Chris Hodder on April 29 2008 - 08:49 AM

With reference to wire-rope barriers, they are fatal for motorcyclists. A recent study in Scotland showed that out of 7 impacts last year there were 7 motorcyclist fatalities. That’s 100%. They have been banned in the Netherlands and will probably be banned in Sweden soon. Following pressure from the BMF, the Highways Agency in the UK has also banned wire-rope barriers along its network.

Other barriers are also very dangerous to motorcyclists. Posts in particular have been shown to have serious issues for motorcyclists. Unfortunately, the state of research is not that good. I can categorically state, though, that not all accidents involving road restraints are fatal and therefore the argument that motorcyclists don’t need to be taken into account is specious and based on prejudice. At a recent EuroRAP meeting a supposed expert stated that all motorcycle accidents over 20mph were fatal which goes to show how much expertise in this area is available.

Spain is the most advanced county with regards to barriers. They have two standards for barriers both of which have been tested for motorcyclists. Standard barriers are fitted to roads which have low numbers of motorcycle accidents. The higher spec barriers are fitted to roads with higher numbers of motorcycle accidents. This is in contrast with the rest of the world where there is usually one specification for all roads.

In short, barriers have not been designed to take into account motorcyclists and the research in this area is not very good. The BMF and other motorcycle organisations such as FEMA usually support barrier systems without posts.

British Motorcyclists Federation

Eugenio Brunheroto on April 29 2008 - 08:50 AM

In Brazil, the National Traffic Department - DENATRAN is working to release an resolution (traffic law) to implement additional protection on the road side barreir for motorcycles drivers. The number of deaths on the guardrail impacts for motorcycles drivers are growing in an exponential way. We are working to help Denatran to identify international standards regarding this kind of protection.

Barrier Systems Brasil

Nick Artimovich on April 29 2008 - 08:52 AM

The US Federal Highway Administration will be looking for more in-depth data on motorcyclist crashes into roadside and median barriers to determine how effective motorcycle - friendly barriers would be. We have seen the European test videos of various designs and retrofits and need to be sure these barriers are addressing the actual mechanics of motorcyclist impacts into barriers in the US before we consider their use.

FHWA Office of Safety Design

Anonymous on April 29 2008 - 08:54 AM

I feel it necessary to provide some balance to the debate regarding motorcycles and, in this case, just to bring to light the facts about the NZ crash since reading the article presents only one side - and an emotionally compelling on at that. The facts of the accident that follow were gained from investigators whom my sources interviewed.

The incident occurred about 3am on a straight section of motorway just south of Auckland . Transit NZ have no hard evidence , but it seems 3 motorcyclists were racing each other at speeds between 150 and 200 km/hr . The dead rider was also wearing a crash helmet with a dark tinted visor . From the point at which he fell off the m/cycle to the point where the body came to rest was 330 metres , hence Transit believes that the estimates of 150 - 200 km/hr seem to be realistic . The driver flattened serveral posts before becoming wedged under the ropes at an anchor, but it is believed the posts were the cause of the body severing because the driver was on the ground the whole time. It was also noted that the bikes’ front forks were sheared off. The driver had a reputation among police for doing wheelies and it is believe the forks may have failed as a result of metal fatigue from the cumulative shock load of landing a wheelie.

The road safety community must consider all vehicle types in evaluating barrier applications, but there is a limit and one must consider to what degree can agencies go to protect a driver who takes such risks.

Thomas Turbell on April 29 2008 - 08:54 AM

Regarding the comment from Chris Hodder that “wire-rope barriers will probably be banned in Sweden soon” I must state that there are no such plans. I agree that barrier posts are dangerous but that is regardless of the type of barrier. We have not seen any proof that wire-rope barriers are more dangerous than other types of barriers with posts.

When we deal with pedestrian impacts we can protect about 90% when they are hit by a car at 30 km/h. At 50 km/h about 90% get fatal injuries. Here we are talking about being hit by a large object and not a narrow post which is more aggressive. Pedestrians and motorcyclists belong to the same category “UNPROTECTED ROAD USERS” and we have to remember that when we talk about the countermeasures. We also have to remember that the barriers are installed in order to protect something that is worse to hit than the barrier.

VTI Sweden

British Motorcyclists Federation on April 29 2008 - 08:55 AM

With reference to wire-rope barriers, they are fatal for motorcyclists. A recent study in Scotland showed that out of 7 impacts last year there were 7 motorcyclist fatalities. That’s 100%. They have been banned in the Netherlands and will probably be banned in Sweden soon. Following pressure from the BMF, the Highways Agency in the UK has also banned wire-rope barriers along its network.

Other barriers are also very dangerous to motorcyclists. Posts in particular have been shown to have serious issues for motorcyclists. Unfortunately, the state of research is not that good. I can categorically state, though, that not all accidents involving road restraints are fatal and therefore the argument that motorcyclists don’t need to be taken into account is specious and based on prejudice. At a recent EuroRAP meeting a supposed expert stated that all motorcycle accidents over 20mph were fatal which goes to show how much expertise in this area is available.

Spain is the most advanced county with regards to barriers. They have two standards for barriers both of which have been tested for motorcyclists. Standard barriers are fitted to roads which have low numbers of motorcycle accidents. The higher spec barriers are fitted to roads with higher numbers of motorcycle accidents. This is in contrast with the rest of the world where there is usually one specification for all roads.

In short, barriers have not been designed to take into account motorcyclists and the research in this area is not very good. The BMF and other motorcycle organisations such as FEMA usually support barrier systems without posts.”

Road Users’ Alliance member

Greg Speier P.E. on April 29 2008 - 08:55 AM

A CASS cable median system has been implemented in 3.5 km of a high speed (80 k/h speed limit) 6 lane urban arterial in Santiago, Chile.

In one 30 month period over 120 auto and truck impacts with the barrier were documented with No Fatal crashes, No serious injuries and no Median Crossovers. For that matter, none of the minor injuries were attributable to the barrier system, but rather to secondary crashes. This compares with numerous fatalities from the crossover accidents prior to installing the system.

During that same period there were three motorcycle crashes involving the barrier resulting in 1 Fatality, one minor injury and one property damage only event. The one fatal crash involved a young man speeding at over 140 km/h who sideswiped a car, fell onto the pavement where his helmet came apart and according to police was probably dead when his body ran into one of the cable system posts which first tore off his arm and then part of his skull.

One of the advantageous of the cable barrier systems is that they are easily repaired, in most cases in minutes and so minimizing traffic delays and for the system commented above the original cables are still in place, providing protection from fixed objects and limiting crossover situations until full repairs could be accomplished.

As a road safety professional with many years of experience I am concerned that because of a few gruesome and lamentable accidents involving motorcyclists, a very effective and safe barrier system is being called into question.

In my professional judgment, the cable systems are safer for motorcycles because the posts are less rigid and they are designed to yield upon impact.

The motorcycle industry needs to objectively investigate the accidents that they claim are aggravated by wire-rope barriers. I know that they will find that the “cookie cutter” effect is not caused by cables; rather it is caused by the posts and aggravated by excessive speed.

The research done in Spain is not for motorcycles, it was for dummies that had theoretically “separated” from their vehicle and the elements added to the barriers in Spain do not result in a “higher” spec barrier. Rather they result in a barrier that under limited circumstances will be less aggressive to motorcycle riders and passengers that have laid their bike down because they lost control of the vehicle on a curve.

The modified barrier is a more costly barrier, and one which I fear will result in poorer performance for normal situations. The skirts being fitted to existing barriers may result in more cars going over the top of the barrier.

Finally, I agree that there has been very little research in the area of motorcyclists and crash safety for these vehicles beyond the use of helmets and the quality of the helmets. We should consider that there is very little, if any, testing of collisions between motorcycles, or for that matter between motorcycles and 4 wheel vehicles.

Speier Road Safety Solutions
IRF Member Company

James E. Bryden on April 29 2008 - 08:56 AM

I think my greatest concern is the involvement rate of motorcycles (MCs) in traffic barrier crashes. Some of the numbers currently being cited indicate a very high involvement rate for MCs in fatal barrier crashes. I don’t know where those numbers come from, but a critical first step in addressing this issue is to make sure we know the extent of the problem, and I am concerned that we do not know enough at the present time.

In the mid 1980s, we conducted a number of in-service traffic barrier performance studies in the NYSDOT. One of those studies examined all barrier crashes on the NY state highway system over the period 7/1/82 - 6/30/83. That study is described in TRR 1065. However, the interesting part of the results - MC crashes - is contained in a 1985 ASCE Publication “Effectiveness of Highway Safety Features.”

Those numbers show that MCs were involved in only 83 of the 3302 barrier crashes reported, or only about 2 1/2 %. However, 7 of those MC crashes resulted in a fatality, or 16 % of all fatal barrier crashes. Overall, fatalities resulted in 44 of the 3302 crashes, or just over 1% overall. While this certainly indicates motorcycle riders are at much greater risk than occupants of other vehicles, these numbers are not as alarming overall as the numbers we saw presented this summer in South Dakota.

Some of this difference may relate to the age of my data - there were certainly fewer MCs on the road in the mid 1980s than currently. Further, NY may have a lower proportion of MCs in the traffic stream than some other states, and MCs here are ridden only about half the year, due to our winter conditions.

Gavin Williams on April 29 2008 - 08:57 AM

In response to the comments by Chris Hodder I should correct a few points;

Firstly the 7 casualties in the Scottish study were fatal or seriously injured, they were not all fatally injured.

Secondly, the Highways Agency has not and, as far as I am aware, has no plans to, ban the use of wire rope safety fencing.

I should also add that motorcyclist protection is now to be considered by planners when designing new schemes due to the new requirements of the Highways Agency’ safety barriers standard, TD19/06.

Guy on April 29 2008 - 08:57 AM

A.
Having ANY median barrier or good separation of flows is better than none for the whole population.
B.
Selection and placement of barriers needs more careful research. Motorcyclists have been mostly ignored in designs of current barriers. Barriers often present a greater injury risk than no-barrier

C.
Roadside engineering remains in the 1930’s, while car occupants are protected with astounding engineering technology. Yet, over 40% of car occupant casualties are from roadside objects, including barriers. People make mistakes, so make the roadsides more forgiving, like cars are now.

D.
Wire Rope Barriers will not “flex” when impacted by a rider. The posts are rigid, thin Z-profile or dog-bone profile. The design specifications require a vehicle of at least 500kg before effective flexing occurs.
This is advertising “spin”, useful to sales where ignorance prevails.

See this paper:
“The Emerging Risk of Fatal Motorcycle Crashes with Guardrails” (2007)
Hampton C. Gabler
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Virginia Tech Center for Injury Biomechanics

http://www.me.vt.edu/gabler/publications/TRB-07-3456-Motorcycles-Final.pdf

The bibliography of Gabler’s ppaper is an excellent resource to get to facts and away from opinions.
Item 5 of this bibliography was funded by riders in NSW, Australia because our government would not fund motorcycle crash research at all. A copy can be found on our website:-
http://www.roadsafety.mccofnsw.org.au/a/63.html

I also commend you to Item 6 of Gabler’s bibliography.

Yes, it’s an emotive issue for riders. Does that mean it should be disregarded?

Go to this link for our latest (yesterday) fatal WRB chop-up in Tasmania. http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=449440

Jan Wenäll on June 25 2008 - 06:37 AM

Representing an accredited test house, and with close to 21 years of experience of running approval tests on roadside safety features, and with experience also from the work within the groups CEN/TC226/WG1/TG1 and CEN/TC226/WG10, I would like to make a comment out of a test house perspective.

The EN1317 is clearly a test procedure, requiring a function. That function is verified by crash tests. While performing such a valid crash test, the most important thing is to control any details that can cause variations in the outcome. The test procedure itself is merely a tool to determine the relevant outcome, the result of the product. Actually, the test procedure must no replicate a real world accident in all respects, but must be possible to repeat over and over again. (It is good if the test procedure replicates some type of typical accident, but as long as all different test laboratories do exactly the same thing, we can still compare the results, even if the test is not a perfect replicate of a real world accident.)

While thinking about test procedures, the process of writing a good test standard must not to start with the actual test procedure itself. I am a bit afraid that we are loosing the perspective when we start talking about speed, angle, impact point, helmet types, motorcycles etc. It is instead essential to start by defining what is a good outcome and what is a bad outcome, the approval or failure limits. As an example, what is an acceptable outcome of a motorcycle to guardrail crash? Do we allow the dummy to pass over the guardrail? Which probably is not a desired behaviour for a bridge parapet? Shall we restrain the motorcycle or the person that is sitting on the motorcycle? Do we know relevant biomechanical limits to define a valid pass/failure criteria. And will the outcome be affected by the helmet, the dummy response, the clothing and the motorcycle iself? I will gladly run quite a few tests, but to be able to distinguish bad products from good products I do need that pass/failure criteria to be defined by objective values that can be measured and quantified. Please remember that EN1317 is a test procedure with functional requirements, and we need to be able to verify anything that we request from such an approved product.

I am pretty sure that if someone out there can show me and the rest of the experienced people in CEN/TC226/WG1/TG1 how a good guardrail, in respect of motorcyclist protection, shall function during an impact and also how this differs from a bad motorcyclists guardrail we, the crash testing experts, quite easily can define a repeatable and objective test procedure to determine those differencies.

Hugh Jaeger on June 26 2008 - 08:04 AM

I am a BMF Area Representative. I agree with Chris Hodder that cable barriers are unsafe.

In their defences of cable barriers, both Thomas Turbell in Sweden and Greg Speier writing about Chile omit to evaluate the alternative of concrete barriers. Concrete is safer not only for motorcyclists but also for occupants of other types of vehicle. Its surface dissipates an impact over a larger area and it is smooth so that a vehicle in anything other than a right-angled impact should slide along the concrete without getting trapped at any point.

Britain’s Highways Agency accepts that barrier support posts are dangerous to motorcyclists, which is why it has begun to add BikeGuard intermediate rails to W-section “Armco” type rolled steel barriers to prevent this type of injury.

Gavin Williams states that the Highways Agency does not plan to remove cable barriers. Does the Agency conclude that support posts are dangerous if they carry Armco but safe if they carry cables?

Cable barriers are banned in the Netherlands, have been withdrawn in Denmark and I am told they are banned in Norway. Does the Highways Agency dispute the basis on which these countries have acted?

Concrete barriers are more expensive than cables. But if they are better at minimmising injuries and fatalities they will pay for themselves.

Anonymous on July 17 2008 - 07:02 PM

Re Guy
‘our latest (yesterday) fatal WRB chop-up in Tasmania. http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=449440’

With enough money this incident could have been prevented.
True? I think so.
But where should the money be spent? on the barrier? education? enforcement?
Where should the money come from? If the barrier is only to benefit motorcyclists, their registration and licensing fees?

In this case, and the case in NZ, some responsibility needs to be taken by the rider and the broader motorcycle community.
Neither case was an accident where a compliant road user lost control.
In both cases the rider was negligent. You can not do by accident what either of these guys did.

See coroners full report
http://www.magistratescourt.tas.gov.au/decisions/coronial_findings/w/2008_tascd_187_-_weeks,_jamie
-summery below.

However if the motorcycle community did a better job of looking after its own, this death and many others like it may well be prevented.
A great amount of effort has been spent on the cheese cutter/cookie cutter myth. But you never speak out against;
-reckless riding, riding drunk, riding with out proper protective equipment. (Boots, Gloves, Leathers, Approved Helmets)
You permit motorcycle stores to sell unproved helmets (those little ice-creme buckets with no foam) USA, in Australia they are ‘novelty helmets’ sold on the same racks as real tested helmets.
You have successfully over turned the laws requiring you to wear helmets USA.

There is a lot more that could be done to reduce the amount of motorcyclist deaths and serious injuries which will be cheeper and more effective.
But this would require the motorcycle groups to step up and take ownership of the problem and make some less sensational press releases.
We are scared to do that as our membership fees provide the funding, cheese-cutter has been great for membership…

Extracted from the coroners report
COMMENTS & RECOMMENDATIONS –

I find that the deceased died as a result of multiple injuries consistent with a single motor cycle collision.
An analysis of the deceased’s blood revealed alcohol at a level more than three times the legal limit 0.161g/100mL
From the evidence before me I find the cause of this fatality is excessive speed at or about double the 110kmh posted speed limit coupled with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.161%
I feel it would be remiss of me not to comment on the sad loss of a young life bought about by a desire to ride at an unacceptable speed which is suited only to closed racing track conditions.
I wish to highlight the extreme dangers of driving / riding of any motor vehicle whilst under the influence of alcohol.
I do not believe the Brifen fence is to blame for this young mans death.
I further find that no other person(s) were directly responsible for the collision.
Before I conclude this matter, I wish to convey my sincere condolences to the family of the deceased for their loss.
This matter is now concluded
DATED : Tuesday, 8th of April 2008 in the state of Tasmania.
Peter Henric Wilson
CORONER

Prof. Raphael Grzebieta on August 21 2008 - 06:43 AM

In order to determine what is really occurring in motorcycle riders and pillions crashing into road side barrriers we are carrying out research at UNSW in Sydney Australia. I am currently seeking a PhD postgraduate engineering student to do this work. Please note the deadline is September 5th 2008 for the application.

See; http://www.irmrc.unsw.edu.au/documents/PhD Scholarship ad.pdf

and

http://www.irmrc.unsw.edu.au/documents/PhD Scholarship Information Package.pdf

The scholarship is tax free.

Anonymous on October 08 2008 - 01:35 PM

I am a highway engineer and have been involved in highway safety for most of my career. I have always encouraged making roadsides as clear as feasible, but shielding traffic from objects that cannot be removed or made crashworthy is sometimes necessary. This includes medians that are likely to or already are experiencing cross-median crashes. High-tension cable barriers are currently the most cost-effective device for preventing these deadly cross-median head-on crashes. They rarely cause injury to occupants inside a vehicle, are easy to repair and far more miles of highway can be shielded than by concrete barriers or metal beam guardrail, due to cost. If research eventually can provide us with a barrier that does as good a job as cable barriers are now doing, at a cost that is affordable and which doesn’t compromise other aspects (snow drifting, etc) then great.

In the interim, it would be a shame if the motorcycle lobby succeeds in getting politicians to ban their use by over-dramatizing a few fatal crashes. It is likely that those crashes would have been fatal regardless of the object hit, due to the very high speed. And it isn’t the cables, it’s the posts, which are also used on metal beam guardrail, sign supports, delineators, etc. It is true that concrete barrier doesn’t have posts, but their use is usually restricted to either the center of narrow medians. If wider medians are shielded using concrete barriers, they usually must be placed close to one side near the shoulder due to considerations such as drainage and foundation support, and this location can result in steep angle hits by vehicles crossing the median and those can be very severe.

In summary, people who choose to ride a motorcycle take on the risk. Many don’t wear protective clothing or a helmet and frequently take chances they shouldn’t take (extremely high speed, reckless maneuvers, driving while drunk, etc). The motorcycle group needs to get serious about promoting safe operation among riders and stop labeling cable barriers as “cheese cutters”. My opinion is that it’s the posts, not the cables that injure motorcycle riders sliding along the ground and posts are used on a variety of hardware. More research would be useful.