A new report challenges the assumption that there is a link between the speed a motorcycle is travelling at, and the severity of the injuries to the rider, in the event of a collision.
The report, based on the findings of a survey of almost 1,600 riders from 30 countries who had been involved in a collision in the last decade, is authored by a team of four researchers from across the globe – including Dr Elaine Hardy from the UK.
It found that the speed of the motorcycle when it crashes with another vehicle, road infrastructure or other object ‘does not necessarily determine the severity of the injuries of the motorcyclist’.
Instead, the report concludes that ‘the mechanism of the crash (the trajectory of the rider post-crash) has far more importance than speed in terms of the type and the severity of injuries’ – before going on to describe the correlation between speed and the seriousness of injuries as ‘random’.
The researchers say the survey findings suggest that ‘orthodox motorcycle accident analysis appears to be looking the wrong way’, in typically identifying human error as the major cause of collisions involving motorcyclists.
Elaine Hardy said: “The riders who replied to the survey came from a varied age range, motorcycling experience, as well as depth of skills and training.
“The new research presented in the report, most importantly involved riders bringing their personal experience and their expertise beyond that of simple academia.
“Riders understand motorcycling in a way quite different than that of academia, where statistical analyses of large databases such as police reports and hospital records has displaced research that requires in depth crash scene investigative knowledge.
“The riders’ crash details which were provided through the responses to the questions as well as the comments they offered, brought those stories of personal experiences which included treatment of their injuries, pillion riders and the dynamics of their crash, that in their own words allowed a deeper insight into the dynamics of crashes and the circumstances.”
Elaine: can I ask.. how were the speeds you’ve listed actually determined? Each one seems to be an estimated range, but somehow still to one decimal place! As far as I am aware, motorcycles do not have black boxes which retain speed data as four-wheeled vehicles do.
Hugh Jones
--19
Elaine
Please do not make assumptions. I met and spoke to both the mothers concerned. You imply that I was lying by saying I spoke to both mothers. Will you retract that accusation?
I agree with you that the trajectory of riders post crash can have a great influence on injury and survival. But that does not isolate speed as not being significant. If your answer to my two questions was yes, then why do you not show me the results?
If you actually show proof that “when a rider loses control then their speed will not have an effect on the consequent injury then I will revise my view.
Equally for hitting stationary objects.
Rod King, Lymm
--24
So there are two cases – one a woman of 47 – did you speak to her grieving mother? The other a woman of 22. Presumably you are referring to the latter case. So not several grieving mothers.
That said, there is no excuse for dangerous driving (without a licence or insurance as in the case you highlight). There are unfortunately idiots out there but that does not mean that motorcyclists or pedestrians or car drivers should be injured or killed because of the stupidity and carelessness of other road users. We need to work together to find solutions.
We aimed to find solutions to reduce injuries for motorcyclists and that was the purpose of our study which was to look at the dynamics of the crashes to see what could be done and what we found out was that the trajectory of the riders post crash had a far greater effect on their injuries. That’s all.
Fin.
Elaine
+23
Elaine
You can find the details here :-
https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/9393388.biker-who-killed-lymm-woman-in-crash-near-cockhedge-centre-has-sentence-cut/
and here:-
https://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/6063
Rod
Rod King, Lymm
--25
Rod, while I have your attention. You wrote “And having met several grieving mothers whose pedestrian daughters were hit by motorcyclists and died I can certainly attest that the speed of the rider can certainly increase the severity of injury to impacted pedestrians.”
Could you please provide more details of the circumstances of these cases. Places, dates, police reports if possible? Newspaper articles? Also speed identified (as you seem to have information regarding speed), names of the motorcyclists who killed the daughters of the several grieving mothers and possibly the names of the daughters who were killed? I presume that the motorcyclists were arrested if they were responsible for these deaths? Coroner’s reports, court cases? I would appreciate that information so that I can dig deeper and find out more. Then I could put that information out to the motorcycling community.
Thank you
Dr Elaine Hardy
Elaine
+17
The speed of the riders who collided with the 6 pedestrians are as follows:
19.2 to 24.8 mph
0.6 to 6.2 mph
11 to 20 mph
13 to 18.6 mph
13 to 18.6 mph
25.5 to 31 mph
In response to your 3 questions, the answer is in the title – The Dynamics of Motorcycle Crashes
in answer to question one – yes
in answer to question two – yes
in answer to question three – no – that wasn’t the purpose of the study.
Sincerely,
Dr Elaine Hardy
Elaine
+13
It’s worth pointing out that the four motorcycle/pedestrian collisions Elaine has listed would have been avoided by vigilant, defensive riding….same applies for car drivers as well.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
--25
OK Elaine. You win. I am trying hard, but when I ask a question 3 times and you don’t give me the answer then that either means you don’t know the answer, or do know the answer but don’t want to tell me.
I can ask once again if you like and make it really simple :-
Is there any evidence that when a rider loses control then their injury consequence will not be related to the speed they are travelling at?
Is there any evidence that when a rider strikes a stationary object that their injury consequence is not related to the speed they were travelling at?
And perhaps also tell me if you consider that the exclusion of non-survivors of such collisions could possibly skew the results.
If you can’t or don’t want to answer those questions then lets end this debate because it isn’t going anywhere.
Rod King, Lymm
--27
Hey Rod, something else for you to criticise. Have a look at this article entitled “The Stupid Factor”. It covers the three studies I wrote based on the FSNI Crash Investigation Unit’s reports.
See here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stupid-factor-elaine-hardy-1/
Sincerely
Elaine Hardy PhD
Elaine
+21
PS – just to clarify the child in the car, obviously wasn’t a pedestrian, but simply had a mother whose stupidity i.e. the thrill of speeding round a corner cost her little girl’s life. That another report you might want to read about car occupant fatalities.
See here: https://investigativeresearch.org/northern-ireland-vehicle-occupant-fatality-report-2015/
Elaine
+5
In answer to one of your questions regarding type of collision and days in hospital:
>50% of the collisions where the rider spent time in hospital were with cars/vans;
9.6% were single vehicle;
6.6% were with other PTWs;
4.6% were with crash barriers,
4% with large animals,
3.3% with trucks.
These refers to days in hospital (from 1 day to 183 days)
There were six collisions with pedestrians, four of the motorcyclists were injured.
Comments from the riders:
1)86 year old grandmother who jumped out 1 meter in front of me between parked cars.
2)Pedestrian ran into road. I took action to avoid.
3)The pedestrian was jaywalking. He wanted to cross the road by stepping between the cars. He suddenly popped out in front of me from my right. He had been obscured by a large minivan or SUV, so I wasn’t aware of him until the last moment.
4)It was a drunk pedestrian who stepped onto the street at a red pedestrian light. He wanted to flee towards the subway despite being injured. It was a foreigner – of course he had no insurance.
With regards your comment “And having met several grieving mothers whose pedestrian daughters were hit by motorcyclists and died I can certainly attest that the speed of the rider can certainly increase the severity of injury to impacted pedestrians.”
None of the cases in the survey where the rider impacted or crashed to avoid a pedestrian, were with children or daughters of grieving mothers.
With regards pedestrians – this is where I can really show how your limited knowledge comes to the fore – why is this? Because I have also looked at pedestrian fatalities in a study I carried out in Northern Ireland.
One third were drunk with average alcohol content of 232mg per 100ml, one third were old and weren’t paying attention. The majority were wearing dark clothes and were walking in the dark. The small children that were killed were with one exception under the care of a relative. The one that was with her mother was in a car where the mother egged the driver on to speed around a bend at 70 mph, which meant that the driver lost control. In other words in the case of small children, the message is – don’t leave your kids with relatives and there is no solution for “stupid”. (oh and none were with a motorcycle). My report – if you wish to attack that as well – is an analysis of the reports from the Forensic Science Northern Ireland Road Traffic Crash Investigation Unit. – see here:
https://investigativeresearch.org/ni-pedestrian-fatality-report-2014/
Your pulling on heart strings to gain notoriety is offensive.
Sincerely
Elaine Hardy PhD
Elaine
+24
Elaine
My questions have been consistent in asking for speed v injury analysis for a particular type of event such as losing control or hitting a stationary object. You have either decided not to analyse it or not to show it. To simply look at speed v injury aggregated across a wide range of causes or events surely doesn’t tell us anything if certain classes of events are far more dependent upon the speed of the impacting vehicle rather than the speed of the rider. This is particularly the case where the rider is vulnerable compared to the impacting vehicle.
I do accept that for such events there will be little correlation (or possible causation) between rider speed and injury. However you have not demonstrated this for events where the outcome is not skewed by the impacting vehicle such as losing control or impacting stationary objects. If you can show that when losing control the speed of the rider doesn’t matter or that when riding into a stationary object the speed is not critical then fine. But to suggest that the report as it stands challenges the assumption that there is a link between the speed a motorcycle is travelling at, and the severity of the injuries to the rider, in the event of a collision” is surely false.
The omission of injuries that were not survivable adds weight to the argument that the such a conclusion is false.
The report is useful and does show that in many urban crash situations other factors than rider speed will be have far greater influence in injury severity. But that does not tell the whole story.
And having met several grieving mothers whose pedestrian daughters were hit by motorcyclists and died I can certainly attest that the speed of the rider can certainly increase the severity of injury to impacted pedestrians.
Rod King, Lymm
--24
What was the point in trying to establish the relevance of speed (or not) with the injuries sustained by a motorcyclist anyway? The speed would no doubt have been relevant in the lead up to the incident, but so many other factors influence the consequences to the rider as a result – as they would for victims of any other type of road collision.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
--19
From one comment to another you have changed the questions. If you aren’t happy with the findings of our report – that’s your perogative.
I think we’re done here.
Elaine
+8
Elaine
I accept that the correlation between speed and injury is random. There are many types of event where they exist predominantly at low speed, such as stationary or urban commuting, which will weight any analysis.
But please show me the table where for a particular type of incident the speed of motorcycle is analysed against the days in hospital or severity of injury. I guess good ones that would isolate the speed of any vehicle with the rider would be “rider lost control” or “rider collided with stationary object”. I cannot see one. That is what I am missing. If its there and I haven’t found it then I apologise for “wasting your time”.
Rod
Rod King, Lymm
--24
Wha?? Table 67 refers to the type of vehicle, object or road infrastructure etc – that the respondent crashed with or didn’t in the case of single vehicle crashes. Tables 57, 58, 59, 60, 61 all refer to speed and correlation with time spent in hospital, injuries etc, as do figures 7, 8, 9 and 10.
Regards the severity of injuries, I do not think that spending 183 days in hospital or three years in rehabilition is slight.
You might wish to consider types of injuries and post crash treatment (tables 52 and 53),as well as days in hospital, rehabilitation: figures 5 and 6. You may also wish to look at table 70 Annexes 1, 2 and 3 which offer more information from the motorcyclists themselves about the events of their crashes.
You are missing something and definitely wasting my time. Have a nice day.
Elaine
+14
Elaine
I downloaded and looked at the report before I commented.
Table 67 doesn’t mention speeds. Hence the effect of a variable like speed of biker has not been analysed for a particular type of event such as losing control. Maybe I am missing something, but is there a table for that 22.5% where no other vehicle was involved where the casualty severity is analysed vs the speed of the rider.
I can well understand that many other factors can case collisions and that many will be low speed where such variables as collision angle, helmet wearing, protective clothing, object collided with can be a greater factor than biker speed, but this does not indicate that biker speed is not a factor in injury severity.
And by only surveying living survivors then you are surely removing the most severe injuries from your analysis.
With regard to the Thai report this has an even wider range of factors in motorbike use, alcohol levels, number of passengers, other driver competency all of which will cloud any correlation or causation between speed and injury severity.
As I have said, I think the report is useful, but I do not see that it provides any evidence that biker speed does not influence injury severity.
Rod King, Lymm
--23
In fine… The answer to most of the criticisms/questions is in the title of the report “The Dynamics of Motorcycle Crashes” This video might help somewhat, but ultimately, reading the report would be best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocHeJG5o8N0
Thank you
Elaine
+5
With respect Rod, I can’t believe that you read the report, your comment ” it would be useful to see an analysis for a single situation, such as biker hits stationary object, or biker loses control, and whether the speed of the biker made a difference”. It’s all there in the report. 22.5% of the respondents lost control (i.e. single vehicle table 67, page 60) – it’s all in there. Come back to me when you’ve read the report – not the press release. Regards sample bias – there were no interviews – it was a survey. Chapter 11 covers fatals.
Elaine
+17
Thanks Elaine
David Davies
+2
David, The report identifies the fact that speed is random in terms of the correlation with the severity of injuries that is not the same as saying “it’s not speed”. As the authors have commented: How the motorcyclist separates from the bike and where the motorcyclist ends up, determines whether he/she is injured and to what degree. That’s what separates out this report from orthodox analysis of motorcycle crash causation.
I appreciate that the report is 124 pages long, but IMHO it’s worth the read. You never know, you might find out something new…
Elaine
+5
Elaine
I did read the report before I commented. If you can point out where the issue of sample bias is covered regarding “only interviewing survivors” then it would be appreciated.
I accept that there are many situations where the speed of the motor-cycle as opposed to the speed of an object crashing into it may not be important. Maybe I missed it but it would be useful to see an analysis for a single situation, such as biker hits stationary object, or biker loses control, and whether the speed of the biker made a difference. Of course there is also the issue that retrospectively there can be a degree of amnesia in drivers of the speed they were doing before a crash.
I do think the report is useful, but I guess my complaint is more with the headline that “A new report challenges the assumption that there is a link between the speed a motorcycle is travelling at, and the severity of the injuries to the rider, in the event of a collision.”
This may certainly be the case in certain types of collision. Indeed one could perhaps make a similar judgement wherever a more vulnerable road user collides with a far larger road user. I guess the speed of pedestrians is not a determining factor in collisions with motor vehicles, but maybe not the same for collisions with trees.
So yes,a useful report but we should be careful of the conclusions drawn. and maybe the best way to reduce vulnerable road user injury is to reduce the speed of the invulnerable road user that so often collides with them.
Rod King, Lymm, Cheshire
--23
This sounds interesting and PACTS supports systematic in depth collision investigation. But apart from saying it’s not speed, I can’t see from this summary what you are saying is the main causation factor. (Maybe something is missing in the summary.)
“Trajectory of rider post crash” might be an important factor in the degree of injury but it would not cause the crash. (That is still likely to be driver/ rider error maybe compounded by road layout. And speed tends to makes errors more likely/serious.)
The contributory factors to collisions and to injury, and the ways to prevent both, may all be different. No doubt it’s all in the full report!
David Davies
+2
Rod, why don’t you read the report? Chapter nine should provide you with answers to some of your questions about severity. I’m not sure what you mean by sample bias – again – you should read the report. The comparison is made with other studies that include fatals. Simply it seems apparent that you have made assumptions without bothering to read the document.
Elaine
+14
Well, I was expecting some discussion of whether there was any “sample bias” inherent with the idea of only interviewing “survivors” of crashes!
I may be missing something, but whilst there may be many factors affecting the severity and likelihood of injuries in a motorbike crash I cannot see where the speed of the motorcycle is isolated out as not affecting these for any particular factor.
Rod King, Lymm
--27
Reading some of the riders’ self-reported tales of collisions they had been involved in, at least some were honest enough to acknowledge that it was their own mistakes that caused the collisions.
It isn’t rocket science to predict that an unprotected rider coming off, or hitting something at any speed, is not going to escape some injuries, even minor ones.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
--14