What the Facts Behind Motorcycle Accidents Reveal

Studies conducted on motorcycle accidents reveal a wealth of salient information regarding how accidents occur and how best to avoid them. The findings of the study are pretty exhaustive and contain a lot of pertinent information about the most common causes of a motorcycle accident.

Let's take a look at what those are and how to take adequate preventative measures to protect against grievous injuries.

Almost three out of four motorcycle accidents deal with collisions with another vehicle; most often this other vehicle happens to be a passenger vehicle. One out of four motorcycle accidents involved only the motorcycle — that could mean the bike collided with a roadway or some other fixed object in the surroundings. Though single motorcycle accidents occur, less than one third were due to vehicle failure and mostly those accidents happened when the motorcyclist lost control, mainly due to flat tires.

Rider Error

Most of the single vehicle motorcycle accidents that occur are due to rider error and the main types of mistakes were slide outs, over-braking and speeding, or under cornering. Roadway defects were not a major cause of motorcycle accidents, nor were animal related accidents. In multiple vehicle accidents, most of them were due to the other vehicle violating the motorcyclists' right of way, which caused nearly two thirds of such accidents.

Among motorcycle accidents it was found that a vast majority occurred when the rider was not formally trained and was instead self-taught. This also means that a lack of concentration on driving led to many of the motorcycle accidents, while alcohol-related motorcycle accidents accounted for nearly half of all fatal accidents. In addition, there was barely less than two seconds on average for the rider to take collision avoidance action.

The use of voluntary safety crash helmets rated very low in the case of untrained, uneducated, and young motorcyclists, especially on hot days and for short trips. Of all the injuries that motorcycle riders suffer, chest injuries and head injuries were most common. Besides, more than half of the riders involved in an accident failed to wear safety helmets, and the main reason given for this was that they did not expect to have an accident, while also considering safety helmets to be inconvenient and uncomfortable, despite the fact that safety helmets are the single most critical factor in preventing or reducing head injuries.

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