Cognitive issues around multi-tasking for riders

Today, we published a new page on Bikesafer.com.We often hear of bikers who fail to react when faced with an unexpected hazard.  How many times have you heard that someone 'had to put it down', even though we know that putting it down is not often an effective crash evasion tactic? The research is full of riders who fail to choose or execute the evasion that might have saved them from crashing. 

We have met some bikers who occasionally exhibit confusion and dithering when faced with an unexpected new task.   One riding buddy used to lose it completely whenever he went off track and his GPS started talking to him.  

This is probably due to a phenomenon well understood in cognitive science.  The theory of human working memory as a resource vital to consciousness and paying attention is established.   It's been heavily researched and turns up in the design of military pilots' heads-up displays, where the number of objects shown are deliberately limited.   Anyone who has had military training is familiar with the confusion and indecision displayed by the victims of a surprise attack, which is another feature of working memory overload.    

Our page deals with the experience of learning to ride, the use of working memory in this process and in the multitasking required of riding in challenging environments like city streets.  The effect of working memory overload on the riding task can be catastrophic, as tasks that were being done competently before the overload can totally freeze up.   The event that caused the overload, if it is a threat, is unlikely to be handled well.  Our riding skills desert us just when we need them most, and we go down.

The discipline of managing this scarce cognitive resource, eliminating unnecessary or inappropriate use of working memory, and staging the learning of new skills to muscle memory might help us avoid the catastrophic consequences of a working memory overload.  

We can develop some good riding habits that might keep us from springing a bad surprise on ourselves, and we can learn to monitor our use of working memory to help prevent fatal overload. 

And we don't want even to think about what happens to these vital cognitive skills when alcohol is involved.   We're not aware of any specific research on alcohol and working memory, but how could that work out well? 

Thinking about thinking about riding?  OK, it's a bit abstract for us too, but the problem is real, and best thought through before you get on the bike. 

Proficient Motorcycling

We just added a review of David Hough's influential book, 'Proficient Motorcycling, the Ultimate Guide to Riding Well'.  It's a great read, and the best book we have read on bike techniques.   It's highly recommended for off-season reading and as a reference for the rest of your ride. 

Evasion Skills

Studies show that bikers who see a problem in time, choose the right evasion tactic and execute the evasion well generally stay out of the accident stats.  We study emergency braking, swerving and the other emergency tactics.  Only the stills we've been practicing will be there when we need them.

Roadcraft book review

Today we added a book review to our reviews page. "Roadcraft, the Police Rider's Handbook to Better Motorcycling". by Philip Coyne, published by The Police Foundation, UK.

As winter creeps in and riding opportunities become rare in most of the country, we can take time to work on our bikes and study up on technique.  This book, written by a group of police motorcycle trainers in the UK is a seminal work, often quoted by serious motorcyclists.  It's a textbook for any rider who is interested in pushing his skills to the next level.

Visit our reviews page for reading and training ideas for the off season and for the next riding season.  Our biker ed section covers a broad range of training issues.  You'll find some training ideas here. 

Motorcycle Crash Causation Study, the Story So Far

We've redone our Crash Causation Study, the Story So Far page to be a more readable version of our Study Resources information.

We've  included a study milestones section, which summarizes the main developments so far.  We added a cost comparison study which we had previously blogged, then we provide the little we know about the funds spent, mainly the $994K provided in the 2006 SAFETEA-LU allocation.  We expect to learn more from our pending Freedom of Information Act request for additional FHTSA documents on the pilot study.  We briefly air the study sample size issue and challenged Dr. Ahmed to demonstrate his knowledge of the literature and basic bike skills. 

We are still frustrated at the lack of progress and good information on this issue, and our petition is gathering signatures daily. 

Loud Pipes Save Lives?

Bikesafer.com has updated the information on loud pipes. We added some links, inluding one to an article on the Oakland PD, whose motor cops have loud pipes and swear by them, even though they think they might lead to hearing loss. 

Nobody seems to have studied this and there is no proof either way.  A full-time, rear-facing noise maker is probably not the most effective conspicuity measure, and it does have community noise issues, but nobody can say that they are not of some help in getting attention and reducing crashes.  Hurt was inconclusive on this issue, as there were slightly more (30.1% versus 27.3%) modified pipes in the crash sample.  The difference is probably not significant and the types of exhaust system modifications were not broken out.   

Maybe the current OSU Motorcycle Crash Study might actually prove that loud pipes do save lives (or not) and settle the matter?   At the reduced sample size of 300, this might be the only fact that gets proven in the compromised study.

Withdrawal of crash study information

We made an error in previous pieces on the Motorcycle Crash Study.   We have fixed that information and we owe Jim Ouellet an apology.  Jim Ouellet is a pioneering researcher in motorcycle safety, who worked on the original Hurt report and has given freely of his time in the Thailand and Maids studies.

We spoke to the Principal Investigator, Dr. Ahmed, in November, and he was very specific in saying that QA work was done by Jim Ouellet at his rack rate, and that this was the reason why the per-crash cost was so high.  When I asked him to spell 'Ouellet', he referred me to the Hurt study report, where Jim Ouellet is listed as co-author and Motorcycle Specialist.   I called the Consultants Bureau, the only contact available for Mr Ouellet.  They confirmed the rack rate as specified by Dr. Ahmed, but Mr Ouellet did not return the call.  Jim Ouellet did some consultancy work for the pilot but I confirmed today that it was done for free, like his pro-bono work on the OECD methodology and the Thai study.  

When I called Dr. Ahmed today to ask him why he misinformed me about Mr Ouellet's involvement last month, he first denied that he had said what he said, and then said 'it shows what sort of a website you run that you would not check your facts'. 

Well, OK, I am not a professional journalist and I did make a mistake in this matter.   But surely I should be able to rely on information provided by a prominent academic like Dr Ahmed?    I'm going to be charitable and assume that he was somehow misinformed, and also has a bad memory about what he said on the phone.  This is important information that goes to the core of his assignment with the Crash Causation Study and he should have known what he was talking about.   I'll take his comment today as an expression of annoyance about my asking him for information, and I'll hope he's a lot more careful with his facts in the crash study. 

In the meantime, I have fixed the information on the Bikesafer site, and I have put in a Freedom of Information Act request for the full pilot technical report and contract documentation from NHTSA.  We'll publish it when we get it. 

Bikeafer.com reviews the Thailand study

"Motorcycle Accident Causation And Identification Of Countermeasures In Thailand" was an influential study by Dr. Vira Kasantikul done between 1998 and 2001. The researchers were early adopters of the OECD methodology and worked closely with Head Protection Research Lab personnel in enhancing the original Hurt methodolgy. OECD was used in the Maids European study and the current US effort at OSU. It is important in understanding current research.

We singled out data on helmet use, alcohol, rain and rider training/skills issues as being relevant to the US situation.

The helmet data is extremely good, as the principal investigator, is a neurologist who performed an enhanced autopsy procedure on the head and neck of the dead riders. The data is instructive on neck injuries in particular, and is an effective counter to contentions that helmets increase neck injuries. The study did find that neck injuries are under-reported in most routine autopsies, but it is clear that serious cervical neck injuries are very few in relation to the reduction in head injuries claimed for helmets. Although the HPRL consultants are widely published on the helmet issue, the actual researchers were not significantly influenced by helmet-law issues and the information is of very high quality, in our opinion.

We did feel that injuries where helmets came off during the crash, which are reported separately in the report, should have counted towards the head injury totals, and we did take the liberty, as best we could, of trying to break out those injuries and adjusting the injury totals. We didn't count helmets which were incorrectly fastened in this crude adjustment. It is clear, even with these tweaks, that helmets provide significant protection when they are used. They reduce or prevent head injuries and death in more than 50% of crashes, and helmetless riders die 150% more often and have massive, disabling head trauma three times more often than their helmeted counterparts. The scope for additional severe neck injury because of helmet use is relatively small in comparison with the benefits of helmets.


The information on alcohol, unsurprisingly, has detail on the effects of alcohol on rider performance. Nothing we didn't know, but good information. Alcohol is a major killer of bikers.


On the rain issue, neglected by both Hurt and Maids, the Thailand practice of collecting exposure data by videoing and counting traffic at the crash sites in equivalent day-of-week, time-of-day and weather conditions successfully countered for the reduced ridership in the rain, and identified rain, principally due to its effect of rider vision, as a cause in two thirds of the rain crashes. We had taken this view but it is good to have our instincts on weather confirmed.

There are a few other notes of interest. The totally alien nature of the Thailand riding environment doesn't provide much additional data of interest in the US, but as the study is not widely available as a free download, we feel that our article, based on a copy kindly provided by one of the researchers, is a useful addition to the discussion on the OSU study and crash studies in general.

We feel that the contention of the OSU investigators that there were quality control issues in the Thailand study is unwarranted. Their enhanced autopsy procedures and methodology improvements in the exposure data over Maids are worthy of note. They used a control exposure population of 2100 for their 723 crash samples in the Bangkok part of the study, instead of the Maids approach of using the same number of control samples as crash samples, and their additional population controls obtained from their traffic count and video procedures proved to be of value.  The data was entered and coded by hand into Excel spreadsheets and crunched by SPSS, a standard statistical package, so by the nature of the work, some human error would probably have crept into the data and calculations.  The US-based pilot is using a customized Access database with enhanced data validation and built-in coding features.

We don't know what the study cost. It was financed privately by three Honda subsidiaries. Costs in Thailand would probably not convert easily to US conditions.

As we have said before in relation to the Maids study, we should consider ourselves very lucky to have a study this good in the USA.

Motorcycle Crash Causation Study Issues Drag On

We've been working around the Crash Study issue for the last couple of weeks, promoting our petition, which now has more than 430 signatures. If you haven't signed yet, there's still time.

One of the things we had not mentioned was pointed out to us in the course of those discussions.  MSF, in its statement, pointed out correctly that a study with only 300 crashes sampled is unlikely to increase the sum total of our knowledge, which is more or less true.  But they are being disingenuous as the best estimate for the number of crashes studied, assuming MSF paid in their matching funds, is closer to 700.  The 300 assumes the MSF withholding their money.   As the Thai study investigated 729 crashes in its separate Bangkok report, which is pretty good, maybe 700 would have been enough, and it would have left the door open to getting more funding later.  The MSF statement could be paraphrased as '300 crash samples are not enough, so we are withholding our cash and making it so'.   It would have been much harder to make the same case for study inadequacy if they used the 700 number.

In fact, even at the 300 level, the new study might well point out training inadequacies and skills/roadcraft deficits in the large, older rider segment of the biker population.   Recent new training offerings have concentrated on the younger, sportsbike riding population, with two new courses recently launched for the military and two spinoffs (MSF's ARC-ST and Lee Parks Intermediate course) targeted at the civilian market.   This Minnesota report points out that 40 of a total 72 (56%) of rider fatalities in that state in 2008 were aged 40 and over.  Our sense is that this is pretty typical for the country.  Even in its mutilated and truncated form, the OSU study is likely to highlight training and perhaps fitness shortfalls in this part of the population.

We have little doubt that the real loss in the 300-sample truncated study will be in the identification of countermeasures employed by bikers in the control population.  Hurt, after all, identified always-on headlights as a successful strategy among the rider population that protected those riders using their lights during the day from crashes, and Maids found that cagers could be trained to see bikers better.  We anticipate that the 900 crash study might find benefits in engineering improvements like ABS, conspicuity benefits from lighting improvements, possibly riding strategies or advanced training, and who knows what other information might emerge.   Large population-controlled studies are able to find new survival factors which surprise the researchers. 

We can't avoid speculating that business difficulties in the very elastic motorcycle market have made the MSF manufacturer-members averse to spending money on bike safety.  Harley Davidson's business problems are well documented, and, except for the scooter sector, we assume that the other manufacturers are hurting too.   This, in our view, is shortsighted.  In the long haul, a good study will reduce accidents and keep thousands of riders alive and unmaimed, able to buy their products.   And tens of thousands of crash-involved riders give up riding after their accidents.  We can't help thinking that if their economic difficulties are part of the reason for MSF to withhold the matching funds, that the decision is short-sighted, and that the manufacturers have a stake in keeping their customers alive and buying the product.   And we notice that Harley Davidson gave $4 million to Muscular Dystrophy in 2008.   That's an excellent cause, but charity begins at home.   You look after your own first.

Our research into the disorganized findings of the study continue.  It is clear that Westat completely mismanged the pilot study and should not be considered as prime contractors for the full study.  

The petition total is now over 430. Bikers are making their views known on this subject. 

Motorcycle Crash Causation Study FAQ

We've been visiting with rider groups and following the discussion of the Crash Causation Study on numerous blogs and forums, and we compiled some of the most frequently asked questions about the study and the petition.  The questions include:

• Studies don't work
• A waste of tax money
• The study results will be used to justify additional controls on biker freedoms
• Bikers won't benefit from the new study
• The government should stay out of bike research
• What else can I do to support the study?

The good news is that the petition count is at 300, and we are getting an average of over 50 per day, and rising.   Bikers really care about getting good information, and are willing to stand up and be counted.

The study getting great support from members groups like SCRC, AMA, HOG, various ABATE chapters, CMA, MRF and many others.

The word is spreading. 

We review The Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Guide to Motorcycling Excellence

We reviewed the MSF's book, and it is a nicely-produced volume aimed at riders in their first few years.  It deals with issues like countersteering, traditionally ignored by the MSF and has a comprehensive overview of basic riding strategies, bike issues, skills and technical issues which every bikers should know about.   As an adjunct to the relatively skimpy Basic RiderCourse text, it will take you to the next level, although, with a bit of digging, you could find equivalent information on the web for free.  For twenty bucks, less on the online discount sites, a biker at any level could read something here that could save his life, and if you work better with books than live instruction or electronic media, this is a good early choice for your reading list.   We do point out a few areas where we disagree with MSF's approach, the two-second following distance rule and the downshift when braking rule, but if you follow up on those issues and anything else you have questions about, a little controversy.  

We have more book reviews coming up, including David Hough's 'Proficient Motorcycling' and the UK police roadcraft manual. 

Motorcycle Crash Causation Study and the crash sample 900

As the Motorcycle Crash Causation Study folks have decided to do the study with 300 instead of 900 crashes sampled, time to review previous statements from study stakeholders on the matter. 

This story from Examiner.com from last week reveals that Dr Ahmed, the study Principal Investigator, is now working on some statistics to prove that the 300 number will be OK.  (We can confirm the Examiner story from our own sources)  This is ludicrous on the face of it.  The workings of the 'chi-squared' test make it impossible to predict which data will be further studied to see which of the almost 2000 crash data items are important in causing -and preventing - crashes.  These might be items like ABS, running lights, HID headlights, which might prove effective in preventing crashes if present in sufficient numbers in the population sample.   As we don't know what these numbers will be, we can't predict the outcome of the 'chi-squared' test done on these data at the 300 and at the 900 level.   No statistical calculations can override this presumption.

On the other hand, Dr Ahmed, the Principal Investigator from OSU,  is on record, in this LA Times article from July 2007, by the prescient Susan Carpenter, as saying "900 is the least we consider adequate from a statistical point of view.".   Right on, Dr. A, you were right first time.

 
This Pooled Fund solicitation, from Carol Tan, the FHWA Project Leader, is similarly firm on the subject, and in fact has a contract with the six state motorcycle administrators from New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas and Wisconsin.   

Not to mention the Transportation Committee could reasonably have expected that they were approving 900 crashes when they approved SAFETEA-LU measure 5511, if they were going by the published information on the subject. 


And, for good measure, we include other 900 supporters who are safety experts, including MSF, the Hurt and Maids studies, Motorcycle Safety News and Safety Net.   


The good news is that study petitions have gone viral and are coming in  too fast to count.  We are well on the way to 1000 petitions, and have been getting them from organizations like AMA, SCRC, Blue Knights, ABATE members from several states, Christian Motorcyclist Assoc and many more.  Thank you all for your support, and we are still investigating the issue.  

Helmets and Protective Gear: Do they work?

It's hard to find research by experienced motorcycle accident researchers where the researchers had an open mind about helmets, and protection in general.
The helmet law debate in the US has muddied the water.  Bikers rights advocates have pointed out NHTSA-funded research which suffered from obvious bias, and there is a lot of propaganda on the issue, from both sides.
Up to now, we have avoided the issue by going with expert opinion on the matter as conventional wisdom, but we can do better.  Today we published a new page on the issue, summarizing the helmet data from three studies that are somewhat free of the current US controversy on the matter.   The papers look at helmet effectiveness in the Hurt study, whose late-70s data is from pre-helmet-law California before the current battle lines were joined.  The other two studies were the Thai and Maids studies.  In Thailand, about half the bikers wear helmets, and Maids, in Europe, only 8% of riders in accidents had no helmets.  All the Maids countries have helmet laws and the casualties were mostly moped and scooter riders.
As a counterpart, we also linked the current NHTSA crash data which actually claimed lower, but still substantial, benefits from helmet wearing.  In the light of the other studies, their claims do not look excessive.
We were also unable to find any linkage between the 92% helmet wearing European riders and increased neck spinal injury.  Total spinal injuries were only 5% compared with the 68% of riders who had reduced head injuries because they wore a helmet.
We did find that these studies were done by researchers who had previously done helmet research and were in favor of helmet use, but also point out that it is impossible to find any serious researchers who have not formed a pro-helmet position.

Nothing surprising here.

We also added Maids data on all the protective gear items in our Injury Mitigation section. Every protective item, helmet, eye protection,  jackets, leg protection, boots and gloves, plays a significant role in reducing injury. 

Bikers might exercise their freedom to wear a helmet and gear, and still resist big brother attempts to limit freedom. 

Crash Causation Study update.

Firstly, I need to correct an error, the Maids and Thai study was done by professional researchers, not grad students as we had assumed incorrectly. We have updated the site accordingly.  We apologize to all concerned and anyone we misled.  We have corrected the information here.   We plan to refine and correct our information in real time and are researching the issue constantly. 

That does mean that the 2.5 million Euro Maids study costs are directly comparable to the current OSU study, which has more than twice the potential funding.

We found that Westat completed the pilot study, crash data collection training, systems development and administration work for $942K. As far as we can tell,  Dynamic Systems did three months of work and collected the data on 53 crashes for their estimated rate of $350 an hour (for the team) and about 3.5 mandays per crash.  Although it might seem like a lot, it is not the cause of the cost overrun.  They bid competitively for the work and collected much more than the estimated number of crashes for the pilot, still completing on time. Although we don't know the exact amount they charged, we think they executed well and probably earned their pay.  

More than half of the estimated $8.5K per crash went to QA work, consultancy and administration costs, best we can tell. 

A large share of this probably went to QA.  The QA work for the pilot  project was overdone.   Instead of the OECD mandated 10 percent QA rate, it was done at the 100% level in the pilot and it is planned to do it at a 70% rate for the entire sample.  We don't know what Westat charged for administration, but OSU should be doing this for their cut of the study funds.  This, plus maybe some consulting and any overtime or additional work charged by Dynamic Science probably accounts for the lion's share of the pilot per-crash costs.

In addition, Maids created technical support committees for their project from personnel seconded by the bike manufacturers, and organizations like MSF, AMA, msgroup.org,  the Head Protection Lab and the state mororcycle safety officers might be willing to provide consultancy support.  This would help minimize any additional technical support needed.

We think that part of the problem was the funds voted for the Westat work in 2006 was this $944K.  If they got the project overhead part of the project - the training, system work and admin - done for maybe a bit over a half million, and had (say) about 450K left to collect the 53 crash studies, with QA, admin and consulting, then they had an incentive to either spend the approx $8.5K per crash or leave cash on the table.  This is not necessarily indicative of the true future data collection costs, especially if the QA issue is corrected and consultancy costs and admin reduced. This was a costs-plus-fee contract and the amound was fixed in the 2006 SAFETEA-LU allocations, so we don't know if Westat had any incentives to do the job economically.

The encouragement to spend a big chunk of the per-crash funding on QA, at ten times the level mandated by the OECD methodology, came from OSU.  They cited quality issues in Maids and the Thai study, which are not warranted.   Besides a few teething problems getting the methodology right for control group recruitment, soon sorted, we can find no-one else that alleges quality issues in either study, and we spoke to several knowledgeable people and study participants on the issue.  These studies were of excellent quality, because they followed the methodology, executed well and had over 900 crashes sampled.  We should consider ourselves fortunate to have studies this good. 

Unfortunately, the current study in its apparent state of disarray does not seem likely to produce anything as good as Maids.  To the detriment of the many bikers who might needlessly die as a result.

We think, if you can get the MSF funds back on the table, there is more than enough funding to produce a good study with the full 900 or more samples.

OSU has been quoted as being reluctant to commit to the right numbers for fear they might be liable for the full study.  But they had no hesitation in taking public funds for so doing. 

We think the House Transportation Committee should look into this problem.  The fact that the original projected 900 to 1200 crash objective has been overridden by the officials charged with its administration is, in our view, sufficient grounds for the committee to look into it, and hold hearings if necessary.

Maybe if someone waved a big stick, the study stakeholders might be encouraged to get around a table, accept responsibility for this sacred trust, and sort out a reasonable project plan that gets the job done.

We have been promoting our petition and speaking to bike groups around the country.  I can say that motorcyclists are getting mad, and supporting the petition, once the facts are laid out.  We are helping several conventional news outlets work on stories on the issue, and talking to bikers.  How many angry bikers are the stakeholders trying to collect? 

And we will continue to find the facts, follow the money, and obtain better information. 

Ride Readiness: getting yourself and the bike ready to ride.

Bikesafer has just added a section on ride readiness, including buying a new or used bike, adjusting it to fit the rider, pre-ride check and personal readiness to ride.

Not that we've forgotten about the critical situation of the motorcycle crash causation study.  We are still following that issue and will bring you more news when there is some. 

Motorcycle Crash Causation Study: Some fixes.

We are heart-scalded.  The crash causation study is approved by DOT, a week later MSF piles in with their announcement withholding their funding.  Resisting the urge to paint the MSF as the bad guys, despite their poor gamesmanship and the fashion in the motorcycle safety industry for MSF to be the root of all evil, we spent the month investigating the problem.
We found a lot of information, documented the whole issue, and we followed the money, identifying four institutions and enterprises who have had income from the study funds.  We also started a petition, which has had very good support from groups like SCRC, ABATE individual members, Wolf Pack and Ride like a Pro.
But we felt bad.   Faced with the fiasco that is the study, and taking on the task of investigating the problem among a web of confidentiality clauses and doublespeak, after identifying where the vast majority of funds went, including a lot of unnecessary spending and preferential contracts, we decided that we would be nattering nabobs of negativity no more.
Today, we are announcing our proposed fix for the study problems.  Basically, it identifies several areas where the study managers strayed from the OECD methodology, points out five specific areas of overspending and makes recommendations to wind in the out-of-control per-crash study costs.
In our view, if these recommendations are implemented and the MSF funds are drawn back into the process, there is more than sufficient funding available for not 900 but in excess of the 1200 crash sample originally envisioned.  1500 crashes would be possible, at good quality.
Study stakeholders, now you can make it so.

At least, rather than a stream of negativity, now you have some concrete proposals to discuss.   Time to move forward on this issue.

Motorcycle Crash Causation Study Personnel

Following up on our earlier postings about the Crash Causation Study, and trying to figure out why the study costs are so far out of whack with Maids and Hurt, I talked to some of the project personnel.

Carol Tan, the DOT / FHWA point person for the project, seemed frustrated with the problems.   She says that we will see some useful results, but conceded that the larger study size of 900 would be better than 300.  Apparently, the October 5th announcement, without securing the MSF funding approval, was necessary to preserve the public funding that is on the table, some of which might have been withdrawn if not used soon. Even if the other finances are not in place.

Dr Ahmed of OSU seemed similarly frustrated.   He is doing a statistical analysis to see if 300 crashes will work, but in this 2007 LA Times article he was pretty clear that 900 is needed, as most experts agree.  When pressed on the issue of why this study is costing so much more than Maids or Hurt, he points out that both these other studies used the cheap labor of research students.  OSU is contracting out the work to professional accident investigation businesses, like Dynamic Science Inc, which provided the researchers for the pilot study.  Additional consultancy and quality analysis was done by other accident investigators.   Dr Ahmed refused to identify the consultants or what is being paid to them or to Dynamic Science, pointing out that the contracts specify confidentiality on these matters.  Dr Ahmed also points out that although OSU is not a motorcycle research specialist, since USC closed down Hurt's department, there are no specialist university motorcycle research departments anywhere in the US, so they are as good as any.   Of course, if they are doing the research in California, surely a local university with hordes of research students would have had an advantage.

We talked to Christopher Toale of Dynamic Science, who refused to comment. We don't know how much they are charging, but we would estimate that most of their guys command three-digit rates plus expenses.  Other Dynamic Science personnel identified WESTAT as a primary contractor for the pilot study.  It is not yet confirmed if they will be working on the main study. 

We contacted several former Hurt collaborators and Head Protection researchers who are not involved, but we think some of them have consulted for free on the pilot project.

We don't know what the Dynamic Science researchers get paid ,  if they would come clean we would know, but in the face of their reticence, we'd estimate that some of their people get over $150 per hour, and that the team of three probably bills in excess of $300 per hour for project work. 

The problem really is that Hurt had to start with nothing, recruit students and bike experts, and make it up on the fly. We understand the temptation for Dr Ahmed to use these readily available, but expensive, experts to make up for his lack of previous experience.  This was not necessary. 

The OECD Methodology explained.

As part of our ongoing petition drive, we have added a page on how the OECD methodology works.  This initialese has been slung around a lot, and, although there is a good explanation on the Maids site, you do have to jump through a few hoops to see it.  

We wanted to explain how the new study will identify bikers who have good riding strategies and equipment, and tell us with a fair degree of certainty what works for real bikers.   And also get under the skin of why it is so important to get the full, 900 to 1200 study sample size. 

We also rebranded our petition section and its resources pages, and added a few new information links. 

This crash causation study, with the right numbers, has the potential to save thousands of biker lives.  It may be the most important motorcycle safety event of our time.

MSF's move a Game Changer for Crash Study

The Motorcycle Crash Study has been mooted since 2005, there has been a lot of negotiation and to and fro between the stakeholders, both on the financing issues and around the helmet law problems. So what has changed in October 2009 that has bikesafer.com organizing a biker petition?

I'll explain this way: 2005, AMA has been trying to organize a game, and deals the hand. Transportation committee is dealt a pair of jacks and opens with 2.8 million. MSF, with a pair of aces, sees the 2.8 million and raises 300K given by friendly equipment manufacturers.

Transportation gets together with DOT, hustles some cash from the states and AMA, sees MSF's 3.1 million and raises 87K.

October 2009: DOT announces the start of the study, assuming MSF will see, but MSF throws in its hand.

See what I mean? The hand has ended, and someone has to take the initiative and deal a new hand. There is no obvious next move, no fairy godmother to wave a magic wand and make the missing funds appear.

That said, I don't think MSF's move is intended as a spoiler. It's hard to know what they are thinking, but they did put out that long statement.  I am inclined to take them at face value. I think what they saw was what we discussed in Saturday's blog, the costs being given are way out of whack. A 'good money after bad' type of judgement. I am inclined to agree with them, the cost factors need to be reviewed. On the face of it, with the little information we have, the taxpayer and MSF are being asked to pay eight times what Hurt paid, fout times what Maids paid for the exact same work using the exact same OECD methodology, and a third more than was talked about last February. There is something very wrong with the numbers.

That's why bikesafer.com is following the money. The resolution lies there.

And that's why we started out petition. It's there to raise awareness, and so that bikers can force the way to the table. The petition is coming along very well, by the way, we are already receiving dozens of petitions daily. Southern Cruisers has stepped up and endorsed the petition drive, and we are talking to other biker groups to enlist their support. Thank you, everyone who filled one on, and keep them coming. It is our gas tax money that is being spent right now, and our lives that are on the line. If the other stakeholders can't or won't do it right, it is up to us to make our presence felt and show that we care about the outcome.

Pass the word, and sign the petition.

Visiting the Crash Causation Study Researchers

In our continuing series on the Motorcycle Crash Study Petition, we were confused. A lot of well-meaning people messing up a perfectly good crash causation study.

We have a rule at bikesafer.com, when in doubt, ride somewhere. So I checked out the ST1300 and set out on the 1500 miles of slab time to Phoenix. I have to admit I took a few detours, along AZ route 264 through the spectacularly beautiful Hopi mesas, and then a short jaunt between Jerome and Prescott, where there are some very cool twisties.

Our other rule is 'follow the money', which in this case is to the subcontractor for the study crash data collection.

I emailed the president of Dynamic Science last week and got no reply, so yesterday I turned up at the Dynamic Science office at Black Canyon Highway. Didn't know what to expect, but I've been escorted to parking lots by security before, so no worries. I was expecting to find maybe a bunch of gnomes knitting up gnarly business scams.

After dallying with the receptionist, being told that there was no-one there until hours later in the afternoon, and offering to wait, the harried 'Director of First Impressions' went and got Ralph Rockow, a tall gentleman in his seventies. He introduced himself as an engineer - which turned out to be a bit of an understatement, as he is a rocket scientist. He is the owner and founder of Exodyne, the parent company of Dynamic Sciences.

As a geek, I understand engineers, and Ralph is a very genial guy. He was the head of the design team for the lunar lander mission, and devised the scheme that saved the Apollo 13 astronauts after their oxygen tank blew up, a huge feat of extemperaneous engineering. His other accomplishments include developing airbags and doing all that vehicle testing that led to the post-Nader improvements in car safety. Check out his resume, he is an intellectual giant and I don't mind admitting, I was out of my league. But I staggered through the basic facts about the study and the shennanigans I have been documenting here and on the bikesafer.com site.

Well, I promised to keep the conversation off the record, and he didn't promise anything other than he'd look into it, but his brother is a biker and he obviously cares hugely about saving lives.

But with Ralph Rockow looking into the problems with the Crash Causation Study I have no doubt that light will be shed in stellar quantities.

I've looked into Dynamic Science and they are highly qualified to do the crash research. They should be well able to make up for the motorcycle knowledge deficiencies at OSU.

Crash Causation Study: Cost Comparisons

We've been examining in detail the Motorcycle Crash Causation Study problems that have been coming to light recently. Bikesafer's petition resources page has basic information, project financing and press releases, and our last three blog entries have additional details.

We have identified study funding from various sources of $3,187K, and an additional $3.1M being withheld by MSF and its associates. We also saw, in the last blog entry, where OSU (the researchers at Oklahoma State U. Dept of Transportation) want $8000 to $9000 per crash and probably about a 20% levy for college overhead to make a total of $9M to complete the 900 accident study. We're going to ignore the $10M to $12M numbers they have been talking about lately.

We're going to air some comparable numbers and see how this cost compares with the competition.

The first comparison is from OSU itself. The Safetyresearch.net blog entry from February of this year quotes the OSU researchers as mentioning a number of $7M - that's an uptick of two million in eight months. At this figure, the per-crash cost, assuming 20 percent for OSU overhead, comes out at about $6220 per crash, a much better deal than the one now on offer. One wonders what might have changed in eight months to cause an inflation of about a third in per-crash costs.

We could also compare with Hurt itself. The Hurt study cost $501,814. Schlepping 20% for the institution as before, that indicates a per-crash cost of $446. Adjusting for inflation at about 230 percent between 1981 and 2009, that Hurt numbers are worth about $1.15M in today's dollars for the total cost and about $1025 per accident. Hurt has some costs that the current study doesn't - in 1981 the computing was probably done on a mainframe, and the 29 listed project personnel included two analyst programmers, for example. It is true that the OECD methodology requires some additional steps, and records about twice the number of data items per crash, but the OECD methodology is based on Hurt's and both studies require the same basic steps. Hurt interviewed 2310 bikers for his control group as opposed to OSU's proposed 900. And the project personnel currently recognized for the OSU study are Dr. Ahmed and three researchers from Dynamic Research, Inc., a much smaller effort than Hurt's 29-person team. There is no obvious reason why the current study should cost eight to nine times what Hurt's did.

Our next example for discussion is the Maids study. This was done in Europe and the data was collected in 1999 and 2000. The total study cost was 2.5M Euros. The average exchange rate in 1999 was 0.94 and 1.08 in 2000, so the dollar and euro were roughly at parity during this time. I'll just leave the numbers in Euros. Schlepping 20% for the five institutions as before, that would indicate a per-crash variable cost of 2170 Euros per crash sampled. The OECD methodology used in Maids is exactly the same as for the current study, but the Euros had the added complication of five locations in five different countries with presumed travel and translation costs, whereas the current study is being done in Los Angeles. Maids lists 48 project personnel. It seems like the Europeans also got a much better deal than the one on offer here.

ET editorializes:

In summary: the current project per-crash costs are more than four times the Maids cost, more than eight times the Hurt cost as adjusted for inflation and a third more than the cost that OSU was talking about less than eight months ago.

A part of this cost differential can be laid at the feet of Senator Daniel Inhofe, who has turned bikers into pork in a fit of virtual cannibalism. He forced the study to go to OSU, who have zero qualifications in motorcycle research, and who basically farmed out the work to Dynamic Research, Inc. Any biker who meets Sen. Inhofe should remind him of this, and opponents might note this issue come election time.

My current ride has taken me to Phoenix, and I plan to visit the Dynamic Research head office on Monday, maybe we'll find out more. It remains to be seen why the numbers are like this.

More details on Crash Causation Study

We've launched our Crash Study Petition. Please sign it.

We promised more information on the states that have supported the Pooled Study initiative, details from FHA are here. The states that have already chipped in a total of $560K are: New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas and Wisconsin. Good work, states, and if any readers feel like contacting their state's Motorcycle Safety Officer, the contact details are in our petition resource page. Or you could talk to your state DOT or your state reps about it.

According to the SAFETEA-LU fact page, $2814K of the $3187K has been paid out.

Our best estimate of the study costs, based on informed sources, is that Dynamic Science is charging between $8000 and $9000 per crash. That would make their part of the 300 crash study worth something like $2.55M, and OSU's maybe $637K, each give ot take 100K. Universities customarily keep a percentage of grant money for overhead and salaries, this percentage looks about usual. Dynamic Science has three researchers in South California, who did the pilot study starting in December 2008 and finished this spring. They are scheduled to start on the rest of the initial 300 crash studies soon.

The SafetyResearch.net blog for Feb 1, 2009 has a lot of background info. It details how Senator James Inhofe, R-Okla, rewrote the crash study to award the contract for the study to University of Oklahoma as pork. Dr. Samir Ahmed, reportedly, was unhappy at being stumped with the project. The OSU Transportation Center is known for road infrastructure research.

The funding for the study went through the Federal Highway Administration, not the National Highway Traffic Safety Admin., which usually does motorcycle-related studies. The hand of the AMA (American Motorcyclist's Assoc.) can be seen in this odd decision. NHTSA had developed (deservedly) a reputation among bike groups of slanting their research to make political points about helmet use, leading to distrust of NHTSA research findings. The use of Federal Highway Admin bypassed this problem.

In fact, there is very little chance that this study will be used in the helmet wars. AMA has been policing the issue and as the study is to be done in California, a helmet state, there is not likely to be any data about the effects of crashes without helmets. Informed sources suggest that the researchers don't consider helmet use to be a significant cause of crashes, so it is just not part of their brief to consider this factor. In practical terms, unless it is proposed to collect data in some other state as well as California, we are safe from the helmet issue becoming a factor. In addition the OECD research methodology was developed for the Maids study initially and helmet use is not an issue in Europe. Looks like AMA has done a good job in keeping this study clean of the helmet issue, so nobody need fear that it will come up.

So far, the other research problem has not cropped up yet, no-one has flown the insurance industry's pet issue of mandatory speed governers, hopefully we won't see this either. Speed governers would be counter productive, anyone who wants to hop up their engine computers can bypass the governer, and we are pretty sure that modified bikes are a major safety issue, again from Maids. What would happen, if a mandatory say 120 MPH speed governer law was enacted, would be that the bike manufacturers would start putting in 120 MPH brakes, tires etc., so when bikers swapped out the chips for 200 MPH chips, the 120 MPH components, especially tires, would fail in huge numbers, giving us a net safety downgrade. So the speed governer issue is a non-starter, even though nobody expects the new study to conclude that speed in not a factor in crashes, as Hurt did.

If the numbers can just be got up to 900 somehow, we'll get a good study, free of at least the usual biases. Judging by what happened after the armed forces did some studies of their members crashes, it's more likely that training will be the big issue.

Upcoming: we'll look into the OECD methodology, with Maids as an example, and see how these studies work.

Sign the Crash Study Petition

Our recent blog postings detail the trail of tears that the Motorcycle Crash Causation has dragged in its wake, amazing because of the huge work that had been done to date by the study stakeholders.

We decided to get up a petition and organize some folks to ride to Washington in the spring to deliver them.

The Petition Page has your choice of electronic or mail petition form, a discussion list registration feature, a 'tell a friend' mailaway to help spread the word and a page of resources, including a full set of press releases, contact info for the stakeholders, news and blog reports and previous Bikesafer bloggings. Fill out your petition, and tell your friends and organizations.

We have the complete info dump and finally, a way we, as bikers, can put our viewpoint on the prospect of a study that is expensive, yet too small to get definitive crash causation information. The petition asks, rather mildly, that the stakeholders get around a table and hammer out some way of getting a study that is big enough to produce good statistics.

Apologies the petition page was thrown together in a hurry. I am jonesin' for a ride so, now that I have a version of the petition out there, I'm going to take a couple of weeks off and ride west for a while. But I'll continue to update the blog on the road with breaking news, and I promise a total rebranding of the study page, when I get back, to emphasize the total independence of the study from any organization.

By the way, Bikesafer blog's reporting of the crash study saga has consistently been the most up-to-date and complete coverage of the issue, and we plan to keep a close eye on things.

We think we have identified all the money coming into the study, coming Monday, a new blog report on where it is going.

New Crash Causation Study Details

The AMA has issued a statement on the crash study, and we have coverage from roadracingworld.com, ClutchandChrome.com, a blog from sanantonio.injuryboard.com and local coverage from the OSU location in Stillwater, OK.

The news is basically the same as our blog from yesterday, except that we can correct the funding sources: The public funding is $2M from the highway reauthorization bill, $500K from the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, $560K from pooled study funds from six state DOTs, $100K from the American Motorcyclist Assn, $27,000 collected by AMA in its fundraising drive. The withheld MSF-controlled funds include $2.8M conditionally pledged by the motorcycle manufacturers who are MSF's members, and an additional $300K they helped raise from a group of equipment manufacturers. That seems to total $3,187,000 from public and AMA funds, and $3.1M embargoed by MSF.


Sources quote numbers ranging from $7M to $12M, and OSU has apparently mentioned numbers like $9M in the past. The LA Times article quoted OSU as saying 10-12 million, but that might have been for a 1200-sample study that was in the original plan. 1200 samples would be great, but first we need to get to 900, which most experts seem to consider the minimum for good statistical evaluation.


So the gap, for a 900 crash study ranges from $713K to $ 2.7M depending on who you talk to. A combination of new funding and cost cutting might do the trick, but that will require negotiation between the stakeholders listed above, plus Dynamic Science of Phoenix, who has the contract to do the work.

Guys, make it so. And watch Bikesafer.com for more updates as the story unfolds.

LA Times confirms study money withheld.

If you click the link in the blog header, you'll see the LA Times article, which confirms our blog post from earlier in the week about the study funding. The news seems to be worse, as the LA Times suggests that only another 247 crashes will be studied over the 53 already done as part of the pilot study just completed. The public funding is $2M from the highway reauthorization bill, $500K from the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, $500K from pooled study funds from the state DOTs, and $100K from the American Motorcyclist Assn. The AMA conducted a campaign to persuade the states to chip in, and have done amazingly well helping bring the study to this point.

Our conversation with Dr. Samir Ahmed, the Principal Investigator at Oklahoma State U., suggests that they might be able to get a total of 400 crashes studied, more than the LA Times suggests, and it is possible that future highway funding legislation might include additional funds.

The MSF has cited the 900 crash requirement as a reason for renaging on their matching fund commitment. They said:

... with a limited sample size of approximately 300, we believe the study will not provide sufficient statistical significance of the OECD identified study variables and the MSF Board of Trustees has determined that MSF must continue to make its commitment of funds contingent upon a sample size of at least 900 cases.

The MSF is right, as far as the above comment goes, but their action, in withholding funding, is likely to scupper chances of having the Feds throw in the additional cash required to get the numbers to 900. Here's the MSF full statement on the issue.

In our opinion, the MSF would be better advised to support the current study and look for ways to get it funded and/or cut enough costs to make it happen. After all, the contract was signed in easier economic times, and factors are cheaper now than they were then. And business harder to find.

Friends of bikers, like Rep. Steve Cohen of the Transportation Committee, the various State motorcycle safety administrators who contributed to the pooled study, the AMA and the many individuals and organizations that have supported this measure, have reason to feel betrayed by this attempt by the MSF to avoid their obligations. Plus every biker in the country, who ultimately are the customers of the MSF members (the bike makers).

We say: the major players: the NHTSA, AMA, MSF, OSU and Dynamic Sciences of Phoenix, the contractors for the study, should get their heads together and figure out some way of making the study go forward with at least 900 crashes reported. Is there someone out there who can call a meeting and make the various parties to this debacle see some sense? Are we going to waste this $3m in public and 100K in AMA money on a study that has been frittered down to a useless nub?

We might not see another chance for a definitive crash causation study in our lifetimes, and bikers will continue to die if we don't figure out for sure what is causing bike crashes.

We need the new study. Make it so, MSF.

New training features in Bikesafer.com

Bikesafer.com reviews the MSF's Experienced Rider Course, which is aimed at intermediate riders. The course might well be replaced by the much more interesting Advanced RiderCourse - Sportsbike Techniques, reviewed here by ducatinews.com. Despite the name, it is applicable to all bikes. The new course derives from the MSF's MSRC, their new course created for the Army and Navy. It has had limited availability so far, but RiderCoaches are being trained in the new course all over the country and we'd expect to see it readily available by spring of 2010.

Noting that the Marines and Air Force also have a new sportbike course developed by Lee Parks and associates, which also has limited availability, we note the sudden interest in new riding courses. Both these new courses are the result of some studies done by various branches of the military - we believe at least three - which found some interesting changes in crash causations in recent years. According to military regulations, this type of study is never made available to the public, and must be destroyed after a year, which we think is a shame. We'll have to wait for the new Crash Causation study to know for sure what the military found.

It is well known that the Marines complained that they were losing more members to bike crashes than they were due to the occupation of Iraq, so we think it's safe to assume that they identified a training deficit as a major cause of the increase in bike deaths.

When you think about it, all branches of the military are now requiring an initial Basic RiderCourse, followed by a period of riding, and then the follow-up advanced course. We note the similarities between this sequence and the European motorcycle training/testing model, as practiced in Germany, the UK and Ireland, and probably other jurisdictions. Typically there, a new rider takes an initial course and assessment, is given a probationary, restricted license for something like two years, and then takes additional training, a range test, a road test and written evaluation before getting his final license. Could we infer that the armed forces, with their two-phase training, is moving towards the European model? The armed forces are in a better position to enforce training standards than either the states or the Feds are.

Some food for thought. It would suggest that all bikers might benefit from taking basic training, then coming back for more training after a year or so, either the ERC, the ARC-ST or one of the other courses in our biker ED section.

On a related note, Bikesafer, had reworked its skills practice page, with more tips on how to practice essential riding skills on the cheap. The essential survival skills of emergency braking, swerving and turning maneuvers go away if not practiced often, and you'll never know when you'll need them.

Crash Study Blues

Good news last week on passing the SAFETEA-LU authorization of the new crash causation study. The Oklahoma State University Transportation Center is doing the work, and Dr. Samir Ahmed has been appointed principal investigator. Currently they are involved in getting approval for the study from an Institutional Review Board, which is a requirement for all studies involving human subjects. As the study is non-interventional, we'd expect the IRB would issue a waiver after issues like consent to access personal and medical records, and anonymity of personal data are sorted.

All is not well in academia, though. One issue is funding. As we reported in Bikesafer.com, the AMA and other biker and industry sources raised about 3.1 million by fall 2008 in response to the Feds' request for 2.8m in matching funds. Various government sources indicate that a total of $2,402,000 was budgeted in SAFETEA-LU allocations for 2006 and 2007, and we think that something like 4 million might have been allocated from various government sources, including pooled study funds from the states.

The real problem right now is the 3.1 million in matching funds that was promised by the MSF and other industry sources. The MSF money came with a number of restrictive conditions, including the requirement that 900 crashes be studied, and the money has not been forthcoming, and might never be, as the university thinks they are about 2 million short of being able to collect data on 900 crashes. They are estimating 8000 to 9000 per crash, and they have some overhead too. The MSF needs to modify their conditions, or another couple of million, needs to be found to allow the 900 crashes to be studied.

Various estimates put the study cost at between $7M and $9M, depending on who you talk to. We don't have a firm word on what the budget is to date, but the researchers at OSU engineering department indicated that funding has fallen short of requirements and that the number of accidents to be researched might be cut from the proposed 900+, perhaps to as low as 400 crashes. As both Maids and Hurt felt that 900 examples were needed, we must be concerned about any watering down of the stats from the new study. It might be back to the trenches here when someone figures out the real numbers.

Another matter for concern might be the intent to do the whole study in California, apparently because that's what Hurt did, and they want numbers to be comparable. It seems self-evident to me that multiple states should be studied: a helmet state and a non-helmet state, for example, and maybe an MSF training state versus one of the non-MSF states like Oregon, Idaho or Illinois. It would be criminal to not use this hopefully definitive study to settle the burning questions of the day. Sorry, guys, but Hurt is no longer relevant. For sure, the results won't look a bit like Hurt, some work will need to be done to figure out what needs to be studied, and where.

If I were asked, biker training will probably turn out to be one of the major factors in bike safety. The example of the armed forces, where a little research into crash causation (which we don't have access to), resulted in two brand-new rider courses, the MSRC and related ARC-ST from MSF, and Lee Parks advanced course for the Marines and Air Force. Combined with rising evidence for more biker causation, speed and alcohol factors, I think we are certain to see very different outcomes from Hurt.

It occurs that the military innovation, of requiring a more advanced course some time after initial training/certification could be interpreted as a move towards the two-level licensing system common in Europe? The military is in a better position to enforce their idea of better licensing and training standards than the states are. Why is everyone else except for the US states requiring initial training and an interim or probationary period followed by final qualification and/or more training?

Sorry, more questions than answers here, but we are in a time of asking questions, and if we, and the crash researchers ask the right questions, maybe some useful answers might be coming.

Track Days

New feature in Bikesafer.com - track days. Rather than risking your neck riding your sports bike around town, why not take it to track days? It's as much fun as you can have with your leathers on, and we guarantee, you'll learn a lot about your bike and how to ride it. Our new Track Days feature will get you started.

Feds finally move on Crash Causation Study

Bikesafer.com has, from its inception, been a supporter of the section 5511 of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), the new crash causation study. Yesterday, DOT announced the approval of the study, which will probably take about four years to complete. Approximately 20,000 bikers died while waiting for the study to get to this point, probably more than another 20,000 will die before it's done, and don't even start on the almost one million other casualties.

The work has been granted to the Oklahoma State University Transportation Center and we've spoken to their Dr. Alan Tree before.

This is a giant step forward for motorcycle safety, and we'll be watching progress at OSU very closely. In the meantime, bikesafer.com will continue to try to find what we can about crash causation.

Now we need to update the site again, coming soon.

Crash Causation Revisited

Ok, we admit it. Our original version of our information section followed the 'conventional wisdom' that the majority of crashes are caused by cages violating the right of way of the biker. Hurt proved this, and everyone knows bikers who had crashes like that.

We no longer believe this.

But we don't know for sure. After spending the summer riding around, talking to bike training and safety experts and reviewing obscure studies from abroad, it is clear to us that things have changed.

We believe that bikers are now responsible for the majority of bike crashes, as Steve Garets of TEAM OREGON told us last June. The actions of the US Marines, Air Force and the Army in revamping their training regimen, and several studies from abroad were further clues.

As I said, in the absence of a new crash causation study, we can't say for sure, but it seems unsafe to assume that, if we go, it will probably be at the hands of a cage driver who didn't see us.

Far healthier to assume that, if we are going to die on our bikes, it will probably be because we didn't know enough, were not defensive enough, had not practiced our skills enough, or were taking too many risks without being able to back them up. Or maybe because we were drunk or stoned. All these probable causes are ones we can do something about. See our BikerED section for more.

I am not saying we need to ignore the conspicuity issues and situational awareness of cages that can potentially turn across us. Far from it, they are still probably responsible for over a third of bike crashes. It is still a big deal. Just not the major issue.

And the next time you come across conventional wisdoms, reflect that if it is based on outdated information, maybe it's not so wise.

Ride like a Pro DVD reviewed.

Bikesafer.com adds to its library of training reviews with Ride like a Pro, the DVD, Jerry Palladino's training DVD. This is a very nicely-produced video featuring the patented Palladino brand of range training. The exercises are based on a relaxed, civilian-oriented version of the police rodeo style training. It cover the vital skills of cornering, swerving and the quick stop, all essential for survival.

We always say that, without regular practice, the techniques learned in basic rider training and other courses go away, and bikers fall short when these skills are really needed. This DVD is an economical way for a couple of riding buddies, or a riding club, to set up an afternoon or a day of skills practice. Gerry Palladino's direct and engaging style, and the clearly filmed demonstrations, explain the principles in a straightforward way.

With a little additional reading in riding strategy, which you can find in bikesafer.com, this video is a good training aid for intermediate and experienced bikers looking for an economical skills training option.

Looking Under the Hood at MSF

It's been a long time coming, but bikesafer.com has finally reviewed the MSF's Basic Rider Course. ET was invited to audit a course held over the Labor Day weekend, and the review explores the range exercises, classroom sessions and test content in detail.

ET gets under the tupperware and hauls out the guts for all to see. We had total access to all the material, interviewed the students, talked to the Rider Coaches and the owners of the franchise, Vickye and Harry Cunningham of Memphis's CycleSafety.net, and took lots of photos.

We didn't pull our punches. We found some problems and wrote them up.

We are very impressed by the passion and commitment displayed by the staff we met that weekend, and at the obvious progress the students made during the course.

We all have a long way to go with rider training in the USA, and MSF's Basic Rider Course is what most of us have to start with. Let's get to know it.

T-CLOCS pre-ride check: Open letter to the MSF

I recently visited with cyclesafety.net Memphis, an MSF franchise, where Vickye Cunningham kindly invited me to audit their Basic Rider Course.

T-CLOCS, the MSF's pre-ride checklist, came up for discussion.

I agree that the pre-ride check is an essential part of getting your bike ready for the road, and I do a slightly edited version of the check most of the time I ride. Hurt found that four percent of accidents were caused by bike defects, and Maids found a much lower rate of about 0.3 percent. But Maids also found that the existence of a bike defect that was not the primary cause of a crash was much more likely to get a biker killed. This makes sense. If your brakes fail when a cage pulls out in front of you, your chances of avoiding a headslam are much reduced.

Whatever the numbers, bike defects do cause crashes and deaths, and even if the numbers are small, this is one tiny part of the safety equation that bikers can control.

Bikers should all be doing T-CLOCS before each ride as a matter of course. Having ridden with hundreds of bikers, and been there as bikes are loaded up after overnight stops, I can honestly say that a tiny percentage of bikers seem to actually do the T-CLOCS checks regularly. Many bikers I have spoken to have rather lame excuses for not doing T-CLOCS, and I have seen a few near-accidents that could have been avoided by T-CLOCS.

The reason why seems fairly clear. T-CLOCS is a superset of all the possible checks, and some are not needed on all bikes. There are 71 boxes to check off on the T-CLOCS list, including items like spokes, drive shafts and center stands, which a lot of bikes don't have, inaccessible items like battery terminals and rear brake master cylinders, and redundant items like fuel levels, which are probably not necessary to check if you have a reliable fuel gauge or warning light system, or if you keep track of your fuel consumption.

The T-CLOCS list is probably the best that the MSF can do, but I don't think it works, and it could be made a lot less onerous. The only real way to do this is for the bike manufacturers to publish a short pre-ride checklist tailored for each model of bike, and distribute the list as a laminated card with every bike. The list should contain only the items which actually go wrong in practice, and are real safety issues. Maids focuses on brakes, tires and lighting problems as the major contributors to crash deaths. The motorcycle manufacturers already publish maintenance checklists as part of the owners and workshop manuals, so there is no added liability, and the cost to the manufacturers of printing the checklists would be a matter of a few cents per bike. The checklist might become an incentive for manufacturers to add automated checks of some of the potential problem areas. Even a dumbed-down, simplified list would be better than a checklist that is not done.

The MSF role would then become to encourage bikers to follow the shorter, easier, pre-ride checklist for their bike, which would be less onerous for the biker, and might be more likely to be followed in practice.

The MSF's detractors, like hysterical misinformationist Wendy Moon, claim that the MSF is a creature of the manufacturers and acts only in their interests, sometimes to the detriment of biker safety. This is an opportunity for MSF to pressure the manufacturers to do the right thing and improve motorcycle safety at minimal cost to themselves.

While MSF is at it, they also have an opportunity to get out in front of the ABS issue. The writing is already on the wall for ABS, and MSF has another chance here to promote safety and also protect their members interests. Surely they can make the case to their members that only live bikers can buy their products? The role of the conscience of the industry is a natural for MSF if they can rise to the challenge. Harley Davidson has shown the way by making ABS standard on all their bikes, and my helmet is off to them for that. There is no real way the other manufacturers can continue to deny ABS. The large increase in numbers of ABS equipped bikes will eventually produce some good statistics about its efficacy. The smart money is on the news being good, and who wants to be seen to be neglecting the ABS as a standard option and basically cashing in bikers lives to save a few dollars in manufacturing costs? That's a PR and product liability nightmare.

How about it, MSF? Here's a couple of opportunities to do the right thing for safety, to look good, and to put the lie to allegations of industry bias.

In the meantime, all we can say to bikers is: keep doing your pre-ride checks, check as much as you can from the T-CLOCS list, bike defects can get you killed.

ABS

When I bought my ST1300 two years ago, my local Honda dealer tried to persuade me that ABS didn't really work on bikes, and that the vibration caused by ABS when it activated was destabilizing. He didn't have the ABS version in stock, and I ended up buying my previous-year 2006 ST1300A from a competitor of his. I put my money where my mouth was to the tune of a little over a grand, which is what Honda was charging for the ABS option. The dealer's story about ABS vibration during activation turned out not to be true, by the way, you barely notice when it kicks in, except that you stop very quickly.

In fact, there is no real proof that ABS is effective on bikes, although at the time I believed that it was. But there is a lot of persuasive evidence.

Maids, for example, flubbed the chance to make a definitive finding on ABS. They discovered that bikes with ABS seemed to be under-represented in the crash numbers, but they discarded these data because they made a mistake in their control group recruitment. (This might be a good opportunity for a masters student to make a thesis, as the control group issue affected only the German part of the study, the rest of the data might be salvaged, and Maids is willing to share their database).

Promocycle of Montreal did some nice studies on braking, finding that ABS, under ideal conditions, added about one-tenth of a negative G to the average deceleration force of about three-quarters of a negative G. That's about a 15% bonus in stopping power, and ABS's real advantage is when the surface is wet or slippery, where you'd expect the benefit to be much greater. My calculations suggest that the average rider can emergency-stop from 60 MPH in 3.77 seconds (4.15 without ABS) or 193 feet versus 210 without ABS - that's a ten percent benefit that might save your life. Again, that's in perfect conditions, in the real world you'd expect much better.

The Netherlands police force dropped their ST1300s this year because of negative reports from the UK police, who found a high-speed wobble in their ST1300s over 90 MPH. I think this was actually due to user error in loading the saddlebags. They went to Honda Transalps this year, but plan to dump them in favor of the Yamaha FJR1300 police version, because the Transalp doesn't have ABS, and the Yamaha does. Yamaha appears to be cleaning up worldwide with its police bike, because it is the ABS bike that's not an ST1300 with its alleged wobble or a Beemer with its heavy dry clutch and high maintenance costs.

Stateside, Harley Davidson seems to be selling to more police departments, despite its weak acceleration, partly because of it's recent decision to put ABS on all its models. They are taking advantage of disarray among the competition and Yamaha's poor police market penetration. This has to be a smart move from Harley.

No-one questions the efficacy of ABS on cars, despite initial negative feedback from some police departments which was based on misunderstanding of the mechanism.

I spent the last weekend as a guest of cyclesafety.net, a Memphis based motorcycle safety school that uses the MSF Basic Rider Course curriculum. I observed the emphasis placed on the quick stop techniques, which is an essential safety skill. Many bikers perform poorly in crash situations because they don't practice this skill enough. It's not something that you do every day, and like all such skills, it goes away if you don't practice it. The problem with emergency braking practice is that it is itself dangerous. Maximum braking is achieved by applying both brakes to within an iota of the wheel lock points, for each wheel. Just a little additional pressure over the maximum on either of the brake controls will cause the corresponding wheel to lock. This situation is correctable, with skill and luck, but is itself dangerous, and even if it doesn't cause a crash, it will make your emergency stop non-optimal. To complicate the matter further, your bike's brake lock points vary with the coefficient of friction of the road surface, which changes in the wet and on poor surfaces. The physics of the situation is lethal, and almost all non-professional riders are guaranteed to perform less than optimally in an emergency stop without ABS.

If you have ABS, emergency stopping becomes simple. You start straightening up the bike, and you jam on both brakes to the max, making sure your handlebars and the bike are straight by the time you stop. Problem solved. The bike and the ABS takes care of the rest. Who wouldn't want that in an emergency situation?

I don't think that any reasonable person can now deny the accumulation of evidence that ABS does work on bikes, and that it saves lives.

It is time for the other bike manufacturers to follow Harley Davidson's lead and make ABS standard on all bikes.

The benefit and necessity of ABS is no longer really in question. Product liability should do the rest, it is time for the other bike makers to jump on the bandwagon before it rolls over them. They have a maximum of about four years to make the change, because the new Federal accident causation study is unlikely to ignore ABS and my bet is that there will soon be enough ABS bikes in the population, because of the Harley initiative, to yield solid statistics on its efficacy. I am willing to bet that ABS will be proven to be effective in that study, after which it will be open season for product liability lawyers representing the 5000+ dead bikers each year.

Putting ABS as standard on all bikes is the cheap option for bike manufacturers. They are endangering their shareholders funds by holding out.

I'd love to get my hands on some of the research that police buyers seem to be doing on ABS.

Guns and bikes

OK, this is not a rant about guns, either way. I noticed a post on ADVrider's Face Plant forum from a few months ago that has since rolled off. What happened was, a rider (who seemed to be a law enforcement employee) was wearing a gun on his belt, came off and broke his hip because of the gun.

Gear manufacturers usually warn not to carry heavy objects like tools in the pockets, and guns definitely qualify as 'heavy objects'. Even the diminutive Derringer, as favored by Special ED, is a heavy object in your pocket.

My personal take on carrying a gun is, if it's legal and you feel like you need one, go ahead. I have a Tennessee concealed carry permit and I often avail of it when riding. I know a lot of bikers who either carry or pack a weapon in their luggage, legally or not. As I said, I live in Tennessee, where the movie 'Deliverance' was filmed, and every time I see a gay redneck in a pickup truck on a country road, I hear those duelling banjos and my hair stands on end. Never know when you'll be glad of having a weapon handy.

The question is, what's the safest way to carry a weapon, if you choose to do so? When I first got my carry permit, I wore my gun in a shoulder rig, but it soon occurred to me that the chances of going down and breaking some ribs were probably a lot higher than the likelihood of a need to use the weapon in self-defense. The shoulder carry option came to look self-destructive. For a while I switched to carrying in the side pocket of my Aerostich, but the ADVrider story of the hip injury came along and that seemed a bad idea too.

All the carry options also include issues during stops. If you plan to eat in a place that has alcohol, for example, most state law bans even legally-carried guns, so you have to do an awkward transfer of the gun to your saddlebag. Same would be true of many parks and most schools.

The security advantage of having a gun actually on your person is pretty small. Chances are, you have to unzip your jacket or pocket and maybe remove a glove before you can use it. If you get into a situation, and you are actually on your functioning bike, chances are you can outrun most threats, ninjas on Hayabusas notwithstanding. It seems to me that the most real security threat occurs when you are stationery, especially if your bike is disabled. There would most likely be a transition between being mobile on your bike and being stopped, with a corresponding chance to move your gun. I don't see any situations where you would want to be using your gun while actually moving. If stopped on your bike, chances are you'd want to dismount before actually firing a gun, due to the vulnerability of a bike-straddled firing position, and the likelihood of taking a bullet in your gas tank while your nads are in close proximity to it.

Long and short: if mobile, you run. If immobile, you are off the bike asap, and maybe using it for cover. Your gun just needs to be readily available on the bike.

What I've ended up with depends on my bike. On the ST1300, I keep it in one of the cowl pockets, with the lid unlocked. On my 919, I use a small tank bag. In both cases, the gun is fairly readily available, at least as handy as it would be under my jacket. When needing to leave the bike and gun, I either lock the cowl pocket or unmount the tank bag and lock it in the saddlebag.

A lot of trouble, you might say, and you'd be right. But gun ownership carries responsibilities, including the need to lock your gun away when unattended, and honoring those pesky rules that say you can't carry in certain places.

Too much trouble? Well, that's a call. I have to admit that when I visited Canada recently, and left my ironically Canadian Para Ordnance pistol at home, I felt naked the whole trip, despite a can of Mace clipped to the handlebar and a taser in the side pocket. So I still carry the gun whenever I get on the highway, despite all the inconveniences. But I do my best to try to keep the safety ledger in the plus column.

And that's always the trick with bike safety. Anything you do to enhance safety has the potential to bring its own set of risks, so that the thinking biker is constantly balancing the pros and cons of safety. Guns on bikes are no different.

Skills Practice and Where to do it.

I've been talking to a lot of bikers and safety experts lately. In a conversation with MSF's Vicky Cunningham, she suggested that training, without regular skills practice is almost a waste. And I am totally in agreement. If defensive riding doesn't pan out, and you need to do an emergency stop or swerve, if you haven't been practicing, you'll freeze up or severely underperform. A course you took 18 months ago will avail you not, without practice.

I'm thinking that it would be cool for bikers to have a place to go and practice riding skills. A city owned employee parking lot, for example, that isn't used at the weekend. All the city would have to do is have someone blow it out with a leaf blower on Friday afternoons, to remove excess gravel, and place a barrier, like a construction barrel, in the entrance, to keep cages out but let motorcycles in.

Bikers, riding club chapters etc could get together and practice riding skills. There would be no liability to the city, as motorcycles can enter parking lots anytime, and the practice wouldn't need to be organized by the city. The payoff would be potentially large - a single serious bike injury in Memphis, my home town, with a biker having no health insurance, might cost hundreds of thousands for an extended stay at the MED, our city-supported local trauma center.

As regards skills practice instructions, a copy of Jerry Palladino's 'Ride like a Pro' (reviewed here), or even the free practice guide from his website would be all that's needed. And here's our page on skills practice.

Anyone out there got any ideas? If you know a good place to practice bike skills, spread the word, gather some buddies and have some fun on your bikes practicing the what you learned in basic and experienced rider training.

And the next time local candidates come around asking for your vote, remind them that bikers vote too.

Our city has a skateboard park, ball fields, golf courses, a rollerblade trail and all sorts of specialized sporting facilities. Why not a biker park?

Summer rallies and Motorcycle Clubs

Summer is upon us, and everyone is riding to rallies and events. You might meet up with members of 'one-percenter' motorcycle clubs (MC) on your travels. Riding club versus motorcycle club distinctions are covered in this useful link. Read up on protocol for meeting motorcycle club members and one-percenters, colors etiquette and be aware of any relationships that might exist between any group of which you are a member and motorcycle clubs. Your chapter officers should be able to brief you on such issues.

I have always found my local one-percenters to be sweetness and light, but I am careful not to do anything inadvertent that might be considered disrespectful.

It's a safety issue, a word to the wise.

Zero Electric Cycle

Zero Motorcycles just put out a new, dual-sport electric motorcycle with a 50-mile range. Trying hard to think of a safety aspect to this, but it is cool. When the oil runs out, this sort of thing is probably what we'll have to ride. OK there's my safety angle, no oil spots on the floor of the garage to get on the tires and dump you in the driveway. And you can run it all day in the garage with no carbon monoxide build-up.

Wonder if they'll let me test-ride it.

Bikesafer.com training

As promised, we've been concentrating on our training section lately, and, although we have a ways to go, there are some improvements. We've added a review of Lee Park's 'Total Control' book to our training resources review page, and an expanded pillion passenger training section, and we have more training-related features on the way.

Ride safe.

Bikesafer upgrades training section

Bikesafer.com just grew up. We've been researching biker education and training and we've re-released our training section. We've got features on deciding if we should ride, biker psychology, retreads (returning riders), basic training, your first bike, skills practice, experienced rider courses, advanced training, a training review page, and pillion passengers.

We've added a review of Jerry Palladino's 'Ride like a Pro' book, and updated our clickable, by-state training map. We have numerous new training features ready to roll out in coming months.

For real insight into biker safety, Bikesafer.com is leading edge. We bring the fun back into training. As a handy buyers guide, or a do-it-yourself resource for parking lot practice, we got it.

Come visit, and tell your friends.

Our new feature for webmasters is also in place. Our monthly safety briefing is a copyright-free cut and pasteable ready-made safety corner for your biker site or forum. You can sign up for a regular email feed, another way of showing your members your love, and we do all the work for you.


Half the fun of riding is getting home safe.

Training at Total Control

Just got back from a ride to Johnson City, Tennessee. I took the Lee Parks Total Control Advanced Rider Clinic, level 1.

It's reviewed here. Bikesafer.com is planning a series of training reviews to cover major parts of the industry, this is the first installment.

Total Control is an interesting critter. It's all about turning your bike, using race-proven technique adapted for road use. Big Beemer tourers, a Harley Ultra Classic and my ST1300 were quite at home, and I must say I had fun and learned a lot. Traction is traction, whether on the track or the road, and scientific cornering gets you around with a nice bit of road to spare, ready for the unexpected. It will take me weeks to fully assimilate what I learned last Thursday, throw me in the briar patch.

Afterwards, Wayne Miller of Dragon Safe and Lee Parks and I chatted over dinner. We talked about Brittany Morrow's sad case and all she's been doing since to promote good bike gear. I've got to say that Wayne and Lee both wore head-to-toe gear any time they rode, as did everyone in the course.

Biker psychology was to the fore. Bikers are risk-takers (but don't have death wishes). We sometimes have a victim mentality, which is something we could lose. We sometimes crave peer approval, to the point where we do dumb stuff, like wheelies and wearing inadequate protection. Head adjustment time.

Wayne and Lee are very excited about the new training course they are putting together for the Marines, and Lee's new intermediate level rider course in Troy, NY.

Two Second Rule Inadequate, the proof

Last May, we blogged about the 2-second rule quoting SurvivalSkills.co.uk and referring to a bunch of studies from the Quebec PromoCycle.com which did some nice research on motorcycle braking, coming up with new numbers for reaction time and average deceleration force which made Survival Skills look a bit optimistic.

Prompted by our discussion with Steve Garets of TEAM OREGON, who train much more conservative sight and anticipated path distances than standard, I dusted off my old physics 101 notes and did some calculations. Using the Promocycle observed average decelerative force of -0.774G and their 95-percentile reaction time of 0.62 seconds, I came up with numbers like 2 seconds from 25 mph at 50 feet, 3 seconds from 50 mph at 153 feet and 4 seconds from 65 mph for 242 feet, this being the average performances for experience riders on mechanically sound bikes in perfect traction conditions.

The full calculations and tables of stopping times and distances are here. Our revised notes on the bike time/space window are here.

As a result, we are following TEAM OREGON's lead for immediate path and sight distance rules, and add our own numbers for following distances.

Following Distance: At least 3 seconds over 25 MPH, at least 4 seconds over 55 MPH, at least 5 seconds over 75 MPH, at least an additional 25% in the wet or on loose surfaces, and an additional 10 percent on downhill grades.

Immediate Path: 10 seconds (the MSF standard is 4 seconds)

Sight Distance/Anticipated Path: 20 seconds (MSF recommends 12 seconds)

The good news is that these are average numbers for over a hundred tests run by experienced riders. If you could train up to a deceleration performance of -1.09 (the best Promocycle test) and were covering the brakes to reduce your reaction time to 0.47 seconds, your stopping time for 60 MPH would be reduced from an expected 4.15 seconds to a shade under 3 seconds, and your stopping distance from 210 feet to 152 feet. But if you performed at the worse Promocycle example for deceleration (just under -0.4G) and weren't covering the brake, 60 to 0 might take 7.5 seconds and 355 feet. Surely not good enough to keep you out of trouble in an emergency. Note that the very best performance in the Promocycle tests still have the bike stopping from 60 mph in three seconds. Two seconds looke very unrealistic even at this modest highway speed.

It seems to us that the difference between the worst and best performances is a matter of training and then practice. Good emergency braking skills seem like a skill worth acquiring.

The full Bikesafer reports are at time/space window and stopping distance calculations

Incidentally, Promocycle proved a benefit for ABS in improving braking performance significantly, even under good traction conditions where ABS benefits are smaller.

We plan a series on available training to put us on the good end of this braking skills spectrum, starting next week.

TEAM OREGON and biker training

On hearing some comments about the effectiveness of the TEAM OREGON basic training model versus the MSF Basic RiderCourse, I talked to Steve Garets of Oregon State University, which provides statewide rider training services. I think a large part of the mindset in OSU and TEAM OREGON might be from a self-reliant pioneer heritage, but their take on things is surprisingly different.

Steve told me that, prior to the introduction of the new Oregon basic training course in 2004-5, that OSU conducted some research comparing the (new and current) MSF BRC to the MSF MRC:RSS (which it replaced) and found some shortcomings, which resulted in the new Oregon Basic Rider Training (BRT) Course.

The new curriculum is generally similar to the MSF BRC curriculum, but has more emphasis on paying attention to the road situation and a much bigger sight rule. They recommend a 10-second immediate path rule (as opposed to the MSF 4-second immediate path) and a 20-second sight distance rule, which is more than the 12-second MSF anticipated path rule. (we agree that the traditional following distance rules were never enough, see 2-second rule.

After field testing the BRT and comparing it with the then-benchmark MRC:RSS, Oregon hasn't done any formal follow-up research into the effectiveness of the new curriculum. They have been following up closely on motorcycle crashes and have some rather startling numbers. Oregon has about half the national average of fatal bike crashes, per registered motorcycle. An incredibly low 19 percent of fatal crashes (compared to Hurt's 75%) are caused by a car turning into the right of way of the biker. Half of the crashes are single vehicle crashes and a total of 87 percent of all crashes are the fault of the rider, including the bike rear-ending the other vehicle and head-ons with the bike in the oncoming lane.

Steve says that they haven't done anything to the driver training, so the difference might well be with the bikers. Steve is reluctant to attribute the huge difference in state fatalities to the TEAM OREGON training program, because they don't have the data, but it seems that the citizens of Oregon have every reason to be happy with these numbers.

Steve thinks that TEAM OREGON's defensive riding approach, with riders being conservative about the bike following distances and generally paying more attention is major. We talked about the victim mentality of riders in assuming that crashes are caused by cage drivers.

ET editorializes: The victim mentality will be a factor in our upcoming features on rider psychology, which will follow on our visit to Dragon Safe next week and a study of Lee Park's approach to rider psychology.

I'm reminded of one prominent local biker, who rear-ended a car one summer, was fairly lucky to escape with minimal damage, then rear-ended another car almost on the anniversary of the first crash. I had occasion to talk to him about it after the second crash, where his bike was written off and he spent time in the hospital. He inexplicably maintained that both crashes were the cage drivers' fault.

This rider was in huge denial and was exhibiting the victim mentality that Steve was talking about. Either mindset (victim or denial) will get you in trouble. Hurt, for all the brilliance of his study, helped establish the idea that the cage driver is always at fault, which, even if true, is not helpful to bikers who want to ride safer.

That said, we need to remind ourselves that the reduction in biker deaths per motorcycle would need to be adjusted by miles ridden to be a true measure of risk, and that the numbers here do not imply cause and effect. You'd expect that if biker ed was the cause of a reduction in biker deaths that the remaining accidents would predominantly be caused by the cage driver, and Oregon is reporting the exact opposite. I am puzzled and we'll be trying to follow up with the Oregon DOT to see if we can gt some insight into what's going on. Maybe the TEAM OREGON analysts are being harder on bikers because they are looking for defensive biker errors to help with improving their course material. We just don't know. One thing we can say, from general systems principles, is that when the developers responsible for a program follow the results closely and feed back outcomes into a redevelopment process, generally the program responds better to real-life conditions over time, and this may be one of the strengths of the Oregon program. Off the top of the head, you would expect wet and/or icy conditions and mountainous terrain to be more of a factor in Oregon than elsewhere, and we have the impression that there is a high level of bike and scooter usage for commute purposes in some of these Western cities. You would expect that a program like TEAM OREGON would adapt over time to specific conditions in Oregon, which is not a feature of a one-size-fits-all program like MSF's BRC. Our expectation is that if two programs start out equivalent and one is incrementally redeveloped, that the second program would soon produce better outcomes. We have more questions than answers, which often happens in the bike safety realm.

From the POV of riders in the other states, if we are riding around with insufficient stopping distances, not paying attention and with a built-in victim mentality, we'll have more crashes. We could all use a good dose of Oregon rationality.

This is why we will be following up on rider psychology in depth after we do some homework. Now we're going to have to totally revamp our site. As always, bike safety is a ride, not a destination.

We want to thank Steve for his generosity with his time and insights, and to congratulate him and his colleagues what seems like an incredible job in Oregon. Steve has invited us to visit TEAM OREGON and audit one of their BRT sessions, and we intend to take him up on that offer as soon as we can organize the 5K ride.

Motorcycle Safety and Training

The dust has settled a bit and maybe it's time to sum up how important training is for bikers. Lack of bike control skills and observation/situational analysis has time and time again been identified as a contributing cause in the majority of bike accidents in studies from Hurt to Maids and by every experienced and responsible biker I have ever talked to.

As a bike safety site, we at BikeSafer.com are appalled at the negativity and bogus allegations expressed in various quarters. Yes, five people died due to crashes during MSF training in the last ten years. But the MSF has trained more than two and a half million riders during this time, so the chances of being killed during training are about one in half a million. Compared to more than 30,000 bikers killed in accidents during this time, it is a very small number, especially when you consider that lack of training probably contributed to 20,000 or more of those deaths. Yes, deaths during training are tragic and should not happen, but consider the benefit of training 2.5 million bikers and the awful trade-off makes sense. I do hope that MSF is changing up its processes with a view to reducing the death rate, and I will be talking to them about that. (I hope I don't wear out my welcome there).

So the training isn't as good as it could be. Oregon's course material is similar to MSF's but they use different adult teaching techniques and claim better results. (We're checking this out right now). The Marines and Air Force are currently revamping their training regimens, and are being a bit secretive about the research they base it on. Famously, the Marines claim they lose more squaddies from bike crashes than in combat, which is motivating their current development. There is also evidence that some states have been dumbing down their training and testing requirements, while we note that the EU generally has more stringent requirements and is in the process of making them tougher. We think this is a factor.

What needs to happen here is a new study so we can have good information, not the bogus junk obtained from public records. (The military research underpinning their recent training decisions was based to a large extent on researchers responding to crashes and collecting their own data, but they won't release their results due to their culture of secrecy). We need to research improved course material and educational methods, and to have tougher training and testing requirements. In the meantime, responsible bikers educators, researchers and safety people need to be improving and promoting training incrementally, based on what we know now. If the military can research the options and make decisions regarding training courses, then the rest of us and the MSF can do something too.

We at BikeSafer.com have been working on this. We have a new national training page with a cool, clickable map, listing all the non-MSF basic, experienced, advanced and specialized bike training we could find. (The MSF already has their own version of this). We've been talking to a lot of the trainers. I am booked into Dragon Safe's training course next week, nice excuse to take the ST up into the Smokies. I'll be reviewing this course, based on Lee Park's Level 1 shortly. While on the road, I hope to interview Lee himself, another upcoming feature, and also review his book. I am very interested in his theories on Rider Psychology which will probably be a new section in BikeSafer.com pretty soon. I'm also planning to visit with an MSF Basic Rider Course in coming weeks, and we'll do an in-depth article on the training and the people. I also plan to visit with Joey Redmon in North Carolina soon, to sit in on his 'Ride like a Pro' police-style training class, and I'm sure I'll be writing about that.

In short, Bikesafer.com is getting ready to take a major ride through the training landscape and y'all are invited. Along the way, I have identified several people who are knowledgeable on the changes happening in the military training, and we'll be trying hard to get under the skin of what's going on there.

I have been talking and corresponding with dozens of motorcycle trainers and bike police lately, with hundreds of years and millions of miles of combined riding experience, and man-years of advanced training. I've asked them all if they'd recommend that a new rider takes the MSF course. The answer is unanimous - train early and often, learn riding skills, learn defensive strategies, develop situational awareness and ride a little bit safer. That's the research we care about.

We'll have the first installment of the new and expanded BikeSafer training coverage when I get back from my road trip next weekend.

MSF responds on student deaths

Last week, I asked the Motorcycle Safety Foundation for a statement on student deaths while taking the MSF's courses. Here is their response, received today as promised:

Riding, especially learning to ride, has inherent risks. MSF is concerned about any crash that occurs, whether it's on the road or during training. We take safety seriously in creating the best environment to pursue one's dream to ride. A primary goal of the MSF is to ensure a low risk, positive learning environment for beginning students so that they can make the best choices while learning and riding.

Since its founding in 1973, more than 4.6 million students have been trained using Motorcycle Safety Foundation curricula, including approximately 2.5 million since 2002. MSF prides itself on making the highest quality research-based and field-tested motorcycle training curricula available to riders and prospective riders throughout the United States and the world.

MSF is unable to disclose details related to fatalities because of privacy considerations. However, since there has been some misreporting on this subject, MSF welcomes the opportunity to provide factual information.

Since 2002, out of the roughly 2.5 million students trained, there have been six crashes that resulted in the death of students, including one that was caused by a serious medical condition. In the past year, three additional students died from medical conditions while not riding. Every fatality has been thoroughly investigated by law enforcement, insurance investigators, or others. The curricula, and the delivery of the curricula by RiderCoaches, have never been determined to be a factor. MSF employs a stringent quality assurance program as part of its ongoing effort to review and refine policies and practices to minimize the inherent risks associated with training.

Motorcycle Riding Schools

Today, a new feature in BikeSafer.com. On being reminded that the site was a bit MSF-centric, possibly because they control all the training near where I live, I dug around a bit and couldn't find a comprehensive list of alternative - or just other - motorcycle training providers. So I did a bit of homework and found 29, and started a list. Which is in the link.

If you are due some training, or maybe you already did the Experienced Rider Course and didn't find it sufficiently advanced for your needs, check out this list of training providers.

This is an old saw with us at BikeSafer, but we think that training, repeated early and often, backed up by on-road strategic thinking and constant emergency skills practice is the best tool we have as bikers to improve our odds of avoiding a crash. Check out these providers and consider taking some of these fun and informative courses soon.

Criticism of MSF

I've been coming across a lot of critics of the MSF lately. MSF is not perfect. It is a creature of the motorcycle manufacturers. Course participants die and are injured during training. MSF, as a capitalist entity, might engage in some competitive practices that could be considered a bit dodgy, and they do some lobbying. But, for most of us, it is the only local bike training organization available.

Gymnast of msgroup.org, a site I like and have referred to on my site many times, challenged me to read Wendy Moon's blog, Moonrider, which I did. Here's my analysis of some fairly big chunks of the blog.

In summary, MSF is a 501 (c) 6 organization, which is actually a non-profit trade group representing the interests of the motorcycle manufacturers, not a 501 (c) 3 charitable organization. I did not know this, and MSF confirmed it. Moon is upset by MSF acting like a capitalist entity and knocking off the competition, I guess I am sort of used to capitalism being red in tooth and claw.

Some MSF course participants, according to Moon, died during training. When I asked Stacey of MSF about this, she promised me a press release this coming Monday, which I will publish here when I get it. I guess rider training is dangerous, like riding in general. All death and injury must be regretted, but if there is a general benefit from training then maybe lives are being saved overall. It seems to me that all bike safety is a trade off, to get a safety benefit that reduces risk in one area sometimes you have to accept a (hopefully lesser) risk in some other area, like when you change lanes to be more conspicuous. Which is no consolation to the relatives of those unfortunates who died.

That brings me to the main course of today's blog. I analysed one of Moon's entries, actually the first I came to on the subject of the efficacy of the MSF courses, and did a bit of basic fact checking. My notes on the research is here, check it out for yourself. After checking the cited papers carefully, I found that Moon selectively chose items that made training look bad, and ignored points that made training look beneficial. She also used data which the study authors said were invalid due to poor investigative technique. Her hypothesis was not supported by the data she cited, and in one case was contradicted by her own citatons.

Because the contrary has been suggested, I must say that I have a postgraduate degree and some publications in my own field, and I am qualified to read and understand academic papers. I have ridden motorcycles since 1973. In any event, all the citations are in the link and readers can judge for themselves. The misuse of the material is pretty egregious, imho. I also have to say that I have taken some training from MSF and read some of their publications, but otherwise have no connection with MSF or any of their affiliated organizations, not do I or have I ever worked or had any connection with any PR or lobbying organizations who deal with MSF or any of the corporations that control it, other than using their products. I am not part of a conspiracy, which I am sure I will be accused of pretty soon. I am a simple-minded bike rider who has some time on his hands, access to a web server and a concern about bike safety.

I guess it all goes to show that the internet is what it is, anyone can say anything. The fact of the matter is that bike safety is the responsibility of the rider, that training and skills deficits (probably) contribute to many or most crashes, and the MSF, with all its faults, is what we have for safety training in most cities. If you have a beef with MSF, you can start your own training organization, or help MSF develop better training practices, or you can lobby your House reps to include provision for getting the overdue crash causation study funded and started. Or maybe find some other way to make a difference. Having a big body of good data will dispel misinformation and maybe make it possible to come up with better and more effective training.

I think it is irresponsible to suggest that bike training is not beneficial, without cast-iron proof, which certainly does not exist. The person who reads that today might skip his MSF training tomorrow and be dead by the weekend.

Check us out again Tuesday for the MSF's press release on biker deaths during training.

Lost Passengers

Kathy Mellembakken of Mid-South ASMI, a MAST (Motorcycle Accident Scene Training) organization has been drawing attention to the issue of lost pillion passengers.

What happens is, a bike with a passenger crashes in some rural spot, paramedics arrive and find a rider who is dead, unconscious or otherwise not making a lot of sense. They roll away with their casualty and miss the pillion passenger, who is out of sight somewhere, behind some country furniture. Apparently several women have died this way in recent years, their corpses often not found for months.

Kathy recommends that both riders wear a dog-tag or med-alert necklace when riding two-up, to alert paramedics to the other rider. Paramedics always check for a med-alert bracelet or neck-tag. You can buy them in any pharmacy. Wouldn't do any harm to include the other person's cellphone which might help find the missing rider. Wearing some high-vis or autoreflective material might help too.

In a pinch, both riders could set each other up as the cellphone ICE contact for the other. Paramedics might make a triage mistake this way, and treat a less-injured person first, but the phone ringing might help find the other person.

Bikesafer.com is focused on avoiding accidents rather than responding to them, but we encourage all bikers to take MAST training, because any of our fellow riders might some day need our help. We should also encourage paramedic and firemen friends to take MAST training, where available, as part of their continuing education. Bike casualties are specialized and MAST-trained paramedics do a better job of saving biker lives.

That said, training and skills practice is what helps bikers avoid crashes in the first place.

Bike Animal Crashes

Here's motorcyclecruiser's article on bike-animal crashes. I have been looking into this subject since almost hitting a deer on the Blue Ridge Parkway earlier this month. The deer ran across the road within feet of my bike, I didn't have a chance to hit the brakes, but we did not hit. A riding buddy hit a deer in Arkansas last year and survived.

I looked at deer whistles and other devices, but the available research (see the article above) suggests they don't work and might even attract critters.

Best thing to do is scan for animals, bearing in mind that when you see one, there may be more. Deer seem to be more prevalent at dawn and dusk, and when there are a lot of bugs. Don't approach animals on the road, they might have territorial issues. I have seen land crabs swarming on roads in Florida, I don't think you can ride over them as their hard shells can easily puncture tires.

Motorcyclecruiser.com suggests braking as hard as possible prior to the crash, and don't swerve around large animals. Conventional advice suggests you just ride straight over smaller animals of squirrel size and smaller. Oftentimes the quality of your personal protective equipment makes the difference.

Ok, this is a pretty lame post, it doesn't look like there is a good technique or fix for this problem. Anyone who has any suggestions on this issue, let us know.

New Crash Causation Study - Update from Steve Cohen

At Bikesafer.com, we are very interested in the new bike crash causation study. We think that better information will help produce better decisions, from the federal level to the individual biker. The out-of-control biker death rate might improve. We wrote our House Rep, Steve Cohen, who is on the Transportation Committee, and he sent us a considered and informative reply, which we link to near the end of this bikesafer.com page.

We have a list of Transportation Committee reps and their contact details on that same page. If you feel inspired to let them know how you feel on the matter, here's some talking points:

• Bikers have already paid for the study via fuel taxes and what we pay for motorcycles.
• We might have 10,000 biker deaths per year in another decade if nothing is done to stop the rising road death toll.
• The Hurt report was instrumental in reducing the death rate by a third in its time.
• Congress promised $2.8M if the industry matched the funds. The industry came up with more than the money Congress asked for, now Congress is renaging by cutting its share to 2.1M. They are welshing on their own deal.
• The study is shovel ready.
  

This is the time to put pressure on the politicians and get some good information on motorcycle safety.

Bikesafer.com adds flash video conspicuity demo

As promised, we have a new feature in bikesafer.com, you can get there by clicking the link in the yellow box from bikesafer.com. Last Sunday, Special ED and I took our bikes, a Harley Davidson Road King and a Honda ST1300 out with a cheapie Aiptek hd camcorder. It was a bright summer day in Bartlett, Tennessee so viewing conditions were optimal. The effect would probably be much more noticeable if we shot in poorer visibility. The videos were edited to remove excess footage where nothing was happening, the frame size was reducedto fit PC screens and we added captions, but otherwise we did not alter the images. All video was shot inside twenty minutes on the same settings,with a slight camera move at one point.

Special ED and I did four passes each. Special ED ran first on low beams, then on high beams with modulator, then on low beams with running lights and finally with high beams, modulator and running lights. I ran with low beams, high beams, then with high beams and running lights and finally with high beams, modulator and running lights. The passes are captioned so you can keep track of what's going on. Special ED's basic lights are enhanced with direct relay power to the headlight, and has PIAA bulbs, and my ST also has these mods plus an upgrade from 45 watts to 65 watts on both headlight bulbs.

You can judge for yourself, but look particularly at the longer shots of Special ED's Harley clip, where his bike imho jumps out of the background much sooner with the added lighting in later passes.

Check out our conspicuity pages for details on light enhancements for conspicuity, and check out our other upcoming site improvements in a few days.

New features in bikesafer.com

As promised, new revisions to bikesafer.com. We have a new visual treatment for the risk hierarchy, it has mouseover notes and links to the main sections. And the ultra-defensive riding strategies section has a new tab for weather strategies, after some field work in the rain and a bit of a reassessment of the conclusions in the studies on weather as a crash causation.

Over the weekend, Special ED and I took our bikes out and demonstrated frontal conspicuity using low and high beams, modulators and running lights on video. This is in process of editing and I think the new feature will let viewers make up their own minds about the effectiveness of these conspicuity measures, once I figure out how to edit video. We used ED's Harley Road King and my ST1300 for the shoot so you can see the effect with different cycles.

We are also working on a new feature with photos of installing cheapie truck super-LED marker lights on my Honda 919 as conspicuity lights, total budget for the project about 30 bucks.

Thanks to gimp for their wonderful freeware video editor. It is a cool tool, and free is good.

We have dozens of site improvements and new features on the way, check us out again in a little while.

ET

Bikesafer.com upcoming changes

Bikesafer.com is less than two weeks old, and I've spent that time on my bike, did a Memphis - Blue Ridge - Montreal - Toront0 - Chicago loop, and stopped to talk to bikers and web experts along the way. The result is a list of new features for the site, which will be added in coming weeks.

We'll have new sections on adverse weather, restricted-access freeway riding strategy, a calculator for stopping time and distance and a new visual treatment for the risk hierarchy. We'll be adding new links and also RSS feeds and a mailing list for bike safety updates so you can use our content on your bike site or forum easily, providing updated seasonal and topical motorcycle safety content for your site users. We have a new feature in the works so you can judge for yourself the effect of using daytime high beam, modulator and running lights to a bike to improve conspicuity. These and a whole rack of improvements and visual aids.

Relating to the conspicuity page, I also found that many truck stops are selling clear, amber and red three super-LED flat-mount lights as truck marker lights, at about a quarter the price of the police super-LED flashers I quoted in the page. I think these might be a good option for bike conspicuity and we'll be experimenting with some of these and reporting the results.

We're also getting some advice on improving the site design from my friend Robert Hamilton and you'll be having a smoother and slicker user experience as we develop the site.

Weather a safety issue.

www.bikesafer.com,
Our companion site pays short shrift to weather problems, as the studies (Hurt, Maids) didn't seem to find that weather is a factor in bike crashes. As soon as I got a mile or so from home on my post-publication ride, it started raining really heavily, and I found myself doing all the usual things - adjusting equipment so I could see better, considering my conspicuity in reduced visibility and accelerating and braking easier. When I stopped by Terry at Motorcycle Maddness, he reminded me how good rain was for practicing these skills.

I think I figured out why rain doesn't show up as a major cause of crashes in the study. In the US, bikers are mainly recreational, and often ride plans are canceled if there is rain. One local riding club has a "50-50" rule, for instance, with automatic cancellation of posted day rides if there is a 50 percent rain chance or temperature under 50. In my own experience, when caught on the road by bad weather, I often tweak the itinerary or schedule to avoid storms. All very sensible, but this probably causes much fewer miles to be ridden in the rain than in good weather. As the studies are driven by actual crashes, fewer rain miles will tend to under-represent rain-related crashes, even if there are more crashes per rainy mile ridden than for dry miles ridden.

In the case of Europe, where there are much more commuter miles ridden, I'd imagine that commuters use other means if they can, like carpooling or public transport, when it rains. Also, as a practical matter, if a rider doesn't use extra precautions during rain, it won't be long before Darwin reminds him with bike-dropping event. In the wet, riders tend to have slickers on, and the road surface has a lower coefficient of friction, so as long as you don't hit an immovable object, your chances of surviving the drop are maybe a bit better. So you might survive your initial rain drop, but you will be much more careful in the future. To some extent it is a self-correcting problem.

In this case, bikesafer.com will be going with Terry's biker gut, ignoring the studies, and adding more pages soon on riding strategies in adverse weather.

Maybe there is some way the new, long delayed US study can control for the rain factor and come up with reliable numbers on weather as a crash causation?

Video on how not to ride pillion...

http://www.tmz.com/videos?autoplay=true&mediaKey=35947da6-74e6-45a4-8493-82250868552f

Link courtesy of Veefore from the ST Owners Club site..

2-second rule not enough for highway speeds

My friend Hamayar, who hails from Wales, sent me this link, from the UK Survival Skills site. The site is pretty cool, although some of the articles need translation to driving on the right. The referenced article makes the point that the two-second rule provides a following distance in which the bike sometimes can't stop in time to avoid a vehicle stopping in front. His calculation is basically that the two second rule is insufficient at speeds of 60 mph and above, probably because the distance covered during reaction time is greater at these speeds.
Food for thought, epsecially for group riders on the highway.
My take is that the calculations aren't conservative enough. He uses 0.9 G of braking force for the motorcycle braking force, while the Quebec Promocycle Foundation did a study that found more like 0.75G for a bike without ABS but an experienced and skilled rider. The Quebec site has more on rider reaction time also, which makes the half second response time look a bit skimpy. The average seems to be consistently a bit over the half-second, and is actually worse for women. The average reaction time looks more like 5.3 seconds, and a large number of the braking intervals sampled were longer than this average.
The Quebec study suggests that both the assumptions the Survival Skills author used were skewed toeards underestimating the problem.
The lesson is clear. The two second rule is an absolute minimum at speeds up to 45 MPH - or maybe less - and seems to be less adequate at highway speeds or greater.
Has anyone got a calculator who can apply the Quebec numbers to the Survival Skills computations? I bet that would be a scary set of numbers.
In the meantime, we should probably rethink our following distance calculations for highway speeds, and add a liberal (or conservative) dose of extra following time to the two-second rule. For group riders and lead riders, perhaps something to mention at the next safety briefing. Looks like inexperienced riders might want to add even more time cushion.
In the meantime, y'all enjoy the Promocycle and Survival Skills websites.

Welcome to ET's Bike Safer Blog

Bike Safer and its blog is up. Welcome and feel free to post your comments, additional info, crash stories, handy links, and errata.
I've been working on this for six weeks, today some beer, and celebrate with Special ED and friends. Tomorrow I am off on my planned ride to Montreal, which has been delayed by HTML. I won't have my laptop with Dreamweaver, so it is the blog for now.