This report on motorcycle accident risks in Victoria presents the results of an analysis of two different data sets which were provided to MUARC. The first of these was data collected during an exposure survey conducted by Arup Transportation Planning during 1994 on behalf of VicRoads, and the second data set was a file of accident report data, originally collected by the Victoria Police during 1990-94, and subsequently enhanced by VicRoads. Because the MUARC analysis made use of data prepared by others, it should be emphasised that the accuracy of the results depends on the validity of the original data collections. In Victoria, motorcycle riders travelling on major roads in rural towns apparently had the highest risk of casualty crash involvement, 20 crashes per million kilometres travelled, whilst the respective risks on Melbourne arterial roads and on rural highways were 15 and 0.5 casualty crashes per million kilometres of travel. For travel on Melbourne arterial roads and in rural towns it was found that as the severity of the crash increased, the risk for motorcycle riders relative to car drivers also increased, with the fatal crash risk for motorcyclists being 32 times the risk for car drivers on average. A different pattern emerged for rural highway travel. There was little difference between the motorcyclist and driver risks for each crash severity level. (A)
Abstract