Pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities account for approximately 21% and 8% of all road fatalities in the EU, respectively. The objective was to describe the characteristics of fatal crashes with pedestrians and bicyclists on Swedish rural roads and to investigate the potential of different infrastructure and vehicle interventions to prevent them.

The Swedish Transport Administration (STA) in-depth database of fatal crashes was used to study killed pedestrians (n=75) and bicyclists (n=76) on rural roads during the period 2006-2015. The potentials of several vehicle and infrastructure safety interventions were determined retrospectively for each case by analyzing a chain of events leading to the fatality. The future potential of infrastructure countermeasures was also analyzed based on prognoses on the implementation rate of several vehicle technologies in the Swedish vehicle fleet.

The most common accident scenarios were that the bicyclist was struck while cycling along and at the side of the road;​ the pedestrian was struck while crossing the road. Most accidents involved a passenger car and occurred on roads with a speed limit of 70 to 90 km/h. The majority of the fatal accidents with bicyclists occurred under daylight conditions (71%), while 62% of the fatal accidents with pedestrians occurred in darkness. Forensic reports suggested that 43% of the non-helmeted bicyclists would have survived with a helmet. It was estimated that a large proportion of the fatal accidents with pedestrians and bicyclists could be addressed by advanced vehicle safety technologies, especially Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) and Autonomous Emergency Steering (AES) with pedestrians and bicyclist detection. With regard to interventions in the road infrastructure, separated paths for pedestrians and bicyclists, pedestrian barriers and pedestrian/bicyclist crossings with speed calming measures were found to have the large safety potentials.

However, it was also calculated that it will take a long time until the advanced and potentially effective vehicle safety technologies will be widely spread, which shows the importance of speeding up the implementation rate. A fast introduction of effective interventions in the road infrastructure is also necessary, preferably using a plan for prioritization.

This study had a holistic approach to provide road authorities and vehicle manufacturers with important recommendations for future priorities. However, only accidents on rural roads were included, which means that the findings and conclusions may not apply to urban areas.