Motorcycle Deaths by the Numbers

Let me preface this for those that don't already know, I ride motorcycles. I wear my helmet and armored protective gear. THAT IS MY CHOICE!

Every year I read stories in the newspapers about the dangers of motorcycles and what our Government officials should or want to do to "protect" motorcyclists. Most every proposal put forward limits my freedoms, liberties and rights as an individual. The first false premise is that we are suffering from an epidemic of dead motorcyclists on our roads and that the motorcyclists must be protected from themselves. The next false premise is that Government has my best interests as their first interests. The last, but greatest false premise is if the Government steps in, limits my rights and forces me to comply with their "protective" measures the number of motorcycle deaths will decrease. This just isn't true. The traffic data shows that this is not true.

With each of these news stories we hear about the numbers killed and the number killed that were not wearing proper safety gear and those killed while driving improperly. What I almost never see are the number that are killed while wearing the proper safety gear, that were driving safely were not at fault in anyway shape or form. You really need to read the full NHTSA reports to get the truth. It seems that if you dig in past the summary (which is the only part that the news media ever reads) you find some real interesting numbers. I'll post from 1999 since that is the last year reported in the NHTSA report.

Total Motorcycle Fatalities: 2,483 of those 1,140 were motorcycle only crashes. The remaining 1,343 fatalities involved another vehicle. So, 54% of the fatalities are involving another vehicle. Since the report is focusing only on single vehicle fatalities they do not give stats for the multi-vehicle fatalities. (I'll dig those up later.)

Of the 1,140 motorcyclists that died, 49% whore helmets, 48% did not wear helmets and the remaining 3% are unknown. This really debunks the "A helmet would have saved his life" theories. More motorcyclists die wearing helmets that not. The total number of motorcyclists not wearing helmets that died in a single vehicle accident Nation wide in 1999 is 544. Where is the epidemic? It seems to me that more people are dying from many other things than not wearing a helmet.

Other NHTSA reports I found for 2000 and 2001 showed an overall increase in motorcycle fatalities AND and overall increase in helmet usage. Over 50% of motorcyclists killed were wearing helmets. Again this is not a shining example of "Helmets Saves Lives" like so many claim.

Also note that the single vehicle motorcycle accidents are the smaller number of fatalities. The larger number of motorcycle fatalities involves other cars.

Now for multi-vehicle motorcycle fatalities. These numbers are REAL scary as the vast majority of motorcycles killed in multi-vehicle crashes are killed by passenger cars. As already reported 55% of motorcycle fatalities are multi-vehicle. Over 85% of those were with passenger vehicles. Of the accidents with passenger vehicles, more than 67% of the fatalities were with passenger vehicles in which the driver of the passenger vehicle was doing one or more of the following; under the influence, making an improper turn, failing to yield right of way, speeding, driving in the wrong lane, driving the wrong way, driving inattentively (talking, using a cell phone, eating, etc.) and failure to obey traffic signs and signals. For the passenger vehicle drivers involved in two-vehicle motorcycle crashes, 35% of the driver-related factor was failure to yield right-of-way compared to only 4% for motorcycle operators. This means that you people in cars are failing to yield to motorcyclists.

The trail of deadly stats go on and one. While not all motorcyclists are blameless in their actions or their own deaths, most are blameless. A very large number of motorcyclists killed were obeying the traffic laws, not drinking and wearing a helmet. Their only mistake was trusting that you people in cars were taking the same precautions.

I will not be caught DEAD without my helmet, but odds are I will still be killed while wearing my helmet because one of you people in 4-wheeled vehicles won't hang up the phone, open your eyes, turn off the DVD player or GPS or what ever other electronics your playing with while aiming your 2 ton battle tank of 'mechanized death' at me and my motorcycle.

Dig in and read it yourselves.

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/PPT/MotorcycleFatal.pdf

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810834.PDF