Data Collection to Contribute to Motorcycle Safety

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Aimed at improving safety, the ongoing motorcycle crash causation study led by Oklahoma State University is the most comprehensive study of motorcycle crash factors to be conducted in the United States in over 30 years.

The number of motorcycle rider fatalities in the U.S. more than doubled between 1997 and 2009, while at the same time, crash-related fatalities involving cars and light trucks declined by 27 percent.  In response to this trend in motorcycle rider fatalities, Congress passed legislation to fund the current motorcycle crash causation study through the Federal Highway Administration.

“It (motorcycle rider crash-related fatalities) is the only category of vehicle fatalities that has increased. The rest are going down. We had a recent drop, but for the last five years motorcyclist fatalities are still up,” said Dr. John Nazemetz, Principal Investigator of the OSU-led motorcycle crash causation study.

Prior to the current study, the only other comprehensive motorcycle crash causation study conducted in the U.S. was published in 1981. That famous technical report, commonly referred to as the “Hurt Report” after principal investigator Harry Hurt of the University of Southern California, has been used for over 30 years as the basis for many policy decisions and motorcycle safety programs, especially in regard to use of helmets.

Many changes have come about since the Hurt Report was published, such as the advent of the faster and lighter so-called “bullet bikes,” as well as changes in some of the rules of the road and in rider demographics.  The current Motorcycle Crash Causation Study (MCCS) is the first U.S. investigation into the causes of motorcycle crashes since the Hurt Report, and it will provide a strong dataset that can be used to develop countermeasures and safety standards.

“We collect about 1,600 variables related to every crash,” said Nazemetz. “We look at all factors such as driver training, attitude, what type of roadway, roadway conditions, lighting conditions, what the rider was wearing in terms of protective or less than protective gear, what type of motorcycle, motorcycle characteristics like what type of lighting (strobe lights, dual headlights, single head light), dominating color – color can be considered a conspicuity factor, horsepower to weight ratios; those are all things that would contribute to policy development.”

The MCCS is being conducted in Orange County, California, a location that allows data to be collected year round.  It is also the location where the Hurt Report investigation was conducted, so a historical comparison can be made to the same site. The current study will include data from 350 motorcycle crashes. With approximately seven crash investigations finished per month, the data collection is projected to be completed in early 2016 with the data analysis to be completed by July of 2016.

Asked if any findings were already obvious in the study, Nazemetz stated “I don’t want to talk about preliminary conclusions because those get set in stone. We’ve still got quite a few to go in terms of the crashes. We’ve got 250 closed at this point, so we’re about 70% of the way through. The data analysis as you might suspect is fairly cumbersome with that many data elements (350 x 1,600) for the study. For financial reasons, we don’t do a lot of intermediate analysis, because we would have to redo it all at the end when we have a complete data set. Our job is to collect the data and make it available to other researchers and policy developers.”

According to Nazemetz, the current study can be compared with the motorcycle crash causation study conducted in Europe and to a lesser extent to a larger study done in Thailand. Thus, the MCCS will allow comparisons to be made nationally as well as internationally.

Nazemetz continued, “We’re not trying to say our data is representative of the United States; we don’t have the snow in California that Minnesota does and those kinds of things, but it’s a good representative sample of that local environment and can give you a rich insight into factors involved – Are people tired when they are driving? Are they impaired? Is the other driver impaired? What is the precipitating event of the crash?   Is it the motorcycle operator, or is it the other vehicle, or is it some road condition? - those types of things.”

As principal investigator, Nazemetz coordinates the study, which includes subcontractors on both the East and West Coasts.  Dynamic Science Inc., a division of Exodyne Inc. specializing in highway safety research, conducts the crash investigations in Orange County, California.  Another California firm, Collision and Injury Dynamics, is conducting extensive testing of helmets as part of the study.  Westat, a statistical services company in Rockville, Maryland with a history of vehicle-related studies, provides the data analysis.  

The actual crash scene investigators are three former California highway patrol officers with 20-plus years of experience each. The team is led by Jim Perry, recognized as one of the best crash reconstructionists in the U.S. The MCCS crash scene investigators work closely with the law enforcement agencies in Orange County and those agencies contact the investigators regarding motorcycle crashes. The investigators arrive quickly at the scene and conduct onsite physical investigations following an updated OECD Motorcycle Crash Study Protocol, and U.S. best practices.

Nazemetz stated that the number of experts in motorcycle crash causation research is rather small, but that the current study has taken advantage of the expertise available and assembled some of the leading motorcycle crash investigation experts in the world.  The original Hurt study included three graduate students, James Ouellet, David Thom, and Terry Smith, who have all continued to work in motorcycle safety, some having worked on the overseas motorcycle crash causation studies.  Ouellet, Thom, and Smith are all involved in the current MCCS, thus there is an over 30-year linkage with the original Hurt Report.

When asked what he enjoys most about working on the MCCS, Nazemetz said the purpose of the study is to contribute to highway safety.  He said, “Our whole goal is to save lives, so there’s a satisfaction in terms of completing the study and passing the data on; that’s the motivator.” 

- By Pam Covington