Effects of Motorcycle and Motorcyclist ' S Conspicuity on Driver Behavior

Motorcycles have become a popular form of transportation in the United States. Since 1961, motorcycle registrations have increased at nearly four times the rate of all other vehicles . In 1977, motorcycle registrations in this country passed five million. In the same year about 500,000 motorcycles were involved in accidents, resulting in about 4,000 deaths and 400,000 injuries (1). Motorcycles offer much less protection to their riders than do automobiles . As a result, when a collision occurs , the motorcyclist is far more likely to suffer injury. Unfortunately, barring major changes to the vehicle itself, this problem cannot be easily solved . Thus, the principal means of improving motorcycle safety seems to be reducing the incidence of crashes . Motorcycle accident data offer some insights into ho"W motorcycle safety might be improved . In a review of these <lata (1.) the authors point out that motorcycle accidents are characterized by a substantial over-representation of a type of crash in which a straight-traveling motorcycle runs into a car attempting to cross its path. This infonnation, combined with reports from motorcyclists and la'W enforcement officials, has led to an assumption that motorcycles are not sufficiently conspicuous . The conspicuity hypothesis has resulted i.n a number of studies seeking ways to improve motorcycle/motorcyclist conepicuity. A review of this work is provided in (1) . Many of the techniques suggested were included in the current investigation.