Talk:Motorcycle safety

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Motorcycle safety is within the scope of the Motorcycling WikiProject, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of motorcycles and motorcycling. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

"Crash bars (...) are designed to protect a rider's legs (and the motor) from injury in a rollover."

AFAIK, crash bars are only designed to protect the motorcycle, not the rider

Comment: Regarding crash bar safety what current R and D is being done on rider protecting crash bars and crash cages? What is the in-use record of the airbag jackets? Where are the best forums for developing crash safety technology?

"A skilled rider can stop a motorcycle without ABS in a shorter distance under ideal conditions. However, ABS provides a substantial measure of safety in the less-than-ideal conditions experienced in the real world."

This has been shown untrue in manufacturer tests. I've removed it.

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Contents 1 Causes of accidents 2 Examples of motorcycle deaths involving experienced riders 3 Braindead motorcyclers are important source or not? 4 Cleanup 5 ATGATT & MOTGMOTT

[edit] Causes of accidents

The Causes Section doesn't mention at all the possibility that the accidents may be caused by the rider. The "In Depth Study" cited in the sources section show that about 40% of accidents are the primary fault of the rider. The section should be amended to include information about these types of accident. The main cause of rider-fault accidents is loosing control on a bend. If others agree I'm happy to write an additional paragraph for the article citing some of the figures from the "In Depth Study" ? Tonywoodhouse 17:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The paragraph beginning "In the UK, road accident investigators discovered that up to 70% of motorcycle accidents were rider error", that conclusion is the opposite of the Hurt report, the UK's Think! Road Safety program figures, and Honda's ASV (Advanced Safety Vehicle) research, probably others. The 70% rider error figure doesn't seem to be supported any references, so where does it come from? AndroidCat 17:20, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

This paragraph still hasn't been cited, and the 70% figure and "The majority of these accidents happened on left hand bends" seem to be pulled from someone's hat. From the UK Department of Transport, In Depth Study of Motorcycle Accidents (2004), p.41 and nearby, that's just not so. (Some figures are from a questionaire about what riders think, others are from the actual accident database, so check the captions.)

It needs to be changed, cited or removed. AndroidCat 17:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

In the UK, road accident investigators discovered that up to 70% of motorcycle accidents were rider error{{fact}}, and didn't initially involve another vehicle. The majority of these accidents happened on left hand bends. Riders were found to be travelling beyond their ability going into the corner, and lost their confidence half way through the corner. The result was that they panicked, grabbed the front brake, and this would force the bike to alter course, causing an accident. In the majority of these accidents, it was found that had they not panicked, the bike would have negotiated the corner successfully.

I removed the text until it can be changed and/or cited. AndroidCat 16:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of motorcycle deaths involving experienced riders

Re this section. I feel this is a vanity article, as it simply points out a few non-notable people who have died while riding motorcycles. It seems heavily weighted towards police officers, so the "experienced" title is innaccurate, and in any case has no hope of being a comprehensive list, given that a much greater number of "experienced riders" have had and will continue to have fatal accidents.

However, I'm open to discussion on this topic. If there are no other objections or concerns, I'm planning to remove the section again. -Tejastheory 19:59, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The intention of the section is to demonstrate with accurate and well-documented real-life examples that motorcycles are lethal when operated exactly the way intended by the manufactures. The list of deaths of experienced riders, including the president of a motorcycle club and numerous police offiecers, sheds an accurate light on the limitation of "motorcycle safety" which is an oxymoron when 80% of motorcycle accidents result in death or serious injury.

Look at the Wiki definition of vanity and you will see that such definition does not apply since I do not have any association with the deceased individuals. I believe the real motive for removing the section is to downplay the extent of serious well-documented danger of this consumer product. There is a pattern of downplaying the deadliness of motorcycles by the motorcycle fans who generally contribute to these wiki pages, which has been demonstrated by the redaction of mortality statistics from both the Harley-Davidson and the Motorcycle articles. Such censorship has no wiki basis and such activity gives the strong appearance of nothing more than product-support based censorship. As one writer in the Harley-Davidson discussion page noted, that article is little more than a Harley-Davidson company portal. If you would like to continue this discussion, let's copy our comments over to the Motorcycle safety page and continue it there. Then when I put a neutrality disputed tag on the page, it will make sense to all concerned.

David F. Traver 00:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Note: the below is taken from the each users' respective talk pages. I felt it more clearly explains the thought behind this section, so included it here.

Sorry, forgot to mention that I already placed this into Talk:Motorcycle_safety. I realize your concerns, and under that basis, I'd completely agree with you. But I believe there are already plenty of mentions of the dangers of motorcycles. My main point of removing the section wasn't about minimizing the dangers, but simply because it seemed, as I read the article the first time, extremely unproffesional and specific. Specifically, what is so special about these people who are listed, and why not list the millions of other motorcycle deaths?

-Tejastheory 00:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

As an initial matter, what makes those deceased individuals "special" is that their motorcycle-related deaths are well-documented on the web, as was their experience as motorcycle operators. So it was possible to provide supporting links.

Perhaps there is a middle ground which will be satisfying to you and to other readers of the motorcycle-related pages. I suggest we collaborate to create a new article titled something like "Motorcycle social costs and mortality rates." We could move information from the "safety" page to the new page. The notion of discussing "motorcycle safety" is an oxymoron to me, since there is nothing a rider can do to make the machine safe for operation on a highway. It is somewhat like having safe Russian roulette. Social costs and mortality rates could explore the death rate, lost earnings, costs to Medicaid, welfare, Supplemental Security Income, and Social Security Disability due to uninsured and unemployable motorcycle accident victims, etc. We could document and show the social costs in miles traveled to differentiate motorcycles from modes of transportation that have substantially fewer social costs, such as airplanes, automobiles, trains, and buses. It would be a pleasure to have someone to work with on the project. David F. Traver 00:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I think you have some good ideas, Traverlaw. I don't even think a new article is necessary; that kind of informatin is certainly relevant to even the main motorcycle article, or this could be changed to something more general such as "Risks/Dangers of Motorcycle riding". For the present, however, I'm going to remove the information on these specific deaths, reasons being that they seem much too specific and "highlight" non-notable deaths, and don't illustrate the dangers of motorcycle better than the actual facts and statistics in this article. -Tejastheory 03:42, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I note that your rationale for removing this section changed with every discussion. You originally tagged it as a "vanity" edit. Not all readers can understand or internalize raw statistics. It does not take any math background to understand that when motorcycle club presidents and police are being killed on their Harleys, there is a severe limitation to the popular myth that experience riders are "safe" when riding on a highway. However, I think you have shown several ways in which the section can be improved. Since "motorcycle safety" is a deceptive oxymoron, I will go ahead and create the new article soon, moving much of the information about mortality and social costs into a new article that is not predicated on the notion that the product could be safe on highways. A new article on point will be a good place to discuss other high social costs, such as the new study on the way from and Australian medical society quantifying the social cost of motorcycle crash-related hospital expenses in comparison to non-motorcyclists, which is not related to safety, but describes only costs and burdens on society caused by this inherently dangerous consumer product. David F. Traver 11:42, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Braindead motorcyclers are important source or not?

How important are motorcyclists to the organ transplant programme (cadaveric donors)? I read the claim in a tabloid that organ transplant programmes would become simply impossible to maintain without the steady supply of head-crushed motorcyclists. Is that true?

It was written in order to oppose the idea that new traffic law would ban motorcycles from carrying more than one person. That is, the tabloid editors think it is a positive idea that rich, reckless young adults can save the lives of six or seven other people via self-extermination.

[edit] Cleanup

Most cleanup is needed on the lead section (better tone, less detail, etc). Green caterpillar 20:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

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I have removed the sentence "It is HIGHLY dangerous!!" from the introduction until anybody can tell me where "HIGHLY" starts and what is considered "minor" dangerous - The only conclusion we can get out of the figures presented in the first part is that riding a motorcycle is more dangerous than operating a car, which is no statement about the risk of motorcycling itself.

(Millions of people die in bed, beds are dangerous)

Indeed, in terms of emergency room visits, riding a horse is far more dangerous than riding a motorcycle.

I though that edit was out of line and probably inserted by an anti-motorcyclist. Thanks for fixing it.

Jeff dean 18:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ATGATT & MOTGMOTT

I agree that both of these should be merged into motorcycle safety. However, both are commonly used phrases and should be retained and clearly visible within the body of the page - ideally as subsections of the section on Personal protective equipment. --Cheesy Mike 17:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

So who does this? Can you do it, Cheeseman? If so, I say, DO IT! Jeff dean 18:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Happy to do it, would like to see a couple more opinions first though. :-) --Cheesy Mike 19:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Understandable I suppose. But the ATGATT and MOTGMOTT acronyms are pretty useless as shown and would not be found by someone interested in motorcycle safety — where the information would be more useful. Hell, I am an MSF[1] Chief Instructor and RiderCoach Trainer, and I have never heard of those acronyms So, I suggest you seize the bull by the horns and MERGE! Jeff dean 00:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)