16: Motorcyclists and Riders of Other Powered Two-Wheelers (PTWs)

Motorcycles are fun. Motorcycles are dangerous. Motorcycles are so dangerous, that some people would consider motorcycle safety an oxymoron. Riding a motorcycle is akin to a ride in an amusement park – with all the death defying thrills, but with very few of the safety protections. Though motorcyclists – at least male motorcyclists – perceive themselves as more masculine, motorcycle riding is associated with significantly higher than normal rates of erectile dysfunction (Ochiai et al., 2006).

Table 16-1 illustrates the risk of motorcycling relative to other modes of transportation. As can be seen from this table, riding a motorcycle is by far the most dangerous means of transportation. The risk of being killed in a motorcycle crash per kilometer of travel according to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2004) is nearly 20 times that of being killed in a car crash. The numbers vary among countries – from a “low” of 5 times per kilometer traveled to a high of 25 times per kilometers travel in the EU countries (Espié, Bekiaris, and Nikolaou, 2010). The numbers also vary among specific measures of risk, but the theme is the same: motorcycles are much more dangerous to their riders than cars are to their occupants. The U.S. safety data also damn the motorcycle. In 2013, the fatality rate per 100,000 registered vehicles was 56.8 for motorcyclists versus 13.83 for car occupants. Worse still, the fatality rate per 100 million miles traveled was 23.44 for motorcycle riders versus 1.29 for car occupants (or 37.71 versus 2.08 per 100 million kilometers traveled). In other words, kilometer per kilometer (or mile per mile) of exposure a rider was more than 18 times as likely to be killed on a motorcycle as in a car. In that year, motorcycles made up only 3.12 percent of all registered vehicles in the United States and accounted for only 0.7 percent of all vehicle miles traveled. But motorcycle riders accounted for 14.27 percent of the total traffic fatalities (NHTSA, 2015c). Furthermore, the death rate for riders 50+  years old has been consistently increasing since 1989 (NHTSA, 2015b). In the European Union, the data are just as alarming. There the risk of being killed per kilometer traveled while riding a powered two wheeler (a category that includes mopeds and motorcycles) is estimated to be 20 times that of driving a car (Avenoso and Beckmann, 2005; EC, 2010; WHO, 2004). Furthermore, while the overall fatality rate per kilometers of travel for all modes of transportation combined has been constantly decreasing on both sides of the ocean, this has not been the case for PTW fatalities. In the EU countries, between 1996 and 2008 fatalities have actually steadily increased by about 15 percent (EC, 2010), though the rise is mostly due to fatalities from the heavier motorcycles than the light mopeds and scooters (EC, 2013). In the U.S., the rate has remained fairly constant since 2009 (NHTSA, 2015c).