Motorcycle Accident Reconstruction Part I - Physical Models

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate different formulas which are used to estimate the motorcycle’s pre-collision speed in motorcycle-to-car accidents. These formulas are based on measurable physical parameters such as motorcycle’ wheelbase change and fundamental physical laws such as conservation of momentum. The evaluation used data from crash experiments performed by the authors as well as published experimental data. The results of these evaluations indicate that the motorcycle’s pre-collision speed cannot be estimated with high accuracy.