Analysis of 86 fatal motorcycle frontal crashes in

【Abstract】Objective: To analyze the injuries of motorcyclists involved in fatal motorcycle frontal crashes. Methods: A survey group involving multi-discipline experts was built to randomly collect data on fatal motor-cycle frontal collision accidents that occurred in Chongqing during 2006-2010. The sampled information included medi-cal or autopsy reports, blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level, helmet use, accident witness, field sketch as well as field photos. The motorcyclist injuries were scored accord-ing to the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) 2005. The involved riders with a BAC level≥20 mg/ml were attributed to alco-hol use. Data were processed statistically with nonparamet-ric test via software SPSS 11.0. Results: A total of 86 fatal motorcycle frontal crashes were sampled and further analyzed. The age of motorcy-clists enrolled in this investigation showed nominal distri-bution and the middle-aged (30-39 years) occupied the high-est percentage of fatalities. There were only 14 motorcyclists (16.3%) wearing helmets at the moment of collision. And 12.8% of these motorcyclist crashes were attributable to alcohol use. Impact injury was the main fatal cause, accounting for 72% of motorcyclist deaths, followed by tumbling injury (26%) and run-over (2%). Respectively 84%, 22% and 19% of motorcyclists who sustained head, chest and abdominal trauma died. Extremity injury was the most frequently ob-served injury type. Conclusions: This investigation is helpful to build accident prevention programs and develop protection de-vices which may effectively mitigate injuries and prevent deaths following motorcycle frontal collision accidents. Further investigations on motorcycle collision accidents are still needed. Key words: Motorcycles; Mortality; Accidents, traffic; Wounds and injuries