Advances in Transportation Studies an international Journal 2010 Special Issue - 63 - Investigating motorcycle rider behaviour: developing an integrated experiment approach A. W. Stedmon 1 D. Crundall 2 E. Crundall 2 A. Irune 3 R. Saikayasit 1 E. van Loon 2 P. Ward 2 N. Greig 4 1 Centre for Motorcycle Ergonomics & Rider Human Factors, University of Nottingham, UK email: alex.stedmon@nottingham.ac.uk 2 School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, UK 3 Dimax Technologies Ltd, Nottingham, UK 4 The Institute of Advanced Motorists, IAM House, London, UK Abstract Against a backdrop of motorcyclists being in the order of 51 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than car drivers, one of the first in-depth motorcycle simulation study of its kind was conducted to compare groups of road users who have fundamentally different skills, attitudes and behaviours. A study was designed to compare Novice, Experienced and Advanced trained riders across a range of motorcycle activities. By developing and describing an integrated experiment approach, this paper sets out a protocol for exploring a variety of rider attributes in a single investigation. The process adopted allowed for comprehensive data collection and analysis with minimal disruption to participants or biases creeping into the data. The aim is that this protocol will be informative to other researchers as the experimental design and the measures collected could easily be extended to other areas of road user research. Keywords – Integrated experiment approach, motorcycle simulation, MotorcycleSim, rider behaviour, rider hazard perception 1. Introduction Motorcyclists typically constitute less than 4% of licensed vehicles on UK roads, however they account for a disproportionate number of road traffic accidents, being in the order of 51 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than car drivers [1]. There is evidence that many of these accidents occur on unfamiliar roads [2] with 65% of fatalities occurring in rural areas and more than 70% involving learner or inexperienced riders [1]. Previous research [3] has shown that the three most common types of motorcycle accidents are: • right of way violations – typically occur when a motorists fails to see a motorcyclist approaching a junction even though they are looking in the direction of the motorcyclist [3]. This phenomenon is also referred to as a ‘looked but did not see’ accident [4]. • loss of control on a bend, corner or curve – these accidents are usually regarded as primarily the fault of the motorcyclist rather than other road users, with accidents more associated with riding for pleasure involving only the motorcyclist and no other traffic [3]. There is also evidence that left hand bends appear to feature more in these kinds of motorcycle accidents than right hand bends.