Motorcycles Still Aren't Safe

Riding a motorcycle is one of the most dangerous legal things that you can do. 

The 149 motorcycle fatalities in 2022 [in Colorado] accounted for 20% of the state’s total traffic fatalities but the motorcycles involved represented only 3% of the state’s vehicle registrations, CDOT officials said in a news release. The number of motorcycle fatalities has generally risen since 2003 when 73 motorcyclists died. . . . Of the 2022 fatalities, over half of the motorcyclists were not wearing helmets, and nationwide, DOT-compliant helmet use decreased by 4% from 2020 to 2021.

From the Denver Post.

Comparing motorcycle fatalities to vehicle registrations also greatly underestimates how dangerous motorcycles are, because the number of passenger-miles per year driven per motorcycle is vastly lower than the number of passenger-miles per year driven per car.

This isn't a new observation. I first made it at this blog in a post on October 18, 2005, not long after I started it. At that time, motorcycle accidents had gone from accounting for 5% of all fatal vehicle accidents to 10%, and motorcycle riders were 28 times as likely to die per passenger-mile are car passengers. Now, in Colorado at least, motorcycle accidents give rise to 20% of fatal vehicle accidents, so the relative risk faced by people riding motorcycles is now probably closer to 50-60 times that of car passengers.