadian Phenomenon
Far from being limited to Quebec, the increase in cyclist hospitalizations is measured across the country, even though it is even more marked there, as shown by the figures published by the CIHI on Tuesday.
Nationwide, the number of hospitalizations due to bicycle injuries increased by 25% during the first year of the pandemic, from 4,190 to 5,255. Meanwhile, the total number of hospitalizations following an injury (all causes combined) decreased by 5.5%, from 271,000 to 256,000, compared to the previous year.