As gas prices have gone up, traffic fatalities have gone down — at least when it comes to cars. But while fewer folks are pounding pavements in four-wheelers, more are riding on motorcycles, scooters and bicycles to save gas money. And the added traffic on vulnerable vehicles means more people are dying.

The Texas Department of Transportation reports that motorcycle use is up on the state’s roads and highways, with sales of cycles rocketing. And already, correspondingly, motorcycle deaths are ahead of last year’s pace in Houston alone.

The motorcycle’s allure is a no-brainer, at least as far as fuel costs are concerned. While many cars do well to get 15 miles per gallon, most motorcycles get between 40 and 80 miles per gallon, depending on the cycle and the driving habits of their drivers. In short, if you accelerate slowly and obey speed limits, you’ll save gas. If you tromp it and roar off, you don’t save as much.And that’s where one irony pops up: Motorcycles traditionally are not known as sedate and purely functional vehicles, designed and driven to get from Point A to Point B with a minimum of fuss, pollution and noise. Rather, they are symbols of rebelliousness and freedom — the kind of thing many middle-aged joy-riders use to cruise country roads on weekends – and they unleash an in-your-face cacaphony of noise pollution in the process.

Did you ever stop to think how many motorcycles would be sold if their engines were utterly quiet? I mean soundless — not even a hum. While cycle sales might not drop off the face of the Earth, believe me, they’d drop, because being a big bad noise machine is part of a motorcycle’s appeal.

But though they still wreak enough racket to make many see red, now they’re being trumpeted as a way to go green – ecologically.

Nothing wrong with that. Whatever helps. Yet somehow I can’t recall Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider mounting their hogs as a way to save the environment. Conserving gas didn’t seem to be even in the back of their hippie hellraiser minds. But to hear some people’s claims, riding a motorcycle today is all about being eco-friendly.

Maybe — or maybe that’s just an excuse to buy thrill rides on an exceedingly dangerous vehicle.

It’s also a bit odd when folks figure they can save so much in gas costs that it’s worth buying an entirely new vehicle, whether it’s a motorcycle or a car. If you didn’t otherwise need another vehicle but bought one strictly to save on gas, you probably paid enough that you’ll be in the red for many months, given such a strategy.

Sure, saving gas and saving the planet sound like reassuring motives for hopping on a hog and revving it till windows shake a block away. But saving gas still seems to be more of a gravy-liscious byproduct than the real reason for ridin’ and ramblin’. No, the real reason for many is probably what it’s always been: Motorcycles are fun and a symbol of freedom. Born to be Wild and all that.

And boy, do they make a beautiful noise.

If you suffer injury via a motorcycle accident, a Texas motorcycle accident lawyer with Jim S. Adler & Associates can help. The law firm offers a free case review. And don’t worry — this law firm sympathizes. Some of its staff have motorcycles, too.

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