The Traffic Accident Reconstruction Origin -ARnews-

Re: Motorcycle passenger launch angle

Ed Phillips (edphill@aol.com)
Sat, 14 Jun 1997 00:21:03 -0400 (EDT)

Luke,

There are various things that may effect this. First off the orientation of the bike at impact, if there is braking there is a possiblility that the bike is beginning to capsize, that doesn't sound like the case here. What tends to happen is that riders (operators) tend to push forward and wrap up in the tank and handlebars. Check the involved tank for knee crush and abrasion transfer from pants. The rider tends to wrap around the tank and triple clamp and creates a nice launch ramp for the passenger. Check rider's legs at hospital for fractures and contusions in the legs (transverse). Passengers, having only the friction of their clothes and the riders to slow them, which isn't much compared to interacting with the motorcycle, tend to travel higher and farther. For operators trajectories, then, tend to stay relatively flat and may even tumble down with the motorcycle, passengers tend to go higher and farther. Angles of departure will be a function of motorcycle shape, fricti
on interactions, and speed. I'm not sure anyone can really tell you angles specifically, but Collins has some studies on height of launch (7 ft to 15 ft I think). Also, I recall reading an SAE paper of some testing done with a dummy. It's departure was pretty flat. Severy's m/c crash studies also tend to show this. If you're trying to get speed, do speed from skid for the body from landing to POR. If no landing site is apparent try the quadratic equation to solve for it. If you need further on this, e-m me and I'll send the derivations and/or the computation.

Ed
Ed Phillips
edphill@aol.com

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