Advanced Crash Avoidance Technologies (ACATs) such as Forward Collision Warning (FCW) and Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) have been developed for light passenger vehicles (LPVs) to avoid and mitigate collisions with other road users and objects. However, the number of motorcycle (MC) crashes, injuries, and fatalities in the United States has remained relatively constant. To fully realize potential safety benefits, advanced driver assistance systems and future automated vehicle technologies also need to be effective in avoiding collisions with motorcycles. Toward this goal the Honda-DRI ACAT Safety Impact Methodology (SIM), which was previously developed to evaluate LPV ACAT system effectiveness in avoiding and mitigating collisions with fixed objects, other LPVs, and pedestrians, is being extended to also evaluate the effectiveness of ACATs in avoiding and mitigating LPV-MC collisions. Initial efforts have involved extending the ACAT SIM Crash Scenario Database Development Tools to reconstruct real-world LPV-MC pre-crash/crash scenarios based on the recently completed Motorcycle Crash Causation Study (MCCS) data. Pre-crash trajectory reconstruction results using this extended tool indicate three main types of LPV-MC pre-crash conflicts. These results also indicate that many of the conflicts begin later, and thus smaller Time-to-Collision values, compared to previously reconstructed LPV-LPV pre-crash trajectories. This may be partially due to the smaller “shadow area” of MCs compared to LPVs, in which LPV-MC close encounters do not result in a collision, but the same LPV-LPV trajectory would. Therefore LPV-MC countermeasures may need to address the pre-conflict phase in order to be effective. This information can potentially help to define requirements for LPV-MC crash countermeasures (e.g., V2V) and the development of performance confirmation tests (e.g., New Car Assessment Program (NCAP)). These pre-crash scenarios can also be integrated into the SIM Crash Sequence Simulation Module in order to estimate the safety benefits and effectiveness of the countermeasures.
