Face the facts: a characterisation of 2013–2025 UK motorcycle collisions, head impact locations and injury outcomes supporting facial impact testing
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55329/kohk5876Keywords:
basilar skull fracture, facial impact, head injury, helmet impact location, helmet test standards, motorcycle collisions, Road Accident In-Depth Studies (RAIDS), traumatic brain injury biomechanics, vulnerable road user safety, Northern EuropeAbstract
There is limited contemporary evidence on head impact conditions and injuries in motorcyclists, despite substantial recent changes in vehicles, helmet design and test standards. This constrains evidence-driven improvements to helmet protection and impact test protocols, particularly for underrepresented facial impacts. We quantified head impact locations and associated head and facial injury distributions in 12 years of motorcycle collisions from Great Britain’s Road Accident In-Depth Studies (RAIDS) database (1 April 2013–31 March 2025). Injuries were classified using Abbreviated Injury Scale codes augmented with free-text identification of clinically utilised Mayo-classified brain injury, and primary helmet impact location was derived from investiga-tor summaries and helmet photographs. Most of the 353 motorcyclists were injured (93%) and male (90%), and 2% were unhelmeted. One third sustained at least one head injury and 24.9% sustained Mayo-classified traumatic brain injury (19.0% moderate–severe). Facial injuries occurred in 12.2%, including 4.4% with facial fracture. Skull fractures (including basilar) and intracranial haemorrhage were also common. Head and facial injuries were more prevalent in fatally injured motorcyclists than survivors. Primary helmet impact location was determined for 125 motorcyclists with 50.4% of impacts to the facial region. Head injury rates and patterns were similar across different primary impact locations. When primary facial impacts caused head injury, upper face and chinbar impacts dominated visor impacts. Facial impacts are both frequent and associated with clinically important head injuries. Helmet standards and consumer ratings should incorporate facial impact assessments and adopt injury risk criteria reflecting skull fractures (particularly basilar skull fractures), focal brain injury and intracranial haemorrhage.
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Author Biographies
Claire E. Baker, Imperial College London, the United Kingdom
Claire Baker is an Eric & Wendy Schmidt AI for Science Research Fellow at Imperial College London. Her research spans data-driven injury biomechanics and accessible sensing to support innovation in emergency medicine, focussing on the global road trauma burden.
CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Zhuoxiaoyue Wang, Imperial College London, the United Kingdomn
Zhuoxiaoyue Wang is an undergraduate student in Design Engineering at Imperial College London, who contributed to this work during an internship as an undergraduate research assistant with the HEAD Lab group.
CRediT contribution: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Validation, Writing – review & editing.
Lucas Low, Imperial College London, the United Kingdom
Lucas Low is a post-doctoral research associate whose research focuses on computational biomechanics, includinghead trauma from road traffic collisions, spine modelling for injury prediction, and finite element analysis of bone fracture healing. He completed his PhD in Bioengineering at Imperial College London, as part of the Centre for Blast Injuries Studies.
CRediT contribution: Investigation, Validation, Writing – review & editing.
Emily Ashworth, Imperial College London, the United Kingdom
Emily Ashworth holds a PhD in Blast Injury and is a Emergency Practitioner at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Military Reserve Nurse.
CRediT contribution: Investigation, Validation, Writing – review & editing.
Mark H. Wilson, Imperial College London, the United Kingdom
Mark Wilson is a consultant neurosurgeon and pre-hospital care specialist. He is a Professor of Practice (Brain Injury) at Imperial College London and an Honorary Professor (Gibson Chair) of Pre-Hospital Care at the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. He is also the co-founder and medical director GoodSAM / Clinic.co.
CRediT contribution: Methodology, Writing – review & editing.
David J. Sharp, Imperial College London, the United Kingdom
David Sharp is a Professor of Neurology at Imperial College London, whose research connects traumatic brain injury and dementia research. He is the founding Director of the UK DRI Care Research & Technology Centre at Imperial College London, one of seven UK DRI Centres. He also co-leads the UK DRI Division of Risk, Diagnosis, Lifestyle & Care.
CRediT contribution: Funding acquisition, Resources, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.
Nils Lubbe, Autoliv, Sweden
Nils Lubbe is Director of Research at Autoliv Development AB, Sweden. His academic qualifications include Docent, PhD, and MSc from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. He has published over 70 journal and conference papers. His research interests include crash analysis and prevention as well as injury biomechanics on crash data analysis and safety system concepts.
CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Resources, Writing – review & editing.
Shiyang Meng, Autoliv, Sweden
Shiyang Meng is a Biomechanics Expert at Autoliv Development AB. He is an Affiliated Faculty at CBH School, KTH and a Digital Futures Affiliated Scholar.
CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Writing – review & editing.
Mazdak Ghajari, Imperial College London, the United Kingdom
Mazdak Ghajari is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Brain Biomechanics in Design Engineering at Imperial College London, PI of the HEAD Lab. He leads transdisciplinary research aiming at improving our understanding of how mechanical forces produce brain injury and translational work developing new methods for assessing helmets such as the flagship HIPER helmet rating programme (www.hiperhelmets.org).
CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Claire E. Baker; Zhuoxiaoyue Wang, Lucas Low, Emily Ashworth, Mark H. Wilson, David J. Sharp, Nils Lubbe, Shiyang Meng, Mazdak Ghajari
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Funding data
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Medical Research Council
Grant numbers MR/Y008502/1
