Traffic legislation and safety in Europe concerning the moped - Swov

Among the 16-18 year olds, the (light-)moped is not the mode of transport
which they use most. Both bicycle and public transport appear to be used
more.
Mode of transport
Used most by:
Bicycle 49%
Car 9%
Public Transport 20%
Walking 9%
(Light-)moped 13%
Motorcycle 1%
Total (n = 194) 100%
Table 2.4. The most-frequently used modes of transport by the young in the
age groups of 16 – 18 years old in the Netherlands (source: NIPO, 2002).
Table 2.4 shows that the (light-)moped is most used by only 13% of the
young in the age groups of 16 – 18 years old. Most-used is the bicycle with
49%, followed by public transport with 20%.
The data in Table 2.4 is from a NIPO/Team Alert survey which was held in
February and March 2002 among 16-25 year olds (Team Alert, 2002). The
sample had a size of 624, of which 194 were 16-18 year olds.
2.3. Moped casualties and extent of vehicle fleet in European countries
Different sources have been used: databases of the United Nations,
ECMT/CEMT, and CARE (see the description of CARE in Section 2.3.1). In
some cases the national statistics of some European countries were also
used for supplementation and verification.
Using figures from different databases has the advantage that there is a way
to check the figures. If the match is rather satisfactory, one can assume the
figures are correct. In case of a mismatch, the best way to check is to ask
the original figures from the countries in question.
Only Denmark (and to a lesser degree Spain) gave a mismatch between the
number of killed mopedists and the total number of road users killed. A
check with the national Danish data made clear that the CARE data only
contained the EU-moped class and not the 'original' Danish 30 km/h-moped.
From Germany the CARE data was missing, so that a match with the ECMTdata
was not possible. Also in this case the national database was used. For
Germany it was remarkable that the number of killed mopedists is 'only' 148
considering the high total number of road users killed (data from ECMT,
2001). A verification with the German data confirmed this low number.
From the databases, only the road users killed are taken into account (Table
2.5). The reason for this is that the registration rate is highest for deaths. For
an international comparison of crashs figures, an equally high registration of
casualties is preferable.
12 SWOV publication R-2004-10