Has Riding a Motorcycle Really Become Safer?

William Connor

January 29, 2015 at 4:00 AM

There is an encouraging two-year trend in the motorcycling world. Ridership is on the rise, many brands are tallying record sales, and now we get some more good news.

Has Riding a Motorcycle Really Become Safer?

The Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF) reported the NHTSA's announcement of another drop in motorcycle fatalities for the second year in a row. These reports are always a year behind due to the nature of data collection and data aggregation. Nevertheless, the numbers are encouraging and may show the start of a trend towards safer motorcycling.

According to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS data) that is collected by the federal government, motorcycle fatalities for 2013 dropped from 4,986 to 4,668 - a difference of 318 fatalities. The motorcycle fatality drop was the largest percentage of all vehicle groups, at 6.4 percent. This is the second consecutive year a drop in motorcycle fatalities occurred since 2009.

Safety in numbers.

Fatal crashes where alcohol was a factor dropped by 117 deaths, or 8.3 percent. That is the largest decrease in alcohol-related accidents for any vehicle category. Also reported was the drop in the number of injured motorcyclists from 93,000 to 88,000, a 5.4 percent drop. Eighty-eight thousand still seems like an awfully large number, but consider that the number of passenger vehicle injuries is 2,046,000 for 2013. The drop in injured motorcyclists is, once again, the largest decrease in the category.