A contribution to increasing road safety for motorcyclists through the targeted use of passive protective devices

Abstract

As part of the BASt research project "Protective devices at the edge of critical stretches of road for motorcyclists", from which this work results, criteria for the use of roadside protective devices at the edge of the road were to be derived, which, in addition to their protective effect for all road users, also take special account of the safety concerns of motorcyclists.First, common characteristics of various accident blackspots and accident blackspot lines with motorcyclist involvement were derived. For this purpose, in a first step, the ministries of the interior of the federal states were asked for a list with the different accident-prone areas in their area of responsibility. From these, a number were then selected and, using various measurement methods, an attempt was made to collect road data from which various evaluation criteria could then be derived.It became apparent in the further course of the investigations, however, that the collection of detailed data was too time-consuming to be managed within the scope of this project. For this reason, only the digital road network of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the digital accident file were used in the further course of the project. With these data, three different evaluations were carried out.First, all accidents involving motorcycles were subjected to a general evaluation. Only those criteria were analyzed that are recorded during the police accident investigation. These include the type of accident, the type of accident, but also weather and lighting conditions at the time of the accident.In the second investigation step, the road geometric conditions at the accident site and in defined areas in front of it were examined. Here, the data were subjected to a point-by-point examination. The aim here was to derive a correlation between the course of the road before the accident and the location of the accident, in order to support the thesis that the course of the road before the accident has a not inconsiderable influence on the accident.Finally, in the last evaluation step, the data for the complete road sections in which the accidents occurred were analyzed and compared with comparative data from road sections without accident anomalies. In this evaluation, linear criteria were evaluated and compared with each other. In addition to the curvature of the route section, this included in particular the number of changes in the course of the route alignment and the distribution of radii as well as of transverse and longitudinal gradients.This comparative investigation provided the best results within the scope of this project. It was possible to show that sections of road with:a) a curvature of > 200 gon/km over the entire section andb) a maximum of 15 changes in the course of the road per km andc) a proportion of straight sections of a maximum of 50% andd) a length of more than 2.0 km harbor a particularly increased risk potential for motorcyclists compared with the average risk potential of the comparative routes.Based on these results, the possibilities for passive motorcyclist protection and the general conditions under which they can be used are shown.

This Abstract was translated from German with deepL and could be faulty.