Motorcycle Feasibility

Shane McLaughlin, Ph.D., Zac Doerzaph, Ph.D.

With the ultimate goal of ensuring motorcyclists enjoy riding their bikes safely, in cooperation with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence, VTTI is instrumenting the bikes of volunteer motorcyclists to collect data on how motorcycles are ridden.

As deaths in passenger vehicle crashes fall, motorcycle fatalities are increasing. Statistical data from 2007 show two contrasting records. First, the number of fatalities resulting from passenger vehicle crashes was the lowest it has been since 1975, when the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) was started. Second, motorcycle deaths reached the highest level reported in the FARS data. In 2007, in the United States 4,727 people died in motorcycle crashes, that is two and half times the number of people killed on motorcycles in 1997, just ten years earlier. Motorcycle deaths fell during the late 1980s until the late 1990s. Unfortunately, instead of continuing to decrease, the numbers have increased every year since 1998. Several explanations for the increase in motorcycle fatalities have been suggested.

While the number of fatalities increased, so did the number of registered motorcycles and the distance traveled on motorcycles. While this increase may account for a portion of the increase in fatalities and injuries, the rate of fatalities per registered motorcycle and the rate of fatalities per mile driven have both increased. In 1996, the number of registered motorcycles was 3.9 million, and the fatality rate was 55.82 deaths per 100,000 registered bikes. In 2006, the number of registered bikes had risen to 6.7 million, and the fatality rate had risen to 71.94 deaths per 100,000 registered bikes The number of miles traveled on motorcycles rose from 9.9 billion in 1996 to 12.4 billion in 2006, and the fatality rate rose from 21.78 deaths per 100 million miles ridden to 38.79 deaths per 100 million miles ridden (Traffic Safety Facts: 2006 Data, NHTSA).

The demographics of motorcyclists have been changing over the last few years. There have also been changes in the demographics of the motorcyclists killed. For instance, the average age of a motorcyclist has risen from 27 in 1981 to 42 today. With the increasing costs of fuel, it seems likely that more people will turn to motorcycles for a fuel-efficient alternative to passenger vehicles. There also may be more new riders that have simply been attracted by other motivations, such as the enjoyment offered by riding a motorcycle.

Little research is available to help explain the increase in the number of riders and the disproportionate increase in fatalities. With the ultimate goal of helping to make motorcyclists enjoy their bikes safely, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) in cooperation with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is undertaking an effort to place instrumentation on the bikes of volunteer motorcyclists to collect data on how motorcycles are ridden. An even smaller version of the DAS used in other studies has been adapted for the special characteristics of motorcycles. VTTI has successfully run several similar studies with passenger vehicles. In one such study, VTTI instrumented the vehicles of 100 volunteers, who drove with the data-collecting equipment for about one year.

The data collection system used on the vehicles was small and unobtrusive to the driver. The 100-Car study collected about 43,000 hours of driving data over almost 2 million miles traveled by the study participants. The data collected in the 100-Car study have been and continue to be used by researchers studying ways to make the road safer for all travelers. Such data collected on motorcycles would help in this effort by supporting research specifically intended to increase the safety of motorcyclists.