In response to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration release of the 2007 Traffic Safety Annual Assessment - Highlights, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation is urging that a planned national Motorcycle Crash Causation study begin as soon as possible. Last summer the industry committed $2.8 million in funding through the Motorcycle Safety Foundation to the Oklahoma Transportation Center for the new Motorcycle Crash Causation Study. The Motorcycle Industry Council committed another $200,000 soon after. The $3 million commitment compares to the approximately $2 million being provided in federal funding. The Foundation stated that there is a tremendous amount of theory and speculation from many concerned parties for motorcycle safety as to why there has been an increase in motorcycle fatalities and crashes over the past 10 years. But there is no concrete data.
"We hope that this new field research, the first definitive crash causation study to be done in the United States in almost 30 years, will shed new light on the causes of crashes on our nation's highways," says MSF president Tim Buche. "Knowledge gained from this study may help all of us concerned with rider safety to develop even more effective countermeasures to enhance the safety of motorcyclists everywhere. But we won't know until the study, which will be a long and thorough process, has been conducted. For the safety of motorcyclists, we need this federal study to be of high priority and move forward as soon as possible."
