"50% of crashes are due to rider behaviour" - UCI President David Lappartient suggest cards system as a punishment for dangerous rider behaviour

UCI President David Lappartient spoke to Cyclingnews about rider and race safety before the start of the Paris-Roubaix Femmes, calling on everyone in the sport to come together for the good of the sport. His solution to the issue seems to be the introduction of the yellow and red cards system, which would ideally prevent some of riders' dangerous behaviour.

"Safety is clearly the most important topic for the sport at the moment, for the UCI and for all the different stakeholders," Lappartient told Cyclingnews. "I think 38 WorldTour riders have crashed and been injured since the start of the year. That’s a lot."

"We created SaferR to make some decisions and improve race safety. We have an important meeting next week," Lappartient said. "We carried out a survey and created a database of all the crashes in all the races of the last three or four years, so now we know the reasons."

"50% of crashes are due to rider behaviour, with 50% due to other factors, such as obstacles that are not signalled or the speed of the peloton. I'm not here to say it's all their fault; it could just be a brief moment of inattention. That's why we want to introduce a principle of yellow and red cards, like in football, so that dangerous behaviour is better punished."