Yet another motorcycle safety report

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didn't read every word of the bureaucratic gibberish but I'm all for guardrail improvement..[did my own improvement by dialing it back somewhat in the corners]..As for distracted drivers...never put that genie back in the bottle.. I now ride in the right wheel track to avoid the line crossers..

 
Uncle Sam could make the test longer and harder. My co-director has just this year collected his Green Card, and described his recent driving test in CO as eye-openingly easy. The examiner asked him whether he was a professional driver in the UK, which of course he relayed back to us with some relish.

I don't know what the motorcycle test is like but I'm presuming it's a little more involved. My own exam was 90 minutes of mostly city traffic and incidentally, as with my car test, I failed first time round (I half-dropped the bike on arrival back at the test centre, when I put my foot down on a sunken drain cover rather than on solid blacktop, and my brain went into that whole "argh! missing ground! panic!" lost balance routine).

 
Right off the top of my head, the only thing that kind of jumped out was how general it all was. Most of the ideas discussed apply to every driver on the road, whatever vehicle they're in. They should have spent more time identifying things that would apply specifically and solely to motorcycles and worked on approaches and solutions to those issues. Didn't see much of that, though they did mention tar snakes (p. 8), something that a car driver never notices or thinks about at all. But they didn't mention sand left behind after winter ice melts, for example.

"Prohibitive signs"--really? LIke "Stop?" Everybody has to stop. And follow speed limits. I'd rather see signs saying "Motorcycles Allowed in HOV Lane," or (at least in California) "Motorcycle Lane Splitting is Legal." I just wondered after reading this thing, how many actual motorcycle riders were in the study group?

 
How many motorcycle riders involved in writing the report. Quick answer: None.

This is like the kids that will program the self driving cars. Zero to little driving experience.

Self driving cars will be the Darwinism of the human race and this Darwinisim will probably start with us motorcycle riders.

 
Hold on, y'all!

This is only one step of an agonizingly slow Federal Highway process. An agonizingly slow process, but one that's always very thorough, methodical, and carefully thought through.

The project is only intended to highlight three to five infrastructure-based hazards to bikers -- in other words, "Are we building things into our highway network that could cause motorbike crashes?"

This report summarizes a workshop attended by invited stakeholders and the Texas A&M researchers (the industry leader for highway safety research), who met only to prioritize “countermeasures” already identified in an earlier phase of the project. I’m rather disappointed that neither the attendees nor their organizations were identified, although I suspect there were representatives from the AMA, manufacturers, state DOTs, law enforcement motor officers, and --who knows? -- maybe members from the Sons of Anarchy.

The Summary (page 5) contains this telling sentence: Attendees raised the notion that the list of 10 countermeasures was diverse, but none of the countermeasures would prevent a crash or help a rider survive a crash.” They then decided to branch off a little and recommended to discard many of the previously identified items: Researchers agreed that the approach attendees recommended was appropriate, but it necessitated a significant modification to the workshop agenda.”

Seems to me that these three, from the list of ten at the beginning of the report, certainly would help a rider survive a crash:

Punctual energy absorption (crash cushions)

Remove roadside trees and poles

Pavement condition repair

The final list of eight drops the crash cushion idea and removal of roadside obstacles, but includes these which are useful. (I agree, SacMike, signs aren’t particularly useful to riders that pay attention to the road.)

Pavement condition repair and textured pavement markings

Barrier treatment for motorcycles (Lord, please don’t let me hit a guardrail on my FJR)

Retro-reflective pavement markings

Positive guidance in a work zone

The last step in this process is likely 3 years away, but will absolutely lead to changes in the way we build our highways.

 
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Oh yeah, this was in there, too:

Attendees agreed on the need for research regarding the impact of crack sealing (i.e., tar snakes), including the impact on road surface and overapplication, as well as research regarding adding material, such as sand, to the tar to increase the friction coefficient of the crack sealant.

 
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