According to a new study Australia's off-road motorbike riders need to wear helmets more often. Research has shown that off-road crashes resulting in death or serious injury was the only rising category among Victoria's motorcycle community from 2001 to 2008. The results showed that the death toll from all motorcycle crashes plateaued over the period and this masked an almost doubling of the death and injuries which occurred off-road.
The study published in the journal Emergency Medicine Australasia said, “The most important finding of the present study is the observed increase in the incidence of off-road motorcycle-related major trauma (survivals plus deaths)… The finding is consistent with the results of a recent study on motorcycling in children, and suggests that off-road motorcycle use is resulting in an increased incidence of major trauma and death.” The research was conducted by Dr Antonina Mikocka-Walus and colleagues from the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University and the Alfred Hospital, in Melbourne.
Results showed that overall incidence of motorcycle crashes which caused major trauma resulting in survival or death was 5.1 per 100,000 in the population and rising to 5.7 at the end of the study window. Thus there was no change over the time for on-road crashes, yet cases of injury and death off-road increased from 0.8 to 1.4 cases per 100,000 in the population. About half the crashes happened on the weekend, and off-road crashes accounted for almost a quarter (24 per cent) of those major trauma injuries that were survived and 12.5 per cent of deaths. Researchers say that successful road safety campaigns have managed to reduce the on-road accidents but the same campaigns need to off-road too.
They write, “Although the present study was not designed to measure helmet use, it is important to note that other studies have shown noncompliance with this prevention measure in off-road motorcyclists…Clearly there is an urgent need to promote helmet wearing among off-road motorcyclists in Australia.” “As helmets have been found to reduce the risk of death by 40 per cent and the risk of serious injury by 70 per cent in motorcyclists, lower usage rates in off-road motorcyclists are of concern…In the present study, head injury was more commonly the cause of death for off-road cases compared with on-road cases, which is consistent with lower usage of helmet reported by other researchers,” researchers say.
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