As part of my ongoing research, I conducted fieldwork within the police services, where I collected approximately 150 police reports concerning bicycle accidents involving both adults and minors.

These case files offer a unique window into the narratives that emerge after a crash, especially through the lens of the interviews conducted with those involved.

My current focus is on analyzing these interviews: on the one hand, the voice of the cyclist; on the other, the statements provided by motorists.

Within these accounts, I already notice certain recurring patterns appear, which may reveal shared normative frameworks, moral justifications, or specific reasoning processes regarding responsibility and blame.

I am particularly interested in how these narratives make sense of the event, and how they (implicitly) reflect values, norms, and expectations (or even justifications?) tied to traffic behaviour/crashes.

At CRBAM, I hope to receive input on methodological approaches for analysing this type of qualitative data. Possible directions include narrative analysis, discourse analysis, or thematic coding. I would also like to explore how to approach the complex and often ambiguous distinction between “perpetrator” and “victim” in traffic contexts, where legal guilt is not always established. Key research questions include:

How do cyclists and motorists construct their role and responsibility in the narrative of the crash?
What types of justifications, explanations, or excuses frequently occur in motorists’ statements?
How can these storylines deepen our understanding of traffic safety, normative perceptions, and the (in)visible power dynamics at play on the road?