Hearing loss in motorcyclists: occupational and medicolegal aspects.

Abstract

Motorcycles have been around as a mode of transport since the latter part of the 19th century, and have long been regarded as irritating and noisy. However, regulations to prevent excess vehicular noise in both urban and sports settings1,2 seem to be reasonably successful. Kamperman3 has shown that, in an urban setting, accelerating motorcycles with standard exhausts are no louder than motorcars, and measurements by the Transport Research Laboratory have shown overall motorcycle noise to be within UK legislative limits4. One might assume that, as well as sparing the public noise nuisance, these regulations would also protect the rider. However, over the past 10-15 years, as motorcycle development has led to quieter machines with radically improved performance, there has been increasing concern that riders are exposed to excessive noise through turbulent airflow around the helmet—so-called wind-noise5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. The seminal report on this topic (although not the first) was that of Van Moorhem et al. in 19816. Apart from the work of our group, there have since been only six published reports on the subject7,8,9,10,11,12.