Questions/clarification via email from Sarah – Regarding Item #1: In the first scenario, “A motorcyclist overturns their vehicle, and it slides on its side under another vehicle,” why isn’t this considered an underride? I guess I’m wondering at what point would a motorcycle going under another vehicle constitute an underride? And if the response is only when the motorcycle is right-side up, why? For all other vehicles, it can be any angle and there seems to be no limitation to what orientation they are, so I’m wondering why we would have constraints on motorcycles…
Response: For NHTSA data, a motorcycle vs. other vehicle crash would never be classified as an underride. They are excluded in the data by edit checking tied to Body Type. The reason is that the interest in underride/override from NHTSA is in bumper/vehicle height compatibility and even more specifically truck and trailer underride guards associated with the FMVSS. For the definition of an underride crash, we were trying to describe the dynamics of these crash without getting into a list of body types to exclude (motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles, etc.). That can be handled (and is) in the data reporting. The motorcycle example was related to the motorcycle being on its side (an overturn). It would go under because of that dynamic not the general crash circumstances. Likewise we were excluding crashes where other vehicles go airborne or roll over then land on top of another vehicle in the other examples.