No abstract

No abstract

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) related to occupational work or termed as WMSDs are the most common health issues that are experienced by many workers. Either due to the human errors or inconvenient and faulty workplaces, this illness has caused both employers and employees great economic losses. However, when observing the prevalence of MSDs among motorcyclists, again the focus was put among those that use motorcycles during their duties making it very much work-related. For example, police riders, postal delivery workers, and currently food delivery services. But how about those non-occupational motorcyclists or commuting workers or students that only use their motorcycle to commute to work, riding to class or weekend-motorcyclists going for prolonged motorcycle rides? Upon this matter, it became the motivation of this study to look into the possibilities of MSDs prevalence especially related to muscle fatigue among these groups of motorcyclists based on a survey and indoor prolonged motorcycle riding simulations that were conducted earlier. This includes how education and proper training could help them to reduce the risk of experiencing MSDs. Outcomes of this study suggested several other MSD issues that are possible to take place involving other body regions and establishing a prolonged riding guideline could educate them to be more aware of this issue. These possible MSDs were found to not being highlighted in work-related MSDs literature with respect to motorcyclists and very few detailed guidelines are available to educate motorcyclists for a much safer prolonged riding which provide gaps for further investigation and validation.   Keywords: Guidelines, Low back pain (LBP), Motorcyclists, Muscle fatigue, Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) Prolonged riding.

While riding motorcycle have become a popular mode of transportation in most parts of the world, increase in motorcycle road accidents are very alarming. Many factors have been found to cause such motorcycle accidents and among others is motorcyclist fatigue. The aim of this study is to identify muscle groups that are related to motorcycling activity that may lead to motorcyclist muscle fatigue especially during prolonged riding. The groups of muscle recommended by this study were extracted from current literatures and studies, questionnaires and direct observation, and also a pilot surface electromyography (sEMG) experiment. Direct observation was made on motorcyclists’ hand and foot positioning during riding including their riding posture. Upon confirming the recommended muscle groups, a sEMG experiment was conducted using an established adjustable motorcycle test rig, the Postura MotergoTM. Several torso muscle groups were identified and recommended for analyzing motorcyclist muscle fatigue. However, lower extremity body muscle groups were not listed. This is due to no considerations were made by neither researchers nor being testified by participants answering the questionnaire.

Motorcycle have become very popular transportation nowadays. There are several ways of classifying motorcycle into different types of categories such as according to the engine displacement sizes, type, usage, mechanical function etc. Aside from manufacturer’s classification, which is based on the engine displacement sizes, most of them are subjective. Due to the variations, research related to motorcycle are uncoordinated. In addition, consistency and reliability of data collected are necessary since the field of research is vast. This paper aims to fill this research gap by proposing a standardized method for motorcycle nomenclature system, which is a classification based on a motorcycle cockpit design.