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Responding to the Federal Highway Administration's 2016 Motorcycle Crash Causation Study, the National Transportation Safety Board issued 10 recommendations yesterday, including making anti-lock brakes mandatory on new on-road motorcycles sold in the United States and potentially requiring stability control systems later on.
Noting that the crash study identified intersections and other vehicles violating motorcyclists' right of way as a common cause of crashes, five of the 10 NTSB recommendations (you can read the NTSB's full report here) are focused on better integrating motorcycles into the emerging vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure crash-avoidance systems. That's certainly something that could be beneficial to riders, if drivers who often don't see us when making a left turn at an intersection can be corrected by a car that does see us.
The other recommendations focus on changing our motorcycles, licensing and to a lesser extent, our behavior.
Most immediately, the NTSB recommended to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration that all new on-road motorcycles should be required to have ABS as a standard feature, something that's already the case in Europe.
Two other recommendations called for the NHTSA to conduct "research to evaluate the effectiveness of stability control systems for motorcycles." Based on that research, the NHTSA should establish standards for those systems and require them on all on-road motorcycles, the NTSB recommended.
In other words, if the NTSB recommendations are adopted by the NHTSA, ABS could soon be mandatory and traction control would go from something found only on performance bikes and more expensive touring models to a universal feature.
One of the NTSB recommendations, not directed to federal agencies, but rather directed to the Motorcycle Industry Council, the American Motorcyclist Association and the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, called on those organizations to "promote the safety benefits of advanced motorcycle anti-lock braking and stability control technologies."
In addition to those two main areas, the other NTSB recommendations called for a study to find new ways to address alcohol and drug use by riders and a recommendation to "evaluate the effectiveness of state motorcycle licensing procedures for reducing motorcycle crashes, injuries, and fatalities among novice and unlicensed riders."
Just because the NTSB makes a recommendation, that does not mean it will necessarily become law. For example, the NTSB has long recommended universal helmet laws for motorcyclists. But yesterday's actions do nudge the United States market one step closer to the European regulations.
As we reported last year, the Motorcycle Crash Causation Study looked at 351 motorcycle crashes in Orange County, California, between 2011 and 2015 that involved an injury.
