8 Ball In The Wind

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Is Inclusion of Motorcycle Crash Data Too Much of a "High Cost" to Save Motorcyclists Lives?



According to a 2010 Virginia Tech-Wake Forst University study; between 2003 and 2008 there were 1,604 motorcyclist fatalities from a collision with barriers in the United States, accounting for approximately 5.8% of all motorcycle fatalities.  While over this same period only approximately 1.6% of all automobile fatalities were barrier related.    Motorcycles make up about 3% of all registered vehicles in the US.  But, according to this study, motorcyclists account for nearly half of all guardrail fatalities, and 22% of the fatalities involving concrete barriers.  During this same time frame, there were 1,723 fatalities among automobile passengers involving barriers.  In other words, nearly half of all barrier related fatalities in the US were motorcyclists.



The video above demonstrates clearly why half of all guardrail related fatalities are motorcyclists.  It also demonstrates the mindset that highway safety features are in place to protect automobile and larger vehicle occupants.  Not motorcyclists.  The posts are not the only area that provides a high risk of injury to motorcyclists that are not likely to affect occupants of other vehicles.  The top of "W-Beam" guardrails also provide a serious hazard to motorcyclists.  The sharp edges can slice open the motorcyclist as they travel along the top of the metal rail.  All while the top of the posts deliver repeated blows to the rider traveling at highway speeds along the path of the rail.  Concrete "jersey barriers", signposts, cable barriers, and more all constitute dangerous and often fatal "fixed obstacles" to motorcyclists in a crash.

A 2004 study compiled for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) entitled; "Improving the Compatibility of Vehicles and Roadside Safety Hardware" would seem to be a possible step in the right direction.  In the first paragraph of chapter 2 of the report entitled "Analysis of Real Worl Crash Information" on page 7 reads as follows; "It was found that the different classes of vehicles had different compatibility issues with roadside hardware systems."  Even with that line in mind, which would seem to indicate the report would investigate the "different compatibility issues" of all vehicles, nowhere in the 262 pages of the report are motorcycles even mentioned.  However, vehicles are broken down into categories within the report.  The categories are; car, truck, SUV, and van.  Again it appears that even the NCHRP tends; whether consciously or not, to exclude motorcycles from highway transportation policy thinking.

In 2008, the NCHRP did release another report, part of the NCHRP Report 500.  This was volume 22 of the NCHRP 500 Report; "A Guidance for Addressing Collisions Involving Motorcycles".  Was this finally a transportation policy actually concerned about motorcycle safety?  Not really, if one takes the opportunity to read it.  Section IV is entitled; "Index of Strategies by Implementation Timeframe and Relative Cost".  It is this section of the report that shows how little motorcycle transportation safety means to policy planners.  The same failed strategies such as increasing awareness of impaired motorcyclists, the benefits of wearing high-visibility clothing, and increasing the use o FMVSS-218 compliant helmets are all listed as low cost to implement and operate.  Does it seem strange that these low-cost strategies are virtually the only ones the transportation bureaucrats tend to implement?  The report also lists such strategies as; considering motorcycles in the selection of roadside barriers, including motorcycle attributes into vehicle exposure data collection programs, and developing a set of analysis tools for motorcycle crashes.  However, each of these strategies, which seem like common sense to motorcyclists, is listed as being of "moderate to high cost" to maintain and operate.  This could well be some of the best and most effective strategy options, but because the NCHRP lists them as they have, it would seem to have the effect of these strategies being completely ignored.  Even the simple act of forming "strategic alliances with the motorcycle user community " to promote motorcycle safety is listed as a "moderate" cost.  These categorizations of strategies may well explain the virtually complete lack of motorcycle policy in transportation planning in Washington State.

This Washington State DOT's video provides a fine example of the total failure to consider motorcycles in transportation policy.  Watch the video closely and see how many motorcycles are used in testing and demonstrating safety benefits of cable barriers, or how first responders can extricate motorcyclists from cable barriers after a crash.  Also, notice that vehicles weighing many times greater than a motorcycle are used in testing, but motorcycles are not used to demonstrate cable deflection.  

As long as there is no legislative pressure to change, policies that place virtually all the focus of motorcycle safety on impairment awareness, Hi-Viz clothing, training, and helmet use, nothing will change.  If motorcycles are to be considered when designing roadways and roadside barriers, the owners of approximately one-quarter million motorcycles in Washington state need to demand their legislators pressure the WSDOT to begin seriously developing a set of analysis tools for motorcycle crashes, and including motorcycle attributes into vehicle exposure data collection programs.  Only by pressuring legislators across the state can motorcycles possibly even begin to be considered worthy of the "high cost" of implementing these strategies by the WSDOT.  

With Washington State repeatedly using the goal of "Target Zero" in transportation planning policy, shouldn't motorcycles actually be included in the data sets WSDOT, and other state agencies use concerning highway infrastructure and roadside safety barriers?  Or has the low cost of failed strategies kept them in place even though they have had little effect on reducing motorcycle fatalities in Washington State?  By not including motorcycles into vehicle exposure data, or creating analysis tools for motorcycle crashes, is WSDOT and other agencies saying that even working toward effectively analyzing motorcycle crash data too "high cost" to implement in order to reach 'Target Zero'?  Or is the cost in human lives each year through lack of actually including data from this mode of transportation not already enough of a "high cost"?

Catch you on the road sometime...



Saturday, June 2, 2018

Centerline Rumble Strip Danger To Motorcyclists Disregarded By WSDOT


The following diagram and quoted text is an excerpt from page 38 of the Washington State DOT's 2011 study on Centerline Rumble Strips; comparing the results of motorcycle crashes before and after installation of the centerline rumble strips.



"Excluding Motorcycles

While the motorcycle findings (see Figure 5.15) are an interesting study on their own, it is clear that they are skewing portions of the CLRS analysis.  For that reason, these 35 motorcycle collisions were excluded from the dataset."

Except for the complete lack of mention of motorcycles in WSDOT publications and studies, it is hard to imagine a more blatant example of the total disregard for motorcyclists by the WSDOT.  Despite the percentage of "fatal & serious injury" motorcycle crashes after the installation of Centerline Rumble Strips (CLRS) nearly doubling, the researchers excluded the entire dataset because it was "skewing" their data.  Doesn't the fact that WSDOT researchers chose to completely ignore such a significant increase in serious and fatal motorcycle crashes because it was "skewing" the data bring into question the entire validity of the study?  Besides the fact that the existence of such a high percentage change should have begged to be answered as to why, but was ignored, the fact that researchers completely ignored the data because it was not in line with the desired result, and redefined the purposes of CLRS so that they were not "not an effective countermeasure for this class of vehicle" brings forward the question of how intent were the researchers to support the benefits of CLRS regardless of their safety findings.

"The primary contributing circumstances CLRS are expected to influence are those where an operator is asleep, fatigued, or distracted."  While that may be the intent, completely disregarding the safety deficiencies of CLRS in regards to motorcycles simply because the data was "skewing" the results away from CLRS being beneficial in influencing a vehicle operator who is "asleep, fatigued, or distracted" would seem to be placing a much lower value on the lives of motorcyclists than other motor vehicle operators.  The complete lack of any mention of motorcycles or their riders in the 2013 follow-up study would appear to support the hypothesis that the lives of motorcyclists were not of as great of a concern to WSDOT as ensuring that CLRS became a ubiquitous element of the highways in Washington State in order to influence the effects of "asleep, fatigued, or distracted" drivers.  

Beyond the fact that WSDOT has apparently "cherry-picked" data to support the added expense of grinding CLRS into the roadway,  even though this has the detrimental effect of increasing the rate of roadway degradation requiring repair more often.  It also would seem to show that WSDOT is open to ignoring both the safety of an entire mode of transportation in pursuit of a satisfactory data result, but also disregards the Governor's highway safety plan "Target Zero", and it's goal of no serious or fatal crashes on Washington's roadways by 2030.  It also brings the question of how many other studies have been "cherry picked" to provide the desired result for WSDOT, regardless of the risks created for users of the states highway system.  

Catch you on the road sometime...if the road doesn't kill you first.