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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126397
they do not cause injuries In an ac cident. Second , sta tes with motorcycle helmet usage laws h ave usage rates which are extre m ely high (over 95% ). This means that almost all cyclists in those sta tes benefit from th e protection which helmets brin g . At one time , there was a Federal requi reme nt that all states ena ct a motorcycle hel met law on penalty of wit hholdi ng of Federa l fu nds. By 1975, helmet laws were almost univer sal - 47 sta tes , 'the District of Colum bia , and Puerto R ico ha d the m . But in 1976, the Congress removed the sanction pe na lty for not passing a helmet law. A number of States hav e repealed th eir helmet laws in the last few yea rs. Today, 21 States, Pu erto Rico , and the Distri ct of Columbia still require all cyclists to wear helmets. The studies we have just completed demonstrate that sta tes which repea l their helmet laws experience dramatic declines in helmet use and dis turbing increases in head injury rates . In Colorado, Kansas, So uth Dakota , and O klahoma helmet wearing rates h ave dropped to below 60% since the re peal of their helmet laws . The fatal head injury rates have doubled . Thousands of people are being killed on motorcycles every year, and tens of thousands more injured, many crippled , and maimed for life . Most of the dead and injured are under 30 years of age, Particularly damaging are the head injuries which are happening to unhelrneted riders, The head is th e most valuable and vunerable part of the body, and in j uries to it are frequentl y the most d ifficult (and most expensive) to recover from , A broken arm will heal. A broken bra in . won't. That 's wh y helmets are so im po rt ant . It 's not just the riders who pa y when they get hurt . Soc iet y pa ys, too . The rider's famil y pa ys, th e local arnbulan ce service pa ys, the hospital pays, the insu r a n ce policyholder pa ys, the gove rn ment pa ys, and when it gets right down to it , you and I pa y. As a result of t hese findings we are go ing to do several things': First , I have wr itten a letter to all .sta re governors send ing th em a copy of this ' report and highlighting its major findings . We are urging' governors in states which still have helmet laws to support their ret ent ion , And we are urging go verno rs in sta tes which have lost their helmet laws to work for their re -enactment . We are also en couraging all states to collect their own data on motorcycle helmet use - data on head unjury ac cidents , with and without helmets , before and after repeal. And we are suggesting they conduct attitude surveys of cyclists and the general population in their States to discover what they really think about helmet use laws , Michigan and Pennsylvania , for example, have both conducted surveys which show a majority of motorcyclists (55 % ) actually fa vor mandatory helmet usage laws. Second, I am writing letters to motorcycle manufacturers, insurance companies, and state insurance com m ission ers to bring the findi ngs of this r epo n to t h e ir attention and suggesting they do whatever they can to encourage hel me t use . Third , we are notifyi ng th e medical commun ity , voluntary safety orga ni zations, a nd citizen action groups to make them aware of t his report and to recommen d they support motorcycle helmet laws . Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures Summary Status Report Prepared by: National Cent er fo r Stat istics and A nalysis, Nat io nal Highwa y Traffic Safety Ad· minist ration ,January 10, 19i9, Introduction This report sum ma rizes the key fin dings to d ate in a stud)' be ing conducted by the University of Southern Cal ifornia (USC) on the investiga tio n and analysis of motorcycle ac cid ent s occurring between 1976 and 1978 in the Los Angeles area . Current findings are preli m ina ry and based on a n a nalysis of 899 on -scene. in -depth mot orcycle accident investigat ion s, T he study. to be completed lat e in 197 9, will incl ude . in addi tio n , the co m p ila tio n of over 3 .600 pol ice accident reports and the coll ecti on of motorcycle exposu re information . T he exposu re dat a will enable com parisons to be made between th e ch aracteristi cs of moto rcycle ac cidents a n d the c h a r a ct e rist ics of 't he motorcyc le population and its driving envi ron ment. These data will then be in tegra ted to ascertain motorcycle ac cident and injury causal factors and therefrom identify countermeasures to reduce both the involvement rate and the severity of motorcycle collisions , The find ings reconfirm that dramatic gains in motorcycle safety can be acheived if: ( 1) motorcyclists wear helmets, and (2) cyclists and their motorcycles are made as consp icuous as possibl e . IAbove) AMA's Ed Youngblood observes·IBelow) Contact points, Right Side 31% Rear Front 30% 3% General accident characteristics Over two -third of ihe 899 acc idents were investigated on -scene in th e presence of th e involved veh icles and drivers ; th e rema inder of the investigations wer e conduct ed within 24 hours of the ac cident. The d istribut ion of the ini tia l collision cont act po ints on the cycle is as follows: Right Sid e 31 % ; Front 30 % ; Rear 3% :' Left Sid e 36 % . The fro nt and side contact points are rather evenly distributed; the slightly hig her incid en ce of left side im pac ts reflects a higher frequen cy of collisio ns where an oncom ing vehicle turns left and strikes a motorcycle. Fully on efourth of th e acc idents _were single vehicl e colli sions attvibuted in large part to th e loss of motorcycle control. The most frequent accident precipita ting 'factors wer e: (a) a violation of th e mot orcycle right-of-wa y by a not he r veh icle (5 1 percent of the cases), an d (b) motorc ycle driver er ror (4 1 per' cent) . Right-of-way violation s were usually attributed to the fa ilu re of the automobile driver to see the oncoming motorcycle until it was too late to avoid co llision . It is interesting to not e that in almost one-half of the multi veh icle colli sions, the motorcycle/ rid er com bination was rated either inco n spi cuous or low in conspicuit y against the ambient environment at the time ofcollision. Preliminary exposu re dat a indicate that approximately 50 percent of the motorcycle population drive with their headlights on in the daytime, yet fully two -thirds of the accidents involved motorcycles whose ,headlights were off. If these preliminary trends are main ta ined in the remainder of the d a ta to be collected, these d ata im ply t hat the risk of being in volved in a d aytime motorcycle acci de nt can be halved by driving with the headlights on . Helmet effectiveness Early survey results ind ica te that approximately one-half of the motorcyclists in the study area wear helmets. However. a full 60 R,ercent of the ac cident -in volved cyclists were not wearing helmets . These unhelmered Le ft Side 36% t Work performed und er NHSTA Contract No. DOT-HS-5-01160. cyclists ac count ed for 67 perc ent of the total inj uries a nd 81 per cent of the head and neck inj u ries. While th e helmeted rid ers are slightly underrepresented in the accident cases, th ey are consid era bly underrepresented in th e resulting inj uries. Table 1 (p, 14) shows the inju ry severity distribution for the accident-involved cyclists either wearing or not wea ring an helmet. Assuming that the characteri sti cs of the accidents for th e helmeted and unhelrneted rider were simi la r (th is will be explored in the fina l an a lysis), there is a lm ost tw ice the cha nc e of in curring a cr it ical or fatal inj ury for t he unhelrnered rider t ha n if a helmet were worn . Similarly, there is nearly a 30 percent in crease in th e risk of a serious , critical or fatal in j ury (A IS-4 , 5, or 6) for th e un helmeted motorcyclists. Head and neck injuries by severity are shown in Table 2 (p. 14). The unhelmet ed cyclist is almost three times as likely to incur a head or neck injury than h is helmeted counterpart. Further, given that a head or neck inju ry occurs , the motorcyclist not wearing a helmet is more than twice as likel y to have a severe or greater injury (A IS-3 , 4 , 5 or 6) than if he had worn a helmet. Eight y-one (81) percent of the hel meted riders derived benefits from their helmet in the form of prevented or a ttenuated im pa ct inju ries, T he n' were only four (4) injuries at tributed to sa fety helmets and all four were minor injuries (A1S-1) . Howev er , in each of these cases, th e helmet at tenuated the im pacts , a nd p rot ect ed t he head against a cr itical or fata l threat. Generally, when an impact occu rr ed to the protected region , the helmet was effective . Also , th e more head area that the helmet co vered , the greater the prote ct ion th e r ider rec eived. T he study fou nd that hel met use did not attenuate cri tic al traffic sounds nor lim it the pre-crash visua l field , The sa fety helmet was not found to be a cause or a contri bu ting factor in any of the 899 accidents investigated . Driver cha racteristics T welve (12) percent of the accidentinvolved motorcyclist s wer e operating their cycle without any operator's license. Only 55 percent had th e standard motorcycle license endorsement on their permit a s required in Cali fornia . Drivers wit h four of more traffic violations in th e last 2 yea rs were involved in 12 percent of the fatal accid ent s. Alcohol or drug influ ence was present in 12 percent of the accidents and almost one-h alf of th e fata l ac cidents. Less than l ou t of 10 riders involved in the accidents had formal training in motorcycle operation , More than half of the acciden ts involved cyclists had less than 5 months experience with the motorcycle th ey were riding at the time of the accident , although the average street riding experience was nearly 3 years: Female mo torcycl ists were invo lved in almost 4 percent o f the accidents, yet preliminary exposure data indicate that they a re only about 2 percent of the rider po pulation in the study area , Currently avail a ble survey da ta a lso indicate th at motorcyclists carrying passengers are approx imately 10 percent of the population , yet they ac counted for 17 peret'nt of the accidents , Vehicle factors Less than 3 pNcen t of the motorcycle accidents were att ributed to vehicle failures. and the m ajority of these were due to puncture flats . Post -crash fuel 13