The aim of this report is to use findings from a review of literature and detailed incident data analysis to make recommendations to National Highways to help them develop a risk reduction policy specifically for motorcyclist to barrier incidents.
The literature review found that there is clear evidence that motorcycle-to-barrier impacts are infrequent, but high severity incidents. Additionally, it was found that current Motorcyclist Protection Systems (MPS), designed to reduce risk of injury to a motorcyclist when impacting a safety barrier, are only likely to reduce injury risk in around half of cases because they are only designed for impacts where a motorcyclist is sliding along the ground.
There were 174 motorcycle-to-barrier incidents on the SRN between 2014 and 2018 which were analysed in detail to investigate the common characteristics of these types of incidents The analysis showed that the number of motorcycle-to-barrier incidents was small (accounting for only 0.2% of all SRN casualties). However, the need to make barriers safer for motorcyclists was highlighted by the fact that 76% of motorcycle-to-barrier impacts resulted in killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties between 2014 and 2018 compared with 16% for non-motorcycle-to-barrier impacts.
It was also found that there were a similar number of motorcycle-to-barrier incidents on slip roads with a curve radius less than 100 m as there were on straight link road sections. This indicates that installing smaller lengths of MPS on curved slip road sections could provide similar benefits to installing longer lengths on a straight road, which is known to be more difficult and costly.
