Harry Hurt, the motorbike road safety pioneer, dies in California

CALIFORNIA // Harry Hurt, the man credited with conducting pioneering research into the causes of motorcycle accidents, has died. Mr Hurt was 81 years old. Mr Hurt analysed the causes and outcomes of more than 900 motorbike accidents in the Los Angeles area in the 1970s and then used his findings to publish The Hurt Report in 1981. His research paper is still widely regarded as the benchmark work on motorbike safety. The report's key conclusion were that speed was not the main cause of accidents involving motorbikes and that a collision was likely to have occurred as the result of a car driver failing to see a biker on the road, rather than by rider error. He recommended that riders use high-visibility clothing and a crash helmet - neither was in common use at the time in California - and that both drivers and bikers needed further road safety training. In recent times, Mr Hurt had said his report remained valid and that "the more time goes by, the less things look different."