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.
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.
posted by ET at
6:35 AM
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