Investigating motorcycle rider behaviour: developing an integrated experiment approach

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.