Motorcycle safety bits and pieces

Mike at GoldIron sent out a deluge of info, Pay particular attention to the VMT info. Follwing are excerpts, follow the links for the full info:

MAKING ROADS SAFE BY MAKING THEM ROUGH
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), since the 1970s annual highway fatalities in the United States have held steady at about 40,000 people. Over the last three decades, the total comes to roughly 1.2million fatalities, the equivalent of the population of San Diego, CA. Further, a March 2008 report by AAA, Crashes vs. Congestion: What’s the

Cost to Society?, finds that automobile crashes cost U.S. motorists more than $164
billion per year, or about $5 trillion over the past three decades, taking into account
property damage, lost earnings, medical costs, emergency services, legal costs,
and travel delays.


Transportation officials at every level continue to invest time, energy, and resources
into researching the causes of automobile crashes and developing measures to prevent
crashes from happening in the first place. Two common crash types receiving
considerable attention are run-off-the-road and wet-weather crashes. About 25 percent
of all crashes and 14 percent of all fatal crashes occur on wet pavement, according to
the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). In
2003, more than 25,000, or 59 percent, of the highway fatalities occurred when a
vehicle left its lane or ran off the road.

For sharp curves and wet pavement, a promising new approach is emerging. Engineers at
the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), State departments of transportation (DOTs),
and in the private sector are devising and refining high-friction surfacing systems.
These overlays consist of  resins and polymers with a binder topped with small, hard
aggregate that helps vehicles stay on the road. The surfacing systems also are
especially resistant to wear and tear. Demonstration projects at locations across the
country over the last 10 years are beginning to show promising results for reducing
crashes.

For more information, contact Frank Julian at 404–562–3689 or
frank.julian@fhwa.dot.gov, or Steve Moler at 415–744–3103 or
steve.moler@dot.gov.

For more information about FHWA’s Road Departure Safety program, contact
Mary L. McDonough at 202–366–2175 or mary.mcdonough@dot.gov.

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 www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20080818g  

SUNO administrator invents first motorcycle airbag safety system

August 18, 2008

A Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) administrator can lay claim to having invented the first motorcycle safety system, and has won the Louisiana Business and Technology Center Phase Zero award related to his invention. William Belisle, Ph.D., won the Phase Zero Award for Louisiana Small Business for his U.S Department of Transportation Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I Program proposal for his Motorcycle Airbag Protection System (MAPS). He received patent #6,017,076 for the invention in 2000.

Dr. Belisle says that the invention is best suited for law enforcement agencies, security entities, emergency first responders and the U.S. Department of Defense. The MAPS will also provide safety and protection for consumers, and Dr. Belisle is confident that the system will surpass the helmet as a primary safety device for motorcycles.http://ataque.net/" http://ataque.net/

Also
see www.motorcycle.com/mo/mcbmw/c1.html, www.bmw.com, or
www.bmwworld.com/models/concepts/c1.htm for more information about the
BMW C-1. Note that 10,614 C-1s were sold on Cologne, Germany during the
initial year of sales, 2001.

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TRB's National Cooperative Research Program (NCHRP) has issued a request for proposals
to identify factors contributing to serious injury and
fatal motorcycle collisions with traffic barriers.
www.trb.org/TRBNet/ProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=2516

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ON VEHICLE MILES TRAVELED:
North American Travel Monitoring Conference and Exposition (NATMEC)
2008: Presentations Available

Select presentations are now available online from the North American Travel Monitoring
Conference and Exposition (NATMEC), which was held August 6-8, 2008, in Washington, D.C.
The conference explored the collection, management, and use of monitored traffic data
in all applications. The presentations can be accessed via links from the title
of the presentations beginning on page 7 of the online program.

PDF 32 pages:
www.trb.org/Conferences/2008/NATMEC/files/NATMEC.pdf

Page 9:

Wednesday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.–3:30 p.m., Shoreham, Palladian
Motorcycle Travel Data

Hamlin Williams, Virginia Department of Transportation, presiding In 2008, the Federal
Highway Administration began requiring states, the District of Columbia, and U.S.
Territories, which are required to submit Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS)
data, to collect and report motorcycle travel data. While reporting motorcycle travel
data was optional before 2008, all except six states  reported them. Issues that have
been identified in collecting these data include: equipment accuracy, the Traffic
Monitoring Guide instructions on when to collect short-term traffic counts,
and how to factor these data. Presenters will discuss successes in collecting
motorcycle travel data.

Accuracy of Current Detectors in Detection of Motorcycles
Dan Middleton and Ryan Longmire, Texas Transportation Institute
PDF: 21 pages
www.trb.org/Conferences/2008/NATMEC/files/Middleton.pdf

Collecting and Submitting Motorcycle Data for Vehicle Miles Traveled
(VMT) Estimation
Harshad R. Desai, Federal Highway Administration
PDF 25 pages
www.trb.org/Conferences/2008/NATMEC/files/Desai.pdf

Motorcycle Traffic Data Issues at the Montana Department of
Transportation
Bill Cloud, Montana Department of Transportation
PDF 14 pages
www.trb.org/Conferences/2008/NATMEC/files/Cloud.pdf

Use of Exposure Data in Motorcycle Studies: What Is and Isn’t Available
Eric R. Teoh, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
No presentation

Complying with Motorcycle Reporting Requirements: Pennsylvania
And
Department of Transportation Perspective
Andrea Bahoric and Joni K Sharp, Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation
PDF 23 pages
www.trb.org/Conferences/2008/NATMEC/files/Bahoric.pdf

Page 17:

Thursday, August 7, 4:00 p.m.–5:30 p.m., Shoreham, Ambassador
Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) Reassessment—How Will State
Departments of Transportation Respond to New Requirements? What Are the
Potential Impacts? What Are the Additional Resources Needed?
William R. Cloud, Montana Department of Transportation, presiding

Recent authorization of the Safe, Accountable,
Flexible, Efficient
Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) and the changing business
needs of transportation caused the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to conduct a
reassessment of the HPMS. The reassessment has created the following additional
data-collection requirements for state departments of transportation (DOTs): Modify
volume groups to be consistent across rural and urban functional classes, expand
upper- and lower-volume groups, extend universe annual average daily traffic (AADT)
coverage through major collectors, better truck volume data to derive truck travel
estimates, mandatory reporting of motorcycle vehicle miles traveled (VMT) data in
summary table,
collect information on ramps, and collect truck volumes (single and combination) for
entire national highway system. This session will
feature discussions on how state DOTs plan to achieve these new requirements.


Starting Over—Developing Motorcycle VMT, Illinois’ Plan
Rob E Robinson, Illinois Department of Transportation
No presentation

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2007 Traffic Safety Annual Assessment -- Highlights
The overall number of traffic fatalities in 2007 reached its lowest
since 1994. This Annual Assessment provides highlights of the 2007
Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data.

PDF 2 pages:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/nhtsa_static_file_downloader.jsp?
file=/staticfiles/DOT/NHTSA/NCSA/Content/RNotes/2008/811017.pdf

****************

(DOT-HS-811-011)
An Analysis of Motorcycle Helmet Use in Fatal Crashes
 
This report examined motorcycle rider helmet use in fatal crashes during the period 1997
-2006. The following factors were most highly correlated with motorcycle rider helmet
use: the existence of a motorcycle helmet law in the State where the crash occurred,
the motorcycle rider's age and blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at the time of the
crash, the engine size of the motorcycle, and whether the crash occurred at night
or during the day. The report used both exploratory data analysis and logistic
regression models to relate motorcycle rider helmet use to various crash factors.

PDF 46 pages:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/nhtsa_static_file_downloader.jsp?
file=/staticfiles/DOT/NHTSA/NCSA/Content/Reports/2008/811011.pdf

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