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With motorcyclist fatalities
increasing dramatically, it’s
time to take a hard look at
some disturbing statistics.
> text by David L. Hough
Going Down
is
We cover some taboo subjects, including the relative danger of motorcycling. Most of us
understand it isn’t very safe, but we’d
prefer not to spread the news. Maybe
discussing “unsafeness” is bad luck or
we’re suspicious of anyone claiming to
know what’s happening and what to do
about it. Let’s discuss it anyway.
The term “motorcycle safety” implies
riding can be more-or-less safe. However, given the huge number of crashes
and fatalities every year, we can’t easily
argue that riding is safe. How “unsafe” is
motorcycling? Let’s use science to shed
some light on reality.
Before we start, let’s note that we
don’t have a way to measure an individual’s danger level. Some people have
a knack for avoiding danger; others
seem to attract it. I know riders who
have accumulated more than a million
miles without a single crash and others
who died less than five miles from the
dealership on their first ride.
We can measure the average risk of
a large group of motorists, say all mo-
torcyclists in the U.S., by counting the
number of fatalities and comparing it
to a base number such as registered ve-
hicles or vehicle miles traveled. We call
the result a “fatality rate.” The motorcy-
clist fatality rate has traditionally been
determined by comparing the number
of motorcyclist fatalities to the number
of registered motorcycles. For instance,
in 2010 there were 4,518 fatalities and
8.009 million registered motorcycles
in the U.S. The fatality rate was 56.41
fatalities per 100,000 motorcycles.
The fatalities-per-registration rate
doesn’t change much with fluctuations
in numbers of motorcycles, riders
trained, or even fatalities. For many
Table 1
Tot
alPassengerVehicleDriverFatali
ties
