Motorcycle riders are greatly overrepresented in the U.S. traffic deaths, with more than 5,000 killed each year.
The Governors Highway Safety Association says frequently when cars and motorcycles are involved in a crash, car drivers said they didn’t even see the motorcycle.
The safety group says wearing high-visibility clothing with reflective material could help prevent some of those types of crashes – but its new study finds many reasons why motorcycle riders don’t.
Spokeswoman Kara Macek says many who participated in the study dislike the neon colors used in most high visibility or reflective clothing. Clothing is often not seen as “cool,” and study participants had some derogatory names for those who wear it, such as “midlife crisis riders.”
Others didn’t think the high-visibility clothing would help, believing that the noise of their motorcycles would make car drivers notice them, more than high-visibility gear.
“The few folks who did report wearing this gear said they did so because they had been involved in a motor vehicle crash,” says Macek, “or someone they knew had been involved in a motor vehicle crash.”
Macek says states can use the study to educate motorcycle riders about the importance of wearing reflective or high visibility clothing with reflective tape.
And she says companies should make the clothing more appealing to motorcyclists.