Motorcycle crash study will proceed without MSF money Motorcycle Examiner Ken Bingenheimer

OFF THE WIRE
Phoenix police detectives look over the scene of a multi-motorcycle and trash truck accident on the Carefree Highway Thursday, March 25, 2010 in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York) A previously announced motorcycle crash study conducted by Dr. Samir Ahmed, of Oklahoma State University, will proceed despite a final decision by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) not to help fund it. A Congressional appropriation of $3 million will pay for the study, which the MSF said would not study enough crashes to produce sufficiently valid results.
The MSF announced yesterday that it would be working with Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) to perform another, "naturalistic" motorcycle safety study.
According to Dr. Ahmed, without the funding from the MSF, his study will be limited to one location rather than the three originally planned. He expects data collection to begin in May.
That one site is likely to be in Southern California where the pilot study for the effort was conducted. Accident investigators there have been trained and, said Dr. Ahmed, there is no money to train other investigators.
Dr. Ahmed said that shortly before the MSF announced it would be involved with the VTTI study, he was contacted by MSF President Tim Buche with news that the organization's previous decision on not funding the OSU study would stand. The OSU researcher questioned whether the VTTI study would produce data of the quality that he expects his to produce.
"The MSF shortchanged riders, and they played games for a long time," he said, referring to the MSF's questioning of his results as the purported reason for not supporting his study, when they presumably were already intending to pursue the other one.
Still, he said, "We are ready to collect data." The remaining hurdles delaying the start of the study "should be resolved very quickly."