Motorcycle safety in developing countries : a case study of Maoming, China

Abstract

In the past few decades, the number of motorcycles has grown rapidly in developing countries; therefore, motorcycle safety has increasingly become a critical issue, particularly for nations in which motorcycle-related casualties comprise a major proportion of all traffic injuries and deaths. However, few systematic studies have been conducted on enhancing the understanding of the vulnerability of motorcyclists in developing countries. While motorcycle safety has advanced greatly in developed countries, a direct transfer of the experience to motorcycle safety in developing countries may not be appropriate. The objectives of this thesis are to investigate the safety of motorcyclists from four aspects: people, motorcycles, the physical environment, and social environment, and subsequently develop a deeper understanding of motorcycle safety in developing countries.

Methodologically, both questionnaire and observational surveys were employed, mainly from June to October 2012, to evaluate the attitudes of motorcyclists towards road safety and their behaviors on roads, respectively. Data from these two surveys are analyzed through different statistical methods (e.g. chi-square test, Binary Logistic Regression, and the Empirical Bayes approach) to provide a more comprehensive view of the various issues related to motorcycle safety. In addition, Maoming, a major city in Western Guangdong Province of Southern China, was chosen as a case study in this thesis, mainly because it shares many motorcycle-related characteristics with other cities in developing countries.

This thesis presents four in-depth studies within a coherent framework to explore motorcycle safety in developing countries. The first study is a detailed investigation of motorcycle taxi drivers who transport passengers by motorcycles as an occupation. The results of this study reveal that compared to non-occupational motorcyclists, motorcycle taxi drivers are more likely to undertake unsafe behaviors (e.g., running a red-light or speeding) when in a hurry, driving late at night or early in the morning, although they hold more positive attitudes towards road safety. The second study focuses on another common behavior: not displaying motorcycle license plates. The results suggest that this behavior is significantly associated with not possessing a driving or vehicle license for the motorcycle, thus placing motorcyclists and other road users at risks. The third study elucidates the effects of helmet law enforcement on helmet use. The results indicate that helmet law enforcement exerts a positive but short-lived effect on helmet use, and also suggest that the Naïve Before-and-After approach should not be dismissed, and can be used as a preliminary method in similar research. The last study investigates the effects of vehicular countdown devices (VCDs) as a traffic facility on motorcycle safety. The results show that they exert negative effects on motorcycle safety and may increase the risk of rear-end collisions at intersections.

By adopting a coherent theoretical framework, this study is expected to enrich the knowledge of how people, vehicles, the physical environment, social environment and their interactions affect motorcycle safety and to provide suggestions to improve motorcycle safety in developing countries.