Human Factors Play a Significant Role in Traffic Casualties
In May 2020, Alberta Transportation released its admirably complete traffic collision statistics for 2017¹. It noted that 6.1% of vehicles involved in fatal collisions were motorcycles. Another 1.4% involved bicycles.
The following human factors were the most significant “Improper Actions of Motorcycle Operators Involved in Casualty Collisions”:
- Ran off road: 49.6%
- Followed too closely: 19.4%
- Improper turn: 5.2%
- Improper lane change: 5.2%
- Improper passing: 4.8%
- Disobey traffic signal: 2.4%
- Left turn across path: 2.4%
- Stop sign violation: 1.6%
Motorcyclists were more likely than motor vehicle drivers involved in casualty collisions to run off the road, make an improper turn, or make an improper lane change. Motorcyclists were less likely to be in a casualty collision that involved following too closely 19.4% vs 31.7% for motor vehicle drivers.
Alcohol impairment is involved in more motorcycle casualty collisions (1.6%) than driver casualty collisions (1.4%). This is another avoidable human factor.
1 Alberta Transportation, Traffic Safety. (May 2020). Alberta Traffic Collision Statistics 2017. https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/25020446-adfb-4b57-9aaa-751d13dab72d/resource/15f070d4-e0ee-4e49-b107-95fb036ee7d1/download/trans-alberta-traffic-collision-statistics-2017.pdf . See Table 5.1 and Table 7.3.
