Only using deaths per million people as a metric to compare cycling safety in Ireland and the Netherlands is flawed, a council and a campaigner have said after the Road Safety Authority compared deaths on Irish and Dutch roads.The comments were made after the RSA released a statement this morning, which compared Ireland and the Netherlands as follows: Ireland has a relatively low cyclist mortality rate compared to many EU countries. Based on the average for 20222024, fewer than two cyclist deaths per million inhabitants were recorded annually in Ireland, compared to 15 deaths per million in the Netherlands and around eight in Belgium and Romania.Cllr Ray Cunningham (Green Party), a Dublin-based councillor, said the RSA should look at the full picture, not just deaths per million people.The RSA should also publish the statistics on how many people cycle regularly in Ireland, and how much distance is travelled by bike. Those comparisons would tell a very different story, a story of a country where too many people are scared to cycle. But thats a story that would reflect very badly on the RSA itself, said Cllr Cunningham.Ciarn Ferrie, a cycling campaigner and co-founder of the campaign group I Bike Dublin, said: The RSA is once again trying to tell us that cycling is safer in Ireland than in the Netherlands because there are fewer people killed while cycling here. Its like saying Very few people drown in our shark-infested swimming pool.The reality is that deaths and serious injuries of people cycling have been on a dramatic upward trajectory for well over a decade. In 2014, there were 120 people killed or seriously injured while cycling on Irish roads. That figure increased to 321 by 2021, and while the figures released for recent years show an improvement, we know that there are serious questions about the reliability of those figures, he said.Ferrie added: In the Netherlands, 75% of secondary school children cycle to school. In Ireland, that figure is just 3.4%. That tells you much more about the relative safety of the roads in the two countries.The situation echoes a claim by former UK Road Safety Minister Mike Penning, who told the House of Commons Transport Select Committee in 2012 that Britains roads are safer for cyclists than those in the Netherlands.At the time, Road.cc reported that the claim astonished and angered cycle campaigners. The news website said that Pennings claim was based on deaths per 100,000 population, a measure that takes no account of the huge differences between the numbers of cyclists and levels of cycling in the UK and those in the Netherlands.The website also pointed to an analysis of the figuresby the RadWagon blog, which used the standard measure of deaths per kilometre per 100 million cyclists, people here are nearly three times more likely to be killed while riding a bike than their counterparts across the North Sea.Issues with police dataThe RSAs press release this morning was prompted by the release of an EU-wide report by the European Transport Safety Agency (ETSA).Across the EU, the ETSA said that older cyclists are disproportionately at risk, with mortality rates rising sharply among those aged over 80; men account for 80% of cycling deaths; and deaths among e-bike users are increasing in countries that distinguish between bicycle types.In their statement, the RSA outlined that Despite an increase in serious injuries observed over the period 2014-2024 in Ireland based on police data, there was a 21% decrease in serious injuries among cyclists over the five-year period 2020-2024. But in this case, the RSA noted that Serious injuries are widely underreported in police records.Studies across Europe show that the actual number of serious injuries is underestimated in police records. Research based on hospital data suggests that the true scale of serious injuries is far higher, with fewer than 10% of injured cyclists appearing in police statistics in some countries. In Ireland, hospital records show between two and three times more seriously injured cyclists than policebased data for the years 20142022, the RSA said.They also reveal around nine times more collisions involving no other vehicle in hospital records compared with police-based data. In addition, the hospital data indicate that cyclist hospitalisations doubled in 2022 relative to 2014, along with a sustained increase in the number of cyclist collisions involving no other vehicle up to 2023, the RSA noted before outlining how motor vehicles remain the greatest risk.The RSA said: In Ireland, collisions involving no other vehicle are the leading cause of serious injuries among cyclists admitted to hospital. This underlines the importance of high-quality, well-maintained cycling infrastructure to prevent both serious and fatal injuries.EU targetsAcross the EU in 2024, 1,926 cyclists were killed, with the number of deaths across the union falling by 8% in the decade 2014 to 2024, amounting to an average annual reduction of 0.5%. This compares to motorised road users falling at an annual rate of 2% four times faster than the decline in bicycle user deaths. The RSA said: To meet the EUs 2030 target of halving road deaths, an overall annual reduction of 6.5% would be required thirteen times the current rate of progress for cyclists. Cyclists now account for 10% of all road deaths in the EU, and without significant safety improvements, this proportion is expected to grow.Jenny Carson, co-author of the report, said: Governments are actively encouraging more people to cycle for the climate, to reduce fossil-fuel use and congestion, for public health, for our cities. But they are not providing the safe conditions that cyclists need and deserve. You cannot ask people to cycle and then fail to protect them from fast-moving traffic.Michael Rowland, director of research, standards and assurance at the Road Safety Authority (RSA), said: Irelands cyclist fatality rate is relatively low compared to other European countries, however, every loss of life on our roads is a tragedy. The rise in serious injuries on our roads is also a significant concern. We need to act decisively to make our roads safer for cyclists.He added: This means lower speeds in urban areas, better enforcement, and sustained investment in high-quality, segregated cycling infrastructure. Encouraging people to cycle must go hand in hand with ensuring they can do so safely.