Citation

Stutts JC, Rutledge R, Martell C. Proc. Assoc. Adv. Automot. Med. Annu. Conf. 1991; 35: 297-314.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Information on injury severity, hospital charges, discharge facility, and insurance status for 706 motorcycle operators and 68 passengers is compared to information on 9,000 other roadway crash victims and 15,500 non-roadway trauma victims treated at eight North Carolina trauma centers during the period October 1987 - June 1990. Motorcycle cases are matched to the North Carolina motor vehicle crash and driver history files to obtain additional information concerning the injured motorcyclist, including police-reported helmet use and license status. Results show that motorcyclists and other road trauma patients experience similar injury severity distributions and require similar levels of treatment as measured by length of hospital stay, overall hospital charges, and discharge facility. Motorcyclists are more likely to be uninsured (42.7 versus 35.5 percent), but less likely to rely on Medicare/Medicaid, and are just as likely as other road trauma patients to be commercially or privately insured. While only about half of the Trauma Registry cases could be matched to the motor vehicle crash file, the two populations of crash-involved motorcyclists were found to be similar in many important respects.