With 28% of the global fatalities being riders or passengers on motorcycles, road safety for motorcyclists is an important issue.

A global working group of 15 experts collected all available information on infrastructure that is safe for motorcyclists and drafted a report that should be read (and implemented) by anybody who is involved in road infrastructure.

This work, titled ’Safer roads for motorcyclists – Moving towards a systematic approach for motorcycle safety’ inventories the infrastructural challenges that motorcyclists all over the world are confronted with and offers possible solutions. It provides alternatives for currently used road infrastructure, best practices, new test methods and calls for more research and the exchange of knowledge between researchers, road authorities and lawmakers. The report contains recommendations for all involved parties.

Examples from several countries, such as Norway, Austria and the Netherlands show that a dedicated approach leads to safer roads, less casualties, and less serious injuries. Other examples show that replacing unsafe road infrastructure by infrastructure that is safe for every road user does not need to be complicated or expensive. Certainly, compared to the costs that are caused by serious traffic accidents with death or serious injuries, the investments in a safe road infrastructure are much lower.

This project was started by Swedish motorcycle association SMC and iRAP, supported by the Federation of European Motorcyclists’ Associations (FEMA), to investigate present motorcycle elements in the iRAP road assessments and the online platform VIAD and to update the existing EuroRAP position paper ‘Barriers to change’. During the project, the focus changed to drafting new guidelines in which all available knowledge come together.

The report ‘Safer roads for motorcyclists’ can be found here.

Written by Dolf Willigers

This article is subject to FEMA’s copyright