Motorcycle Accidents and the USA |
|
|
File under Statistics
Author: Mike Werner
Location: Normandy, France
|
|
I received some statistics on road accidents in the USA for 2005. It makes some interesting reading...
During 2005, in the USA 4,553 motorcycle riders (4,232 the rider, 318 the pillion, and 3 unknown) died in a traffic accident and 87,000 were injured. That was an increase of 13% over 2004. California and Florida were the two states with the most number of fatal accidents (both had 469, Texas a third with 360).
Comparing accident rates with cars, a motorcycle rider is 34 times more likely to have a fatal accident than a car driver.
These are more or less standard figures the world around. But what's more interesting is that 50% of fatal crashes involved another vehicle, and 78% of the motorcycles were impacted from the front (6% in the rear).
88 bikers died, when their motorcycles collided with another motorcycle !!
This is the scary stats; 38% of fatal accidents involved a motorcycle running into a car that was turning left !!!!! Nasty !
34% of motorcycle crashes involved speeding (by the biker). 24% of the accidents involved bikers who did not have a valid license (which could explain these high stats, since they obviously weren't trained properly).
Time of Day
The highest number of deaths was between 5:00 and 5:59 PM (17:00-17:59) during weekdays, and between 4:00 - 4:59 PM (16-16:59) during the weekend.
The safest time to be out on your motorcycle, weekday or weekend, is between 4:00 and 4:59 AM (4 in the morning).
Age
Another trend that has been confirmed the last few years, is the older biker. In 1995 there were 547 fatal accidents by bikers older than 50 years. In 2005, that figure was 2,143 !!!
Engine Size
The same applies to the size of the engine. In 1995 there were 666 fatal accidents with motorcycles with more than 1,000 cc. In 2005 there were 1,857 !!
Source: NHTSA.
Click here for an Adobe Acrobat file with all the 2005 statistics.
And click here for a very detailed view of these figures.
|
|
|
Click here to Show/Hide 
