An experiment designed to determine if tire pressure has an effect on the dynamic coefficient of friction between a motorcycle tire and a roadway. This article was originally published in the July / August 2017 issue of Accident Reconstruction Journal. Click here to download the article.

Fellow authors: Eric Deyerl and Nathan Rose. 

Ducati’s DDA (Ducati Data Analyzer) system was investigated to understand its behavior and the accuracy of the reported data. Ultimately, the goal of this study was to determine if the DDA system can provide useful data to reconstructionists investigating motorcycle accidents. The results were published in Accident Reconstruction Journal, and can be downloaded here.

Lou recently directed the first public crash testing of Harley-Davidson motorcycles at the largest accident reconstruction conference held to date, the World Reconstruction Exposition (WREX 2016). Over 800 people attended from 20+ countries. The data was analyzed to develop new equations to estimate a motorcycle’s impact speed based on wheelbase reduction and deformation sustained by the target vehicle. Download the manuscript here.

Fellow authors: Joe Manning, Eric Deyerl, Charles Dickerson, Wade Bartlett, Bill Focha, et al.

In 2016, Lou and Mu-Hua Cheng generated a paper that was published in the Society of Automotive Engineers International Journal of Transportation Safety, documenting the accuracy of a novel photogrammetry method for vehicular modeling. The study showed the method to be accurate to approximately 1 mm compared to the extremely accurate FaroArm. The full publication can be found here. 

Fellow author: Mu-Hua Cheng

A first-of-its-kind study analyzing the sliding behavior of motorcycles equipped with frame sliders, published and presented at the 10th International Motorcycle Safety Conference in Cologne, Germany. Additionally, this is the first study where sliding behavior was documented via a GPS data acquisition system, which allowed for detailed investigation of of the friction through the slide, and as motorcycles traverse multiple surfaces including asphalt, dirt and grass. The full manuscript can be downloaded here. 

Fellow authors: Bill Focha, Toby Gloekler

A long-term series of semi and fully naturalistic studies analyzing the behavior of motorcyclists during normal riding, and when presented with stimuli requiring evasive maneuvering. Riders were also subjected to similar situations when driving a car, for direct behavioral comparison. The results have been published in several sources including the Journal of the Transportation Research Board (click here for full manuscript). Additional study is ongoing in cooperation with UMass, Amherst. 

Fellow authors: Jeff Muttart, Wade Bartlett, Joe Manning, Chris Kauderer, Steve Guderian, Don Fischer, et al.