Traffic deaths fall overall, yet motorcycle deaths rise
It sounded like such a good idea: Get 50 or more miles per $4 gallon, rather than a car’s 15 or 20 miles at best. That may mean riding a motorcycle, which gives you more gas bang for your buck than almost any other vehicle.
But with motorcycle riding on the rise, so are motorcycle accident deaths. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says traffic deaths overall declined in 2007, yet motorcycle deaths rose. In fact, they’ve jumped from 5 per cent of the traffic death total in 1997 to 13 per cent of the death total last year, with an increase in each year.
In that decade, the feds say, 75 per cent more motorcycles have been registered. With bikers almost doubling, that certainly accounts for an increase in deaths.
After an annual low of 2,116 motorcycle deaths in 1997, the tally climbed to 5,154 for 2007. The most recent climb for 2007 was 6.6 per cent more motorcycle deaths than in the previous year. Meanwhile, all traffic deaths were declining by 3.9 per cent, that year and car deaths were dropping by 7.8 percent.
How can such encouraging statistics overall include such discouraging statistics for motorcycles? Perhaps because it’s not just about an increase in riders, but the types of riders on the road.
Further statistics show that many new motorcycle riders are actually renewed riders: middle-aged men who rode motorcycles and gave them up years ago, but now are trying them again, ostensibly as a fuel-saving measure.
But with large ranks of Baby Boomers nearing retirement age, the increased motorcycle ridership also could represent soon-to-be-oldsters fending off their age by bouncing back on the bike. The problem is, older riders don’t bounce as easily as they once did, and their reflexes aren’t as good. They falsely believe they can handle a bike just as well as they did at 25, and in truth they may have more difficulty.
So chalk up this alarming rise in deaths to a sad byproduct of fuel efficiency, or chalk it up to aging Boomers having another open-road fling on a hog. Either way, the results for many are tragic.
That doesn’t mean each injured or killed biker is to blame, not when so many car drivers are so oblivious of much smaller bikes in their field of vision or peripheral vision. But being innocent of wrongdoing isn’t good enough when it still means you’re injured or killed.
If you or a loved one has suffered in a motorcycle accident, a motorcycle accident lawyer with Jim S. Adler & Associates can help. The firm’s Houston motorcycle accident lawyers can steer your case to the best resolution possible.
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