Motorcyclists who travel 15 miles every day for a year have an ‘astonishing’ chance of dying: Study
Everyone knows riding a motorcycle is inherently hazardous. Enthusiasts learn to “accept” its very real dodginess, controlling what they can on the road. Ultimately, though, tenured riders understand that certain conditions are simply out of their hands as other motorists are always a big question mark. A study from 2013 sharing the most dangerous ways people commute has resurfaced, and its sobering data puts a spotlight directly on the perils of deciding to ride a motorcycle in the first place. Let’s review the paper and consider how things are going for bikers 11 years later.
A Northwestern University paper exposed the most dangerous ways people commute
To start things off, the author delivered data on two subcategories responsible for the average annual traffic fatalities from 2000 to 2009:
Total average annual vehicle fatalities (2000-2009): 43,239
| Category: | Data: |
| Private transportation only | 36,849 (85.2%) |
| Commercial transportation | 6,390 (14.8%) |
Private transportation, then, was responsible for more than 85% of the average annual vehicle fatalities.
While we could easily get into the justifications for modern, widespread public transportation, we’re simply years away from this infrastructural “disruption.” In the meantime, commuters traveling via typical private means (cars and motorcycles) should know the rest of this academic narrative.
According to the study published by Ian Savage through the Department of Economics and the Transportation Center at Northwestern University, motorcycles are by far the most dangerous method to commute:
Passenger Fatalities per Billion Passenger Miles, 2000-2009
Riding a motorcycle: 212.57
Driving or passenger in a car or light truck: 7.28
Passenger on a local ferry boat: 3.17
Passenger on commuter rail and Amtrak: 0.43
Passenger on urban mass transit rail (2002-2009): 0.24
Passenger on a bus (holding more than 10 passengers – transit, intercity, school, charter): 0.11
Passenger on commercial aviation: .07
Savage reflected on the numbers at length. “A motorcyclist who traveled 15 miles every day for a year, had an astonishing 1 in 860 chance of dying. The rate per passenger mile was 29 times that for automobiles and light trucks.”
Injuries are far more serious, and deaths far more typical, for motorcyclists over folks traveling in passenger vehicles. “When a motorcycle is involved in a collision with another vehicle, the motorcyclist invariably receives more serious injuries. The ratio of fatalities in two-vehicle collisions was 70 motorcyclist fatalities for each fatal injury sustained by the occupant of the other vehicle.”
Moreover, when states “roll back” motorcycle safety laws, such as helmet laws, fatalities jump sharply in turn.
11 years later, the NHTSA is still warning motorcyclists
Unfortunately, with the rise in motorcycle registrations since the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s only gotten statistically worse.
In 2009, annual motorcycle fatalities were under the 5,000 mark…which was already terrible. Since 2015, they haven’t dipped below 5,000 and even approached 6,000 in 2021.
“Despite accounting for only 3.5% of registered vehicles, motorcyclists comprised 14% of all motor vehicle traffic fatalities in 2021, ” the NHTSA reports.
In 2022, 6,218 motorcyclists were killed.
What can motorcyclists do?
Personally, until our transportation infrastructure gets safer for bikers, I’ll just never support a loved one riding a motorcycle. Of course, folks’ll do what they think is best for them…free country and all that.
In any case, if you do ride, use and protect your noggin:
- Wear a helmet
- Follow all traffic laws
- Don’t trust surrounding motorists
- Ride sober (and otherwise clear-headed)
In a vacuum, I absolutely do appreciate motorcycles. As a car person, I’m quick to adore most anything “driven”…construction equipment, lawnmowers, aircraft, submersibles, whatever. But everyone I know who has (or had) a bike dropped it…painfully…at some point.
Just out of college, I worked for an insurance agent. Making local commercial lead rounds in the company VW Beetle, a coworker and I came up on a young man who’d slid his bike sideways onto the shoulder. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and sat up with a “dead” arm limp at his side and gravel embedded in his forehead and hairline. After, when I rejoined the shop (where I stayed writing service for a decade), one of our tool guys erroneously ran his bike into the back of a commercial truck and died. A shop coworker’s friend drank and drove his bike and passed as a result of the crash. Then there’s my brother-in-law and then my step-uncle, both who landed hospital stays.
It’s safe to say we’d all like to see annual motorcycle fatalities go in the opposite direction they’re trending. If that happens via fewer people operating them, so be it.
