Effect of Barrier Type on Injury Severity in Motorcycle-to-Barrier Collisions in North Carolina, Texas, and New Jersey

Abstract

Motorcycle collisions with barriers have been shown to be much more severe than other vehicle collisions with barriers. The impact of barrier type on injury severity for motorcyclists has been greatly debated. There is growing concern about the risk associated with motorcycles colliding with cable barriers, although to date no definitive evidence has shown that cable barriers are indeed more harmful to motorcyclists than other barrier types. This study analyzed 951 motorcycle–barrier crashes involving 1,047 riders from 2003 to 2008 in North Carolina, Texas, and New Jersey to determine the effect of barrier type on injury severity in crashes. Barrier types were determined by using photographs of the reported crash site. There were 546 W-beam guardrail collisions, 358 concrete barrier collisions, and 47 cable barrier collisions observed. Of the people involved in W-beam collisions with known injury severity, 40.1% were fatally or severely injured. Likewise, 40.3% of people involved in cable barrier collisions with known injury severity were fatally or severely injured. The odds of severe injury in W-beam crashes to concrete barrier crashes were 1.164 (95% confidence interval: 0.889 to 1.524) for all riders involved in the barrier crashes analyzed, which was not significant at the 0.05 level. However, if the rider was helmeted, the odds of severe injury in a W-beam guardrail collision were 1.419 (95% confidence interval: 1.024 to 1.966) times as great as the odds of severe injury in concrete barrier collisions, a factor found to be significant at the 0.05 level. For both helmeted and unhelmeted riders, there was no significant difference in the odds of severe injury between the cable barrier collisions and the W-beam guardrail collisions. However, a smaller number of cable barrier collisions than W-beam guardrail collisions were included in the analysis.

Influence of horizontally curved roadway section characteristics on motorcycle-to-barrier crash frequency

“…Crashes occurring on a curved section or within 300 feet of a curve end represented more than half of all the motorcycle-to-barrier crashes available; the remaining crashes were split between ramp crashes (24 percent) and tangent section crashes not within 300 feet of a curve end (14 percent). These results were similar to the approximately 60 percent curve proportion reported by Berg et al (2005) and by Daniello and Gabler (2011b) for New Jersey and North Carolina. Note that the proportion drops to 42 percent in the present study if the crashes within 300 feet of a curve end are omitted.…”

“…The analysis included data only from a single state. As previous research (Gabauer, 2014;Daniello and Gabler, 2011b) suggests that motorcycle-to-barrier crash experience may vary by state, care should be exercised when applying these results to areas that have a vastly different motorcycle-tobarrier crash experience than Washington State. Also, total roadway section volume was used as a surrogate measure of motorcycle traffic volume, as this data was not available.…”

Mean Injury Costs of Run-Off-Road Collisions with Fixed Objects: Passenger Vehicles and Motorcycles

“…Similar results were found in the previous study (Bambach et al, 2013) and the studies by Gabler (2007) and Daniello and Gabler (2011b), where the fatality risk of concrete barriers compared to W-beam were 0.64 and 0.57, respectively. Daniello and Gabler (2011a) also found that for motorcyclists the odds of severe injury (incapacitating injury or fatality) of concrete barriers relative to W-beam was 0.86.…”

“…This procedure has been used successfully previously (Bambach et al, 2013, Daniello & Gabler, 2011a. Crashes involving roadside barriers were located using the latitude and longitude coordinates of the crash provided in the crash record.…”

Performance Assessment of Road Barriers in Indiana

“…Although most of the past barrier studies investigated barrier performance based on the fact that the majority of the involved vehicles were passenger cars and trucks, a few studies specifically focused on the safety performance of barriers on motorcycle crashes. Daniello and Gabler (2011a) investigated the effect of the barrier type on motorcycle-barrier crashes in North Carolina, Texas, and New Jersey and concluded that motorcycles comprise only 3% of the vehicles on the road but account for nearly 50% of all fatalities in guardrail collisions and 22% of the fatalities in concrete barrier collisions. Jama, Grzebieta, Friswell, and McIntosh (2011) conducted a retrospective study on fatal motorcyclistroad barrier collisions in New Zealand and Australia and found that the fatalities involving W-beams, concrete, wire rope barriers, and other barriers (e.g., bride rails) accounted for 72.7% (with a total length of 5,565.4 km), 10.4% (with a total length of 672.9 km), 7.8% (with a total length of 1234.6 km), and 9.1% respectively.…”