Newswise — The Rowan University (Glassboro, N.J.) College of Engineering is teaming with the New Jersey Department of Transportation, state Motor Vehicle Commission and Virginia Tech to keep motorcycle riders in the Garden State on the road and out of the hospital . . . or morgue.
Rowan's Dr. Yusuf Mehta, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, is principal investigator for a study on "New Jersey Motorcycle Fatality Rates," funded with $199,000 by the NJDOT through June 2009. Dr. Clay Gabler, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech and a former Rowan professor, is co-principal investigator.
"Motorcyclists are vulnerable highway users, and we have been watching the number of motorcycle fatalities in our state increase. All other vehicle-related deaths have been flat or going down. Just motorcycles are going up, " said Mehta. "The goal is to understand the root cause of increasing motorcycle fatalities."
The rate of fatalities, which has vacillated during the last decade, was at the more than double in 2006 (87) what it was in 1991 (40), according to information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The NJDOT/MVC/Rowan/Virginia Tech project aims to determine why.
"This isn't just about helmet use. It's about attitudes and training," Mehta said. The Motor Vehicle Commission offers very rigorous training for cyclists, the professor said, but not all New Jersey riders are completing that training.
In the initial stage of the project, the team is conducting a survey of motorcyclists through the state Motor Vehicle Commission, motorcycle dealers and driving instructors. The team, on cards sent out with registration renewal forms, is asking motorcyclists to complete an anonymous survey (www.rowan.edu/mvc) that provides information on their training, perception of training courses and riding behavior. Each rider will have a unique identification number to avoid duplicate contributions. The team's goal is to survey 30,000 riders, 200 dealers and 200 instructors in May, with another 40,000 riders in the near future. Rowan will analyze the results.
The second part of the grant-funded work will be onsite investigations of crashes, with researchers equipped with police records of the accidents. The team plans to start in the Glassboro region in May and work throughout the state, eventually assessing several dozen sites and looking for such things as pavement conditions, layouts of intersections and visibility.
According to existing research and statistics, the causes of crashes include drinking and driving, people riding high-performance motorcycles for which they might not be sufficiently experienced and lack of awareness of motorcyclists by other drivers. These situations — and failing to wear a helmet — can lead to serious injury or death.
The state will use the information from both elements of the project to help determine if there are further guidelines or training requirements it needs to institute.
"This study will help the Motor Vehicle Commission define what it needs to do and what it needs to recommend to policymakers," Mehta said. "The idea is to understand the cause of fatalities, and then you can minimize them."
"The recent rise is motorcycling fatalities on a national level has several organizations researching motorcycle rider issues," said Tom Wright, program administrator of the Motor Vehicle Commission Motorcycle Safety Education Program. "We believe this study will be unique in identifying licensing and highway strategies of importance to the motorcycling communities not only in New Jersey but on a national scale."
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