Motorcycle safety

About 3, 000 people die everyday on roads around the world with another 30, 000 more surviving but are severely disabled.  At this rate, road traffic accidents may become the third leading cause of death worldwide by the year 2010 (Wells, Mullin, Norton, Langley, Connor, Lay-Yee, R. & Jackson, 2004).  Because of the severity of this issue, the authors have conducted a study to determine the causes of road traffic accidents among motorcycle drivers.  The study was focused to determine if the ability of motorcyclists to be seen on the road to be a vital cause for motorcycle accidents on the road (Wells, et al., 2004).

The study was conducted over a period of three years in Auckland, New Zealand where the authors selected 150 survey sites on major motorways.  The study was conducted on random times between six in the morning and midnight on different days of the week and different directions of travel.

The participants of the survey were randomly selected on the road and were interviewed as to whether they use their headlights during the daytime, if the driver uses reflective or fluorescent clothing materials while on the road, the color of the motorcycle vehicle, the color of the clothing of the driver and the helmet color used by the driver.  Based on their findings, they were able to conclude that the use of headlights during the daytime, reflective or fluorescent clothing and light color helmets greatly reduced the chances of the driver from being involved in a motorcycle accident that may result to severe injuries or death (Wells, et al., 2004).

Although the article was informative as to what precautions a motorcycle driver can take in order to avoid getting involved into a major road accident that could kill the driver or leave the driver permanently disabled, the study is very limited in that they only concentrated on how the visibility of the motorcycle driver is on the road.  It did not take into consideration other factors such as alcohol consumption on the part of the motorcycle driver or other motor vehicles, speeding and drowsiness.

References

Wells, S., Mullin, B., Norton, R., Langley, J., Connor, J., Lay-Yee, R. & Jackson, R.  (2004,

February 2).  Motorcycle rider conspicuity and crash related injury: case-control study. BMJ. Retrieved on February 1, 2008.