Motorcyclists safer if they’re easy to see

Simply making themselves more visible seems to protect motorcyclists from potentially disabling or deadly crashes.

Donning reflective or fluorescent clothing, wearing a white or light-colored helmet and turning on headlights while riding during daylight hours are three simple, cheap ways to potentially reduce injuries and deaths, researchers from New Zealand have found.

Epidemiologists from the University of Auckland’s School of Population Health studied the cases of 490 motorcyclists who had suffered moderate to severe injuries that either landed them in the hospital or killed them. All had crashed while riding on Auckland-area roads between 6 a.m. and midnight. The accidents occurred from February 1993 to February 1996, mostly in daylight and in good weather.

The researchers compared the riders involved with 1,233 motorcyclists randomly selected from roadside surveys in the same region and time period.

Those motorcyclists dressed in reflective or fluorescent clothing had a 37% lower risk of crash-related injury than motorcyclists dressed in darker colors. Those who wore a white helmet instead of a black helmet lowered their risk by 24%; a light-colored helmet reduced the risk by 19%. Furthermore, the three-fourths of drivers who voluntarily turned on their headlights during the daytime lowered their risk of injury by 27%.

Reporting in the current issue of the British Medical Journal, the researchers said that although previous studies had suggested that daytime use of motorcycle headlights could help reduce crashes, theirs was the first population-based study to investigate the effects of the visibility of both motorcycle and rider on the risk of crash-related injuries and death.