Talk:Motorcycle safety

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WikiProject Motorcycling 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.

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"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.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Button_reflink.png==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)


The quote "The number one cause of motorcycle crashes is the failure of riders to countersteer." strikes me as a bit of a crock, taking something out of context and turning it into a headline of sorts. The simple fact is that the physics of riding is going to have the front end countersteering into a corner whether the rider is conscious of it or not. Motorcycle training classes will teach the rider to do it consciously, but "failure to countersteer" is just plain BS. The real cause pointed to in that quote from the Hurt report is lack of training - not one specific technique. Poor breaking is at least as serious here as any lack of conscious countersteering.

Perhaps worse, there's a paragraph later in the same section which uses the Superbike school example to show that it's impossible to turn the bike without countersteering. While the section is quite informative on how to steer a bike, what does it have to do with "the cause of accidents"? (Side note: I'm quite familiar with how motorcycles handle and the fine art of countersteering (and "counter-countersteering," for that matter) with a lot of miles in the saddle, and a couple of spectacular crashes - none of which involved a failure to countersteer...)

A later quote in the same section calls the failure to see motorcyles the predominant cause, (contradicting the long - and weak - countersteer section) then goes on to talk about headlights and bright clothing. I saw no reference to debris, road conditions (potholes and the like), poor maintenance, etc. Overall, the whole section's kind of rubish.

Personally, I think the entire section needs a bit more research to find some good and (and recent!) statistics so it can get a complete rewrite. A simple description of "Rider error", "Road conditions", "Second vehicle", etc., with appropriate statistics is going to be a lot more effective and accurate than what's there now.

Cheers

Bagheera (talk) 19:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with nearly all your points above about contradictions and emphasis, I strongly disagree with your assertion that "the simple fact is that the physics of riding is going to have the front end countersteering into a corner whether the rider is conscious of it or not." There is simply no published evidence to support this. Instead, it is quite easy for a rider to apply enough torque to turn the handlebars as he or she would the steering wheel of a car and thus have no hope of negotiating a turn. I suspect an inexperienced rider will have difficulty especially with a decreasing radius once already in a turn. This requires momentarily turning the bars away from the direction of the turn when instinct may suggest turning them further into the turn. -AndrewDressel (talk) 19:41, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps I should have been more clear and said "to successfully negotiate a turn" at the start of that. If a rider tries to steer a bike the way they steer a car, they simply won't be able to make the turn. While I haven't looked for published evidence on it, the Superbike School example mentioned in the article shows the effect pretty well. In fact, if you happen to have a bicycle handy, you can prove it to yourself. Grab the seat, walk forward, and lean the bike into a turn. If you watch the handlebars closely you'll see that they countersteer momentarily before the bike settles over into the lean. Even if a rider's not consciously aware of it, they're still doing it - if only passively by letting the front end do what it needs to do - whenever they enter a corner. The exception is at very low speeds where you are actually caster-steering the bike. That only works at a walking pace. Any faster, and you need to lean. You may well be right on an inexperienced rider mishandling a decreasing radius turn, but that points back to the root cause being 'rider training' rather than 'didn't countersteer'.
Cheers
Bagheera (talk) 15:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
The effect you describe, of a bike momentarily steering opposite the direction of lean, depends on the lean being caused rapidly enough, and the steering mechanism having a center of mass forward of the steering axis enough, so that its angular momentum about the steering axis can momentarily overcome the combined torques, due to trail, gyroscopic effects of the rotating front wheel, and gravity, that eventually steer it in the direction of the lean. The math depends on a particular bike, rider, and their forward speed, of course, but I would be surprised to learn that many bikes countersteer on their own at all by simply leaning them in the direction of the turn. I haven't read this anywhere yet. With a rider on the bike, the effect also depends on the rider holding the bars loosely enough to let the bars momentarily countersteer. -AndrewDressel (talk) 19:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, in response to "I would be surprised to learn that many bikes countersteer on their own" I have to ask - do you ride? I'm sure if we dug into it enough we could find some study somewhere of how motorcycles actually turn. But I think we may be drifting away from the ultimate problem with the article - namely, how it's written.
The way I see it, aside from the bad focus on countersteering, the section talks about all sorts of things that aren't really related to the actual causes of motorcycle accidents. The root causes are really (and probably not in order) Rider Error (Lack of experience, training, or bad judgement), Environmental Causes (debris, oil, gravel, potholes, etc.), Third Party (Another motorist, rider, or pedestrian directly causes the incident), mechanical Fialure (Arguably an environmental factor) or a Combination of the above (for example an inexperienced rider crashing on gravel a more experienced rider could have negotiated.) Even as explained in the Hunt report, the "failure to countersteer" is the mechanism, while the cause is the rider's lack of experience. It as much as says that in the quote used in the article.
I would honestly like to see the whole section re-written, focusing on the actual root causes, and moving the stuff like "wear bright clothing" and "learn to countersteer" into a section on Improving Rider Safety. All of that stuff is -correcting- the cause, not the cause itself. Obviously, it'll take some research to find proper citations to the causes, but I'm fairly sure it's out there. The root cause for pretty much all vehicular accidents are the same, regardless of the type of vehicle. The details vary, but the main four: User error, environment, mechanical failure, third party, remain the same.
Cheers
Bagheera 20:22, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I certainly do ride. I've had a few bikes and currently am enjoying a Moto Guzzi California Special. In any case, I agree with or have no opinion about most of the points you make about how the article is written. I only take issue with one point. I've read quite a bit about how bikes turn, and I do not believe that I have yet come across the claim that you appear to be making: that motorcycles countersteer on their own. -AndrewDressel 23:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm . . . Guzzi California Special . . . Nice ride. And perhaps I misphrased that. It's not so much that the bike does it on its own, but that the physical effect of the bars momentarily countersteering happens whether the rider is consciously aware of it or not. Whether the rider initiates it by leaning, with a relaxed enough grip on the bars that they're allowed to shift (as demonstrated at the Superbike school), or whether the rider consciously does it to initiate a fast lean - something I'm sure you do yourself. Ultimately though, my comments on countersteering aren't for the article. They were just pointing out problems with the article as it's written. So, now, I guess it's a matter of getting a bit of research into this and some more consensus on rewriting it.
Cheers
Bagheera 19:16, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Sticking to what can actually be cited would be best, and weighting in the article given to what can be shown by statistics from studies as the main causes of accidents. I have a hard time with lack of countersteering as the main cause of accidents when studies have consistently shown that most accidents involve another vehicle and most of those are the other driver's fault. AndroidCat 03:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I would agree. I am going to try and track down a copy of the Hurt report itself and see what other statistics I can gather before doing any writing on this. If you've got any other sources we could use, that would be great. I'm sure the NTSB or some other related organization publishes data - though I'm not sure whether they break it out into a format we can use to support conclusions about accident causes.
Bagheera (talk) 01:11, 6 December 2007 (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)


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)

[edit] Scooter fashion blog

It's an interesting blog, and I might add it to my bookmarks beside Scooter Scoop, but (a) it's a blog, (b) its focus is on fashion rather than safety (although the two can overlap). It seems to be covered under WP:EL, Links normally to be avoided, 11. Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority.

Now, WP:EL is a guideline rather than a policy, so there can be some leeway if there's enough of a consensus by editors. My own feeling is that it doesn't have enough relevance to safety to worry about making an exception. AndroidCat 21:37, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It should not be there. Jeff dean 23:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't have thought it would be possible to have that good of a blog about such a narrow topic. And scooter racing?? Do many people really race with scooters? Anyway, on-topic, it does talk about safety almost as much as it talks about fashion, though I still think I agree with the above that it's not focused enough on safety, and not authoritative enough. --Interiot 23:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
They race in Japan and it looks like fun.[2][3] AndroidCat 01:13, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wright Brothers

"Wilbur Wright, The Wright Brothers, F.C. Kelly, Ballentine, 1966"

I've just read through this and could not find the material quoted in this article. Does anyone know if it is from a particular edition or what page it is on? -AndrewDressel 17:58, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The material obviously comes from this website, which doesn't provide a source for the text. It could not have come from the purported original source, because the website author says he deliberately changed "bicycle" to "bike", and our version uses "bike". If you read "The Wright Brothers" and didn't see it, I'm betting it's not there. Having an incorrect source like this, in my opinion, is dubious enough that we should not simply remove the source, but we should remove the material as well. --Allen 20:36, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] deceptive language and diagrams?

We call the following language "deceptive": "To turn, the motorcycle must lean. To lean the motorcycle, press on the handgrip in the direction of the turn. Press left-lean left-go left. Press right-lean right-go right. Higher speeds and or tighter turns require the motorcycle to lean more.[7]"

How is this deceptive? It's just a description of countersteering that doesn't use the word itself. Unless someone can find a reliable source calling this language deceptive, we should take it out. Same goes for the claim about "deceptive" images, which doesn't even make clear what images it's talking about.

Also, we have too much quoted text in the article. Not as big a deal as the unsourced claims, though. --Allen 20:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Undue weight for countersteering

"The number one cause of motorcycle crashes is the failure of riders to countersteer." There doesn't seem to be anything to support that conclusion or the rest of the section in the summary of the Hurt Report. What it does say is "The failure of motorists to detect and recognize motorcycles in traffic is the predominating cause of motorcycle accidents." AndroidCat 21:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree. Most of the countersteering content on the page should be removed and reduced to a single paragraph at most - and the content transferred, if appropriate, to the countersteering article. The content that is here smacks a bit of grandstanding. --Cheesy Mike 21:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
There's a thread on this above under "causes of accidents." Certainly welcome more input before completely redoing the section. I'm going to try and get a copy of the Hurt report itself to see the full context.
Cheers
Bagheera 00:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Starting a rewrite

For those interested, I have (finally) started a rewrite of the Causes of Accidents section in my Sandbox area. We had quite a bit of discussion on the subject, and I figure it's about time to get rid of that terrible "Not countersteering causes accidents!" section.

Cheers

Bagheera (talk) 20:16, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Bagheera - I've read your sandbox, it's an infinite improvement over the current content - please remove all the countersteering stuff and put your content in it's place. Counter steering is a very interesting topic, but all this information should be in the counter-steering article. It has no place in this discussion other than a single sentence stating the number of accidents the Hurt report claims are caused by inability to consciously use countersteering to perform fast evasive manouveurs. This sentence should appear in your "Operator Error" section. My only criticism of your sandbox is the splitting of environment from operator error. It's a tricky issue to get right, but there is a lot of strength to the argument that all environmental causes are actually operator error - skid on ice (shouldn't go so fast round icy corner) - skid on diesel spill (shouldn't ride quickly on traffic junction next to filling station) - lost control after hitting pothole or dead animal (should watch where you are riding) etc. etc. This section is currently awful with very little actual supported fact about causes of accidents at all. Tonywoodhouse (talk) 01:22, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
I support getting rid of the countersteering stuff. Very much POV IMHO. I'll chip in with some contributions once you put your stuff into the main article. --TimTay (talk) 08:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
I've just read the Hurt report summary - it absolutely does not say that lack of countersteering is the primary cause of accidents - whoever wrote that stuff had clearly never read it. This whole section is wrong, wrong wrong. At the risk of upsetting a few people, I will re-write the whole section on causes based on Bagheera's sandbox shortly unless anyone objects. I'll cite both the Hurt Summary and the more recent british study. It's worth mentioning that the Hurt study is largely unreliable when looking at the causes of modern UK accidents. It talks about only 10% riders having a licence, insurance, and the vast majority of riders not wearing a helmet. All of these factors are totally different in the UK where helmet, insurance and licence are compulsory. Tonywoodhouse (talk) 21:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)