Nearly 1.3 million people are killed and up to 50 million people are injured on the world's roads every year. Approximately 30% of road deaths involve motorcyclists especially in the ASEAN region. In Malaysia, the number of motorcycle accidents is consistently increasing in parallel with the rising number of registered motorcycles. Motorcyclists are categorized under vulnerable road users (VRUs) due to their disadvantages in terms of safety. It is believed that personal protection equipment (PPE) is able to mitigate and minimize motorcyclist injuries resulted from road crashes. The most basic PPE for motorcyclist is the helmet which is made mandatory in many Southeast Asia countries due to its effectiveness in reducing head injuries. Other than that, protective clothing is also vital to protect human body parts from trauma. This study attempts to explore the effectiveness of motorcycle protective clothing performance available in Malaysia. Selected motorcycle protective clothing was tested using anthropometric test device, calibration equipment and instrument. In addition, a market survey was conducted to explore and examine the types and trends of motorcycle protective clothing available. This study finds that motorcycle protective clothing with protector i.e. padding and airbag can provide potentially reduced neck and chest injury in contrast with those with no protection. Furthermore, the result reveals that 55% of the protective clothing available is made of synthetic material. The overall results provide significant information that is useful in the development of countermeasures to improve motorcyclists' safety.

Motorcyclist constituted more than 50% of road deaths in Malaysia. Statistics showed that most fatal motorcyclist crashes involved passenger cars: with sideswipe or side impact reported to be the most frequent crash configurations. Many related studies have been performed to completely understand such motorcycle crashes which resulted in many safety inventions. These include installation of airbag onto motorcycle to study its effectiveness in potentially reducing motorcyclist’s injury. However, previous related studies known mainly dealt airbag’s effectiveness for large cc motorcycles. Hence, an exploratory study was conducted to study airbag’s suitability in mitigating rider’s injury during collision for motorcycle with low engine capacity (cc). Two different full-scale crash tests of motorcycle (with and without mounted airbag) side-impacting passenger car were conducted in accordance to ISO 13232. The test results in terms of high-speed video recordings (crash kinematics), motorcycle damage profiles and dummy injuries were analysed and discussed. It could be suggested from the results obtained that an airbag system for low cc motorcycle is feasible and further study is needed for better airbag concept and design which could reduce motorcyclist injury during collision.

Side impact crash test simulates a road crash wherein the side of a vehicle is being impacted, either perpendicularly or at an angle, by the front-end of another vehicle of about similar mass. In Malaysia, this crash configuration is the second leading cause of fatality and injury in road crashes after frontal collision. Extensive research have been carried out worldwide in order to mitigate occupant injury in side impact collision through provision of side impact protection system in vehicle such as side impact airbags and side door bars. As a result, various global regulations and consumer test requirements concerning side impacts have been established to evaluate the effectiveness of the said protection system. Recently, the Malaysian government has implemented the United Nation’s regulation pertaining to side impact protection (UN Regulation 95) for new passenger vehicles in the country. Hence, as a newly established automobile safety rating programme in the region, the ASEAN New Car Assessment Programme (ASEAN NCAP) has a plan in the pipeline to implement UN R95 side impact crash test tentatively in its future assessment scheme. A mobile deformable barrier (MDB) was developed as a preparation towards implementing the ASEAN NCAP’s side impact crashworthiness evaluation. This paper describes characteristics and requirements of the UN R95 as well as the development of the MDB according to the regulation. Several tests and improvements were conducted to ensure the MDB is reliable and having high repeatability for testing.

This study was conducted to assess motorcycle braking performance in simulated emergency situation. Braking distances and G- force values (peak) during the braking test of 6 distinct underbone motorcycles of 100-150cc were measured and compared based on different test conditions namely type of brake system (disc and drum), method of braking operation (front and rear brakes) and test load (rider only and rider with pillion). The results indicate that type of braking system and method of braking operation significantly influenced braking distance and G-force value. However, test load was found insignificant. The shortest braking distance and highest deceleration rate were 12.48 meters and 8.52 m/s2, respectively. The lowest G-force value (peak) was recorded 0.39 throughout the test. It is to be noted that this study is unique on its own due to certain limitations although some of the methods were adopted from the established international braking test standards. Even though this study is considered fundamental, the findings could provide vital information on the braking performance of underbone motorcycles especially to the motorcycle manufacturers and OEMs, as well as to the relevant authorities (driving institutes and Road Transport Department).

In its bid to become a developed nation in a few years' time, Malaysia has to consider various prevailing socio-economic and sociotechnical issues in the country. In the transportation sector per se, the ELV policy and initiative is one of the lacking parts in the country's automotive ecosystem -in which a successful ELV program will not only cater the environmental concern but also help the safer car initiative for road users. This particular paper discusses what is regarded as the preliminary findings on the ELV policy from the Malaysia's automotive ecosystem study database. From a total of 484 respondents, 268 or 55.4% had agreed to the proposal to introduce an age limit for passenger vehicles in Malaysia. The majority of those who gave their nod to the policy choose 10 years of vehicle age as the limit (38.9%), and a staggering 79.8% of them supposed that the age limit should be between 5 to 10 years. Further analysis based on the Multiple Logistic Regression found out that from a total of nine important variables related to car users' profile and ownership status, the significant predictors to "the agreement to introduce vehicle age limit" were age, income and car status (new or used). Thus, this finding might be beneficial for the policymakers to strategize the ELV policy that sooner or later should be implemented in the Malaysia's "developed country" environment.