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The total number of persons severely and fatally injured in road traffic accidents has reduced considerably in recent decades. However, the number of motorcyclists involved in accidents has not reduced to the same extent, and some countries have even recorded an increase. The aim of this study is to analyse the circumstances of motorcycle accidents in Germany involving vehicles with a cubic capacity of over 125 cm3 with particular reference to severely or fatally injured riders. An analysis is to be made of the characteristics and patterns of injuries suffered by the most severely injured motorcyclists and proposals developed for injury prevention. The study included accident data from 464 motorcycle accidents collected in Hanover and Dresden between 2010 and 2015 by an academic research team in the course of the GIDAS project (German In-Depth Accident Study). This data represents a statistically representative sample from real accidents occurring in Germany.

The overall number of severely injured participants and fatalities in road traffic accidents has decreased enormously during the last decades especially in Europe, but casualties in the group of riders of motorcycles have only decreased in a smaller percentage. In countries of Asia the numbers of motorcycle casualties are increasing regarding the popularity of motorcycle riding. The aim of this study is to analyze the current accident situation of motorcycles in Germany with severely injured and killed riders of motorcycles with cubic capacity > 125 cm3 in Germany, to identify the characteristics in injury mechanisms and accident constellations to find countermeasures to be suggested for worldwide accident avoidance and injury reduction. The study was carried out on the basis of accident data of 1,493 drivers of motorcycles involved in traffic accidents in Germany.

The national accident statistics demonstrate that the situation of passenger car side impacts is dominated by car-to-car accidents. Car side-to-pole impacts are relatively infrequent events but result in disproportionate rates of serious and fatal injuries when compared to those in car-to-car side impact. Hence their importance has been highlighted in recent studies. For the present study two approaches were undertaken to better understand the scenario of car-to-pole impacts in Germany. The German in-depth database GIDAS (German In-Depth-Accident Study) and the UK-based database CCIS (Co-operative Crash Injury Study) were used. The first part or the study is a statistical analysis of passenger car side-to-pole impacts to describe the characteristics and their importance relevant to other types of impact and to gain further knowledge about the main factors influencing the accident outcome.