Negotiating Left-Hand and Right-Hand Bends: A Motorcycle Simulator Study to Investigate Experiential and Behaviour Differences Across Rider Groups Elizabeth Crundall1*, David Crundall1, Alex W. Stedmon2 1 Accident Research Unit, School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, 2 Centre for Motorcycle Ergonomics & Rider Human Factors, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom Abstract Why do motorcyclists crash on bends? To address this question we examined the riding styles of three groups of motorcyclists on a motorcycle simulator. Novice, experienced and advanced motorcyclists navigated a series of combined left and right bends while their speed and lane position were recorded. Each rider encountered an unexpected hazard on both a left- and right-hand bend section. Upon seeing the hazards, all riders decreased their speed before steering to avoid the hazard. Experienced riders tended to follow more of a racing line through the bends, which resulted in them having to make the most severe changes to their position to avoid a collision. Advanced riders adopted the safest road positions, choosing a position which offered greater visibility through the bends. As a result, they did not need to alter their road position in response to the hazard. Novice riders adopted similar road positions to experienced riders on the left-hand bends, but their road positions were more similar to advanced riders on right-hand bends, suggesting that they were more aware of the risks associated with right bends. Novice riders also adopted a safer position on post-hazard bends whilst the experienced riders failed to alter their behaviour even though they had performed the greatest evasive manoeuvre in response to the hazards. Advanced riders did not need to alter their position as their approach to the bends was already optimal. The results suggest that non-advanced riders were more likely to choose an inappropriate lane position than an inappropriate speed when entering a bend. Furthermore, the findings support the theory that expertise is achieved as a result of relearning, with advanced training overriding ‘bad habits’ gained through experience alone. Citation: Crundall E, Crundall D, Stedmon AW (2012) Negotiating Left-Hand and Right-Hand Bends: A Motorcycle Simulator Study to Investigate Experiential and Behaviour Differences Across Rider Groups. PLoS ONE 7(1): e29978. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0029978 Editor: Paul L. Gribble, The University of Western Ontario, Canada Received July 21, 2011; Accepted December 7, 2011; Published January 11, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Crundall et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was funded by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (www.iam.org.uk). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: lizzie.crundall@gmail.com Introduction Motorcyclists are grossly over-represented in accident statistics. As of June 2010, motorcycles constituted less than 1% of the total vehicle miles on UK roads, but accounted for 21% of all UK road fatalities [1–3]. A recent report illustrated that sixty-five per cent of such motorcycle fatalities occur in rural areas [4]. Clarke et al. [5,6] noted that a large proportion of these accidents occur because the motorcyclist loses control on a bend or corner. These accidents are usually regarded as the fault of the motorcyclist, and often do not involve any other traffic. Loss of control accidents on bends are associated with riding for pleasure, and are also related to inexperience. Riders who have not had a license for long (or who have returned to motorcycling after a number of years) as well as riders who hold a provisional license, are more likely to be involved in a loss of control accident on a bend [5,6]. The accidents tend to be a result of the motorcyclist running wide of the curve due to inappropriate speed or under-steering through the bend. There is also evidence to suggest that, in general, crashes are more likely to happen on sharp bends than on gentle bends [7– 10]. Furthermore, there are studies that indicate that left-hand bends in the UK are more dangerous than right-hand bends [11,12]. This is thought to be due to a greater difficultly in perceiving curvature when riding on the inside of the bend, although this problem can be ameliorated by riding closer to the centre line of the road on a left-hand bend. While accidents involving all types of traffic might be more prevalent on left-hand bends, right-hand bends might still pose a specific danger for motorcyclists. In an analysis of motorcycle accidents in Scotland [13] 9% were associated with right-hand bends, which was only slightly less than accidents involving left- hand bends (11.4%). Stewart and Cudworth [12] suggest that some right-hand bend accidents occur on ‘S bends’, where the accident terminates on a right-hand bend but is actually initiated on an immediately preceding left-hand bend. However, it remains a possibility that some right-hand bend accidents might occur as a result of a perceptual error in judging the acuteness of the bend. Considering the risky relationship between motorcycles and bends, we believe it is important that more research be focussed upon identifying the problems of navigating curves and the successful strategies employed by the safest riders. Recently, the introduction of simulators has provided transport researchers with a useful tool for investigating the behaviour of PLoS ONE | www.plosone.org 1 January 2012 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | e29978