Race safety and the UCI: SafeR, yellow cards and the finish rules.

Everything here comes from the UCI's own announcements unless another source is named. Several of those releases carry no date on the page; where that is so, the date given is the one their content shows. The current UCI Regulations are the authority on any rule, and the commissaires apply them at each race.

SafeR

SafeR is the UCI-backed structure for safety in professional road racing. It brings together representatives of race organisers, teams, riders and the UCI, and UCI President David Lappartient dates its launch to 2023. It works through three bodies: a Supervisory Board that meets four times a year, a Commission that meets monthly, and a Case Management Committee that meets weekly.

The incident database

The UCI keeps a race incident database built with Ghent University. It recorded 497 incidents at UCI WorldTour, Women's WorldTour and ProSeries events in 2024. The UCI attributed them mainly to:

In its update of about July 2025, the UCI said SafeR's Case Management Committee had analysed 297 incidents over six months and identified causes for 203: riders' own mistakes 29 percent, approaching key points of the race 12 percent, and wet or slippery roads 12 percent.

Yellow cards

The UCI Management Committee, meeting in Aigle from 10 to 12 June 2024, approved a yellow card system covering everyone in the race convoy: riders, sport directors, other drivers and motorbike riders. Commissaires may show a yellow card for any offence that creates a safety risk; the 21 eligible race incidents are listed in article 2.12.007 of the UCI Regulations, and disqualification remains available.

• Test. From 1 August to 31 December 2024 at WorldTour and Women's WorldTour races, without suspensions. The UCI reported 31 cards over 66 race days: 52 percent to riders, 32 percent to team staff and 16 percent to media vehicle drivers and motorbike pilots.
• Sanctions from 1 January 2025, as announced in June 2024. Two cards in one race mean disqualification and a seven-day suspension; three within 30 days a 14-day suspension; six within a year a 30-day suspension. A card already used for a suspension is not counted again. The UCI said the thresholds could change after the test.
• Extension. From 2025 the system was extended to UCI ProSeries, the Olympic Games, the UCI World Championships and continental championships (elite and under-23), with new offences for dangerous lead-out riding in sprints and dangerous feeding by team staff.
• By about July 2025 commissaires had shown 159 cards over 173 men's and 62 women's race days: 42 percent to riders, 37 percent to team staff, 15 percent to media and television, and 6 percent to other motorbikes. In June 2025, for the first time, a rider received two cards in one event and was excluded and suspended for seven days. The UCI publishes the list of card recipients on its website, updated weekly.

Finish rules

In a road race, riders delayed by a recorded incident inside the final three kilometres are given the time of the group they were in. Under article 2.6.027 of the UCI Regulations, organisers may ask before the race to extend this zone up to a maximum of five kilometres. The extension, with a simpler time-gap calculation for bunch sprints, was tested on six stages of the 2024 Tour de France. At the 2025 Tour the zone was extended on seven stages: by 5 km on stages 1, 3, 4, 9, 17 and 21, and by 4 km on stage 15. From 2025 the time-gap margin in bunch finishes was raised from one second to three, except for clear breakaways. A UCI survey on sprint finishes drew 174 rider responses asking for consistent sanctions for dangerous sprinting.

Barriers

SafeR commissioned a study of the barriers used in finishing straights, covering their dimensions, mechanical properties, fixings, advertising panels and impact tests. Before its Management Committee met in Montreal from 20 to 22 September 2026, the UCI proposed that barriers in the final hundreds of metres meet standards drawn from a study by the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland Valais-Wallis, starting with WorldTour and Women's WorldTour races in 2027 and extending to other categories later. Press reports say the standard was approved for the final 200 metres; we did not find the UCI's own release on the outcome, so that detail is unconfirmed.

Other measures, with their status

• Feed zones (from 2025). Organisers must provide a feed zone roughly every 30 to 40 km, with litter zones, ending the open feeding allowed during Covid-19.
• Restart and convoy protocols (2025). A Restart Protocol for races stopped by extreme weather or safety problems sets a maximum stoppage of 15 minutes and covers restart decisions, time gaps and communication. A "Way Out and Way In" protocol covers vehicles leaving and rejoining the race.
• Race radios (tested 2024). Earpiece restrictions were tested at the Vuelta a Burgos (5 to 9 August 2024) and on three stages of the Tour de Pologne (12 to 18 August 2024). The UCI received 349 questionnaires, 240 of them from riders, and had made no final decision by its January 2025 update.
• GPS tracking. Rider tracking was tested at the 2025 Tour de Suisse, used at the 2025 Road World Championships in Kigali and is in use at the 2026 Worlds in Montreal. The UCI wants real-time tracking of riders and vehicles at professional road events, starting with the WorldTour tiers; protocols and regulation were still to be set as of September 2026.
• Gear ratios. The UCI scheduled a test of a 54 x 11 maximum gear (10.46 metres per crank turn) for the Tour of Guangxi, 14 to 19 October 2025. The test protocol was suspended after the Belgian Competition Authority's decision of 9 October 2025; in June 2026 the UCI said the Brussels Court of Appeal had dismissed its appeal and that it would go to the Court of Cassation. No gear limit applies now, and we found no results from a test. The handlebars, wheels and the 2026 changes page has the detail.
• Under study as of January 2025. The UCI listed airbags for riders, rim-height and handlebar-width rules and gear restrictions as being studied. Handlebar and rim limits for road racing later took effect on 1 January 2026, as set out on the equipment page linked above.

Deaths in racing

Deaths are reported here only as the UCI stated them. The UCI and the organising committee announced (in a statement reported by Flashscore) that Swiss junior rider Muriel Furrer, 18, died in Zurich University Hospital on 27 September 2024, the day after a crash in the junior women's road race at the UCI Road World Championships; the UCI said investigations were a matter for the competent authorities. The UCI's September 2026 release records a tribute to British rider Finlay Tarling, who died aged 19 after a crash on 14 August during stage 8 of the Volta a Portugal; the release does not state the year.

How the UCI handles weather and heat is on the heat and extreme weather page, and its concussion protocol is on concussion protocols.