Recent Trend of Fatal Motorcycle Crashes in Malaysia

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1 Recent Trend of Fatal Motorcycle Crashes in Malaysia Sharifah Allyana S M R, Zarir H Z, Abdul Rahmat A M, Siti Atiqah M F, Noor Faradila P, Wong S V, Jamilah M J (Malaysia Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS),Kajang, 43000, Malaysia) Abstract: Motorcyclist is one of the most vulnerable groups of road users. In Malaysia, motorcyclist casualties constitute more than two thirds of road accident victims. This study describes recent trends of fatal motorcycle crash in Malaysia as well as changes in crash rates during the past ten years. Police data were used to examine the motorcycle fatal crashes annually from year 1999 to The data was retrospectively collected from the MIROS Accident Database and Analysis Unit which maintains a centralised national traffic accident database, MIROS Road Accident Database (MROADS). A total of 35,603 fatalities among motorcyclist were recorded during the ten years period. Most of the victims of motorcycle crash were males in which male predominated over female in the ratio 11:1. The fatalities among motorcycle rider were 88% while only 12 % for pillion. Majority (38%) of the victims were in the age group years. Overall, the rider fatalities increased in 14% with significant increase in female rider which has doubled over the last ten years. Nevertheless, female pillion fatalities have reduced 78% with only 34 deaths in the year Although the number of registered motorcycle rise the motorcycle fatalities rate per registered motorcycles has decreased from 6.7 in the year 1999 to 4.6 in the year Overall, the number of fatalities in motorcycle crashes in Malaysia has continued to increase over the past ten years and substantial progress remains to be seen. While male riders surpass females in number of fatal crashes, there are increasing trends to crash fatalities in female riders. These findings provide feedback on potential road safety successes and areas needing specific interventions for future improvements. Keywords: motorcycle, rider, collision type 1 Introduction Malaysia is one developing country in South East Asian region which undergoes a rapid economic growth since the year 1990s. The rapid economic growth has also increase the motorization industry in the country. The registered vehicles growth is at about 4% per year since the year Alongside with this the number of road traffic accident and fatalities increasing each year. Each year in Malaysia there are about accidents reported and 1% of it is fatal accidents. In the year 2009 the fatalities due to road traffic accidents is 6527 resulted from 6218 fatal accidents. The road traffic accident increased triple compared to the year 1990 while the number of fatalities due to road traffic accident increased 66.6% in the same year. Studies have indicates that the urban road traffic injuries increased alongside with rapid economic growth and exhaustive motorization [22] and together with the increasing road length and vehicle density. [8] In the year 2009 also, motorcyclist fatalities are 60% of the overall motor vehicles fatalities followed by car occupants (21%) and pedestrians (9%) in Malaysia. The high deaths among motorcyclist are alarming because motorcyclist besides than bicyclist and pedestrian are considered as vulnerable road users. According to Horswill and Helman (2001) [7] study, in accidents where the car driver or motorcyclists was not injured, the injured parties were either passengers or the occupants of the other vehicle around 97% of motorcyclists were injured or killed in these collisions compared with 50.5% of car drivers. The same study also revealed that at higher speed motorcycle and car collision than car and car collisions motorcyclists involved were 95.4% likely to be injured while the car drivers were 0.9% likely to be injured. Motorcycle is the main components of traffic in Malaysia which make up 55% of all registered vehicles in Malaysia. Hence the user of motorcycle has the highest exposure to be involved in road traffic accidents. Motorcycle users are directly exposed and come in direct contact with the impacting vehicles or obstacle during a collision resulting in severe injuries and fatality. Other developing country shows similar trends as Malaysia where motorcyclist or two-wheeler occupant is the highest road user group involved in road traffic accident. In Vietnam motorcycles are the most popular means of transport with 95% of registered motor vehicles being motorcycles. It is not surprising therefore, that motorcycles account for up to 70% of road traffic crashes and 88% of road deaths due to head injuries [7]. A study by Lin and Kraus (2009) [10] summarized that motorcycle in developing country have higher rates due to few factors. The factors are the dramatic growth of registered motorcycle because of rapid development and the motorcycle used has smaller engine capacity compared to other country. Besides than these, the unique environments in developing country such as congestion problem, invasive store advertising signs and traffic mixture of motor vehicles was said to be the factor too. [12,16] A different situation can be observed in the developed country where the involvement of motorcyclist in fatal crashes is very much lesser. Motorcycles comprise only 3% of all registered motor vehicles in Australia however fatalities for motorcycle riders and pillions comprised 14% of the national road toll in Australia in 2005 [14]. Similarly it was reported in United Kingdom that motorcycle cover less than 1% of the vehicle traffic but the motorcyclists suffer 14% of total fatalities and serious injuries [5]. Although different scenario was observed between the developed and developing countries, the increasing motorcyclist fatalities raised a biggest concern. The reduction of fatalities among motorcyclist will lead to a high reduction in the overall motor vehicles fatalities. It is important to understand the characteristic of motorcycle accident in order to introduce an effective plan to bring down the figure. The purpose of this report is to identify areas that may explain the possible causes for the recent continued increases in motorcycle fatalities. 1

2 2 Method Police data were used to examine the motorcycle fatal crashes annually from year 1999 to The data was retrospectively collected from the MIROS Accident Database and Analysis Unit which maintains a centralized national traffic accident database called MIROS Road Accident Database (MROADS). Each accident occurred in this country is required to be reported to the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) within twenty-four hour after the occurrence under Sec. 52 (2), Road Transport Act The police define an accident as an occurrence on the public or private road due to the negligence which causes any damage or injury to any person, property, vehicles, road structure or animals. Meanwhile the numbers of fatalities reported by the police are death due to road traffic accident within thirty days of accident occurrence which meet up with the international standard. The accidents data in this country are collected using a standardized police reporting form called POLIS 27 (POL 27) which was developed in In this study the variables used to analyze the recent trend of motorcycle are regarding the motorcyclist gender and age group, collision type and road types which are gather from the police. In the POL 27 form, the motorcyclists are further classified to two type based on the cylinder power of the motorcycle either more than 250 cc or less than 251 cc. For the purpose of this study both type of motorcycle was combined to simplified the analysis. Meanwhile the info on the number of registered vehicles was obtained from Road Transport Department and the Vehicle Kilometer Travelled (VKT) value was provided by Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS). Data collected for each year and variable was tabulated and entered into the computer using the Microsoft Excel package for further analysis. 3 Results Throughout the 10 years study period, the motorcyclist fatalities are always above 55% of the overall motor vehicle fatalities. Within this period there are fatalities recorded due to road traffic accident and are among motorcyclist. Motorcycle fatalities increased from 3410 in 1999 to 3898 in There is 14% increase in the number of motorcycle fatalities in the year 2008 compared to the year 1999 while the increased of the overall motor vehicles fatalities is 12%. Motorcycle fatalities in 2001 had reached an all time low of 3369 and from then, have increased every year. In the year 2008 the motorcycle fatalities is the highest within the study period. This gives a very basis indication that after ten years motorcyclist is still the main issues in this country. Year Table 1: Fatalities by road user group for year 1999 to 2008 Occupants by Vehicle Type Passenger Vehicles Motorcycles Others/Unknown Non Motorist Total Fatalities No. % No. % No. % No. % No % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % 6527 Looking deeper on the motorcyclist fatalities characteristics, it was found that motorcycle rider comprise 88.3% or of overall motorcycle deaths within the 10 years period. In the year 1999 the recorded motorcycle rider fatalities was 2960 and after ten year the figure increased 16.9% to 3459 in the year Differ from the overall motorcycle fatalities, the lowest motorcycle rider fatalities were in the year The figure increased 5.3% in the following year and decreased 4.7% in the year 2001 from the year After the decrease in the year 2001 the figure has increased every year ever since that. The fatalities trend among motorcycle pillion differ compare to motorcycle riders. Although the motorcycle rider fatalities shows upward trend since 2001, the motorcycle pillion trend can be divided by two phases. For the first five years the motorcycle pillion fatalities shows a downward trend till the year The fatalities for motorcycle pillion were 450 in the year 1999 and drastically drop by 10.9% to 401 in the year The figure gradually decreases further to 382 in the year 2004 and also was the lowest fatalities recorded for motorcycle pillion within the 10 year period. After 2004 there was an upward trend of motorcycle pillion fatalities and the figure peak at 450 in the year In the last two years of study period the trend shows slight decrement. The high number of motorcycle fatalities among rider can be assumed by a few factors. The first factor is the occupancy rate among motorcyclist. Presumably there is high single occupancy among motorcyclist which resulted to high rider fatalities. Secondly is the outcome of a fatal accident maybe less severe to the pillion compared to the motorcycle rider. However there is significant evidence supporting these two factors. Jain A et al. (2009) [8] indicated the victim of motorcycle crashes is usually rider was due to the often ignorance of safety measure among riders. 2

3 Figure 1: Motorcycle Fatalities for Rider and Pillion The motorcycle fatalities distribution by gender is shows in Table 2 for the ten years period. For overall motor vehicles fatalities the ratio male to female in the country is 5:1 however most of the victims of motorcycle fatal crash were males in which male predominated over female in the ratio 11:1. This is comparable to situation in Mangalore and Delhi which male to female ratio for motorcycle related fatalities were 5:1 and 9:1 respectively [8,18]. In the year 1999, 94.74% of motorcycle rider victims are male and only 5.26% are female. The trend for motorcycle rider in terms of gender fluctuated at about 90% for male and less than 10% for female throughout the study period. The highest figure for male motorcycle rider fatalities was observed in the year 2001 (95.13%) while the highest for female was in the year 2006 (9.00%). This indicates there is a slight reduction in the number of male motorcycle (2.75%) after the ten years period. Surprisingly, A different trend for pillion motorcycle by gender distribution was observed. The ratio for male to female fatalities for motorcycle pillion was 6 to 4 in the year 1999 however the ratio changes to 9:1 in the year The result shows there is reduction in the number of female pillion motorcycle fatalities by 78.3% from the year 1999 to the year The number of female pillion motorcycle killed is the highest in the year Analyses of the data reported in this study revealed a definite trend of significantly higher accident rates for male riders compared with female riders. Similar finding reported by NHTSA (2006) [17] where in the USA for the year between 1995 and 2004 about 90% of motorcycle riders killed was males. It was observed too in the USA since the year 1975 the female driver fatalities increased steadily but male driver maintained at about the same level [4]. In a search for possible reasons causing the differences in accident rates between the two sexes, particular driver faults were found to be responsible for the majority of the differences. These are violation of stop sign, using incorrect lane, violating yield sign, disregarding obligatory signs, and wrong overtaking. Reduced attention and driver impatience are believed to be the major contributors to the commitment of these faults. Furthermore, female drivers did not take risks to commit the serious lawbreaking faults. The study also revealed that males accidents were more harmful and dangerous with regard to their consequences. The increased in the number of female drivers in fatal collisions was also associated with the significant increase in the number of licensed female driver and the increased in the number of amount travelled [4]. Table 2: Percentage of Motorcycle fatalities by gender Rider Pillion Year Male Female Male Female % 5.26% 63.59% 36.41% % 4.33% 61.56% 38.44% % 4.87% 62.61% 37.39% % 5.06% 58.57% 41.43% % 4.90% 68.06% 31.94% % 5.67% 61.46% 38.54% % 6.35% 59.51% 40.49% % 9.00% 90.89% 9.11% % 5.97% 93.54% 6.46% % 8.01% 92.26% 7.74% Figure 2 shows the number of motorcycle rider fatalities from 1999 to 2008 by age group. Generally motorcycle fatalities, from 1999 to 2008, have increased in all the age groups. In the 10 years study period, 42.9% of motorcycle victims are in the age group 16 to 25. In the year 1999, 46.11% of motorcycles fatalities are within this age group but towards the end of ten year the percentage reduce to 42.25%. The age group of 26 to 35 is the second highest age group that usually involved in motorcycle crashes with 17.5% 3

4 of the overall motorcycle deaths within the ten years. An eccentric situation was observed in the year 2007 when the percentage of fatalities among 16 to 25 age group dropped while the motorcycle fatalities for age group 26 to 35 increased. This indicates that the 16 to 25 age group is still the leading age group in terms of the number of motorcycle fatalities among all age groups. Aged less than 15 years old are rarely the victim of motorcycle crashes where comprises 5.2% of motorcycle fatalities. The age group recorded the highest percentage of motorcycle deaths in the year 2006 (6.26%). If the data was further divided based on rider and pillion fatalities, an astonish evidence was discovered. Nearly two third of the motorcycle victim age less than 15 years are motorcycle rider. In Malaysia at the age of 16 only it is legal to obtain a valid driving license. It can be concluded that about 3% of unlicensed rider was killed during the study period. The motorcycle victim among older road user age more than 56 years old comprises 14.5% of overall motorcycle fatalities. The findings are similar with the motorcycle fatalities in Thailand. A study by Sattrawut Ponboon et al. (2010) [13] shows that motorcyclist rider victims falls between 15 to 20 years age group which presents greater than 25% from the total. Moreover, combination between the age group of 15 to 25 years covers almost half of all motorcyclist rider victims (43.7%). It should be also noted that a total of 8,250 riders, or 4.6%, of rider were found younger than 15 years which actually against the law of under allowance motorcyclist rider minimum age group in Thailand. The evidence of unlicensed among youngster which resulted killed in motor vehicles accident in Malaysia and Thailand should be taken seriously. Low skills and no proper training in handling the vehicles are the factors connected with the deaths of unlicensed youngster. A valid driving holder which graduated from driver licensing system in the USA was effective in reducing motorcycle injuries and deaths particularly for riders aged 15 to 19 years old [1,15]. The higher risks of injury and death for motorcycle riders have been reported to be associated with a younger age, lack of protection, and poor visibility of the rider and vehicle to other road users. Figure 2: Motorcycle fatalities by age group The fatalities of motorcycle by collision type is shows in Figure 3. Generally it can be observed that motorcycle deaths was highly due to head on and out of control collision type. During the study period 21.4% of motorcycle fatalities was due to out of control and 19.9% was due to head on colliosion. In the year 1999, head on collision comprise 21.1% of motorcycle fatalities and increase to 24.5% in the year However the motorcycle death due to out of control shows a contractdict trend. It was observed that 21.9% of motorcycle deaths cause by out of control in the first year of study period and decrease to 17% in the final year. Angular collision type cause 16.5% of motorcycle deaths in the ten years period. In the beginning of the study period only 12.7% of motorcycle fatalities was due to angluar collision but after ten years period the percentage had reach to and the figure has surpass out out of control collision type. The motorcycle fatalities due to rear collision fluctuate at 14% while side swipe at 10%. This indicates that after ten years period the angular collision type has developed into one of the three main cause for motorcyclist fatalities beside head-on and out of control collision type. The out of control accident can be related with speeding issues and usually to be assumed as a single vehicle accident. Hence it can be said that speeding is the main cause of death among motorycyle users at the beginning of the study period. After ten years head-on collision was the leading reason of deaths for motoryclist. Head-on collision is associated with the interaction with other vehilces. The motorcycle interaction with other vehicles will lead to the compatibily problem and at it is more serius especially involving larger vehicles such as bus or lorry. The high incompatibility between motorcycle and larger vehicles will resulted in deaths among motorcyclist compared to the other vehicles. The mortality of motorcycle with other vehicles and single vehicle motorcycle collision have the same rate however 46 morbidity was recorded for motorcycle with other vehicles collision compared to 25 morbidity single vehicle motorcycle collision at a Nigerian hospital [19]. 4

5 Figure 3: Motorcycle fatalities by collision type The motorcycle fatalities distribution by road type is shows in Figure 4. In the ten years period the highest motorcycle fatalities occurrence was on federal road (36.38%) and the lowest was on expressway (7.11%). Meanwhile a third of overall motorcycle fatalities were recorded on state road. Generally there is no obvious trend on motorcycle fatalities on federal road where the figure fluctuates at about 36% throughout the study period. Although the motorcycle fatalities on expressway were the lowest however there was increase in trend in the ten years period. In the year 1999, the percentage of fatalities on expressway was at 5.62% and keeps on increasing to 8.62% in the year 2007 before dropped slightly to 6.8% at the end of study period. The motorcycle fatalities on municipal road do shows an increasing trend too. Only 13.28% of motorcycle fatalities occurrence on municipal in the year 1999 and drastically increased to 18.44% in the following and continued to show upward trend until the year 2006 (22.37%) before gradually increase in the later 3 years. The high number of fatalities on federal and state road compared to expressway can be explained by the information that the expressway length only covered about 2200 km compared to about km length both federal and state road combined. Furthermore expressway has a higher designed standard compare to other road type. Similar situation was observed in China where the 2nd and 3rd grade roads account for a large part of the total roads and also the accidents and casualties on the countryside roads were more than one-half of the totals. The number of the deaths on these roads was high but the mortality per 100 km was low. On the 1st grade road, there are generally more vehicles and drivers tends to drive faster, so the incidence of severe accidents are higher than other roads [20]. Figure 4: Motorcycle Fatalities by Road Type The number of registered motorcycles growth at about 6% yearly from the year 1999 to In the year 1999 there were motorcycles in the country and the number increased 67% to These rising trend of motorcycle were accompanied by increasing in the number of fatalities. In the year 1999 the vehicles kilometer travelled among motorcyclist was 80.7 million and the figure increased every year aligned with the increase in the number of registered motorcycles. By end of the ten years period, travelled made by motorcyclist increased to million kilometer. The fatality rate for motorcycle per registered motorcycle was at 6.71 in the year 1999 and the figure keep decreasing ever since that year. By the year 2008 the rate drops to The death rate for motorcycle in the year 2008 is much higher than the overall fatalities which were Meanwhile the motorcycle fatalities rate per 100 million VKT was at in the year 1999 and drop 31.6% to in the year The motorcycle deaths rate was higher compared to overall fatalities throughout the ten year periods. The higher increment in the number of registered vehicles compared to the number of motorcycle deaths lead to the decrement trend of motorcycle deaths rate within this period.. Alike the rate per registered vehicles, motorcycle fatalities rate per 100 million VKT was also much higher than the 5

6 overall fatalities rate. The overall fatality in the year 2008 was and lower than the motorcycle rate. Similarly in the USA in 1976, the ratio deaths per billion vehicle miles is about 5 to 6 times higher for motorcycles as compared to all motor vehicles [9]. A more recent study found that the fatalities rate for motorcycle riders per registered vehicles was 4.6 times the fatality rate for passenger car occupant. The rate per vehicles miles travelled in 2008 shows motorcycle riders rate were about 34 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a motor vehicle traffic crash. The reduction in the number of motorcycle fatalities will eventually bring down the overall motor vehicles rate. Compared to overall registered vehicles in Malaysia within the same period the increase in register motorcycle was lower. The total registered vehicle in the year 2008 increased 77% from the year However there was drastic increase in the number of passenger car where the number doubled in the year 2008.The registered motorcycle growth in this country was higher compared to Australia where the growth was only at 2.9% per year and recorded 48% increased in the number of motorcycles on the national register in 15 years period [14]. However in Australia the increase of registered motorcycle was higher compared to passenger car contradicted with the situation in Malaysia. With the lower number of registered motorcycle, the motorcycle deaths rate per 10,000 registered motorcycles is almost at same level as in Malaysia. In the year 2005 the rate in Australia was 5.5 [14], while in the same year in Malaysia the rate was lower at 5.1. Year Table 3: Register Motorcycles, Vehicle Kilometer Traveled and Fatality Rates Fatality Rate per Vehicle Kilometer Traveled 10,000 Registered (VKT) Vehicles Registered Motorcycles Fatality Rate per 100 Million VKT Conclusion Overall, the number of fatalities in motorcycle crashes in Malaysia has continued to increase over the past ten years and substantial progress remains to be seen. There was no change in the distribution of motorcycle fatalities for rider and pillion throughout the study period where the riders fatalities consistently at about 88%. While male riders surpass females in number of fatal crashes, there are increasing trends to crash fatalities in female riders. The fatalities among young rider and pillions are very alarming, within the ten years period without fail this group has the highest figures. There was a change in trend of cause of accident among motorcyclist. The current data shows fatalities were due to head-on and angular collision while previous it was mainly due to out of control accident. In terms of motorcycle fatalities distribution by road type there was no change in trends. Federal road remains the highest occurrence of motorcycle for the last ten years. The study can be further expend in order to explore the increased of female riders fatalities with the relation number of licensing among both gender to see the actual effects. The occupancy rate information could be reliable in explaining the high fatalities among motorcycle riders. These findings provide feedback on potential road safety successes and areas needing specific interventions for future improvements. Reference [1] Baldi, S., Baer, J., & Cook, A. (2005). Identifying best practice states in motorcycle rider education and licensing. Journal safety research, [2] Chen, H. Y., Senserrick, T., Chang, H., Ivers, R., Martiniuk, A., Boufous, S., et al. (2010). Rpad crash trends for young drivers in New South Wales, Australia from 1997 to Traffic Injury prevention, [3] Chen, H., Senserrick, T., Martiniuk, A., Ivers, R., Boufous, S., Chang, H., et al. (2010). Fatal crash trends for Australian young drivers : Geographic and socioeconomic differentials. Journal of Safety Research, [4] Cerrelli, E. (1994). Female drivers in fatal crashes, recent trends. Washington: US Department of Transportation. [5] Clarke, D. D., Ward, P., Bartle, C., & Truman, W. (2007). The role of motorcyclist and other driver behaviour in two type of serious accident in the UK. Accident Analysis and Prevention, [6] Daniel R. Mayhew; Susan A. Ferguson; Katharine J. Desmond; Herbert M. Simpson. (2003). Trends in fatal crashes involving female drivers, Accident Analysis and Prevention, [7] Hung, D., Stevenson, M., & Ivers, R. (2006). Prevelance of helmet use among motorcycle riders in Vietnam. Injury prevention, [8] Jain, A., Menezes, R. G., Kanchan, T., S, G., & Jain, R. (2009). Two wheeler accidents on Indian roads - a study from Mangalore, India. Accident Analysis and Prevention,

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