Risk of Vehicle Blind Spot towards Motorcyclist Safety in Malaysia: Assessment on Perceptions of Behaviour

Abstract

Motorization in Asian countries is growing fast, and the motorcycle is the dominating transport mode. The number of motorcycles per thousand people averaged over several major Asian cities is significantly higher than the average of the rest of the world. With the growing use of motorcycles, road injuries and fatalities are a growing concern in Malaysia and one of its major causes is vehicle blind spots. In this work, we conduct a survey to assess the perception of the behaviour of road users concerning the risk of blind spots towards motorcyclist safety in Malaysia. We asked 397 respondents to classify themselves into one of these driving roles – (1) motorists (those who drive vehicles other than motorcycles), (2) motorcyclists, and (3) dual-role (drives other vehicles and motorcycles). We provide the respondents with 21 questions classified into few categories of assessments including blind spot awareness, blind spot risks, perception of faults in road collisions and near-misses, motorists and motorcyclists' behaviours, perception towards motorists, motorcyclists, and technology used to improve road safety. We found that 98.2 % of respondents are aware of the existence of blind spots on the vehicle and a total of 43 % of respondents agree that they have driving difficulty due to blind spots. Moreover, 75 % of respondents suggest that blind spot is a major contributing factor to road collisions or near-misses, with 63 % of collisions experienced are side collisions. We found that more than 30 % of motorists and motorcyclists believe that motorists are not careful towards motorcyclists' safety. Moreover, 51 % of motorists perceive motorcyclists as not being careful towards their safety, but 40 % of motorcyclists stated otherwise. Dual-role drivers show that they are more cautious towards the safety of fellow motorcyclists than the motorists. More dual-role drivers than motorcyclists suggest that they practice good behaviours in relation to vehicle blind spots while riding a motorcycle.