Fatality Risk Mitigation for Rural Motorcycle Collisions with Trees and Utility Poles

Around 200 motorcycle fatalities result from rural roadway departures into trees or utility poles in the United States annually. A logistic regression model for calculating the fatality risk for motorcyclists colliding with fixed objects was previously developed by the authors. In this paper, the model is used to estimate the fatality risk of motorcyclists colliding with trees and utility poles following a departure from a rural roadway. Real-world data of fatal cases from 2000 to 2009 in the United Sates is collected, and a fatality risk analysis is performed to investigate the benefits that various road safety measures may have had in the reduction of the fatality risk in these cases. Safety measures include reducing speed, helmet use and the installation of barriers to protect the motorcyclists from impacting the trees or poles. The benefits are expressed in terms of the resulting reductions in fatality risk, calculated using the logistic regression model. The road safety measures are discussed in terms of their relative benefit to reducing the fatality risk of motorcyclists, in rural roadway departure collisions with trees and utility poles.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANF30 Motorcycles and Mopeds
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Bambach, Mike
  • Grzebieta, Raphael
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
• Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 12p
• Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash risk forecasting; Fatalities; Motorcycles; Ran off road crashes; Rural highways; Trees; Utility poles
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I80: Accident Studies; I85: Safety Devices used in Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01371352
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 12-1278
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 30 2012 3:01PM