ArticleBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2017
The full moon and motorcycle related mortality: population based double control study.
Article in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Exploring the influence of moon phases and weather on mortality in a palliative care unit over a ten year period.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Relation of the Lunar Cycle and Trauma Deaths in Tehran over 10 Years.The archives of bone and joint surgery · 2023Article
- Assessing the impact of the national traffic safety campaign: a nationwide cohort study in Japan.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Synodic lunar phases and suicide: based on 2605 suicides over 23 years, a full moon peak is apparent in premenopausal women from northern Finland.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Article
- Lunar Phases and Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions: Application of the Lunar Disk Percentage Method.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Effects of weather and moon phases on emergency medical use after fall injury: A population-based nationwide study.PloS one · 2021Article
- Disaster-related carbon monoxide poisoning after the Great East Japan Earthquake, 2011: a nationwide observational study.Acute medicine & surgery · 2019Article
- Full Moon and Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in Japan - Population-Based, Double-Controlled Case Series Analysis.Circulation reports · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo test whether a full moon contributes to motorcycle related deaths.
designPopulation based, individual level, double control, cross sectional analysis.
settingNighttime (4 pm to 8 am), United States.
participants13 029 motorcycle fatalities throughout the United States, 1975 to 2014 (40 years).
main outcome measureMotorcycle fatalities during a full moon.
results13 029 motorcyclists were in fatal crashes during 1482 relevant nights. The typical motorcyclist was a middle aged man (mean age 32 years) riding a street motorcycle with a large engine in a rural location who experienced a head-on frontal impact and was not wearing a helmet. 4494 fatal crashes occurred on the 494 nights with a full moon (9.10/night) and 8535 on the 988 control nights without a full moon (8.64/night). Comparisons yielded a relative risk of 1.05 associated with the full moon (95% confidence interval 1.02 to 1.09, P=0.005), a conditional odds ratio of 1.26 (95% confidence interval 1.17 to 1.37, P<0.001), and an absolute increase of 226 additional deaths over the study interval. The increase extended to diverse types of motorcyclists, vehicles, and crashes; was accentuated during a supermoon; and replicated in analyses from the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
conclusionThe full moon is associated with an increased risk of fatal motorcycle crashes, although potential confounders cannot be excluded. An awareness of the risk might encourage motorcyclists to ride with extra care during a full moon and, more generally, to appreciate the power of seemingly minor distractions at all times.
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