As you can see, the total of Motorcycle
Driver Fatalities has just about doubled, from 2000 to 4000 in the last decade! Unfortunately, even though sales are signif- icantly down from the boom years, fatalities have continued to stay at extremely high levels. In fact, with the latest data now com- ing in from the Governors Highway Safety Association, there was another 10 percent average increase in motorcycle fatalities in 2015 nationwide. The good news is there were some interesting outliers I’d like to look at. For many years I have postulated that the
more beginner rider training a state does, the higher the fatality rates will be. I believe this is due to three factors: 1) Increasing the total rider population, 2) The kinds of incentives that state programs initiate to attract the wrong kind of riders, and 3) Lower quality training/standards versus countries like Germany, Japan and England. With my company currently the program manager and curriculum vendor for Cali- fornia, these factors weigh heavily on my mind, and we have gone to great lengths to change the culture of safety in our state.
To understand the first point let’s com-
pare two states which had extremely high and low training and fatality rates this year. Florida had a “record” year of 550 motor- cycle fatalities—an increase of 100 fatalities from 2014. Florida has the second largest training program in the country (behind only California) and is one of the few with mandatory beginner rider training to get a license. Florida trained more new riders in 2015 than in any previous year. By contrast, due primarily to program
management changes, Indiana trained approximately 33 percent fewer riders in 2015 compared to 2014 and had a 17 percent decrease in fatalities (21 fewer deaths). This is with the same curriculum but signifi- cantly less training available. As you may have previously read in BMW Owners News, in my state of Califor- nia we had a complete change in manage- ment, standards, curriculum and philosophy of training last year. The new philosophy includes being honest with pro- spective students about the danger and dif- ficulty of riding, and the importance of follow-on training and wearing protective
USA Total Motorcycle Driver Fatalities changed from 2000 per year to 4000 per year
USA TMDF Total Motorcycle Driver Fatalities
1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000 4,500 5,000
500
This simple chart indicates there is a problem with managing the danger of driving motorcycles in the USA.
MotorcycleInstitute.org
August 2016 BMW OWNERS NEWS
107
Total Motorcycle Driver
Fatalities
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
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