Aug 1, 2017

Crashing and Talking About Crashing

Here’s where we are in Minnesota, as of the end of July (Some corrections to these numbers will probably surface in August, but it won’t get better. Not all counties and municipalities report crashes quickly.)

2017 Minnesota Rider Deaths Statistics

Helmet use

  • 4 riders killed were wearing a helmet.
  • 22 riders killed were not wearing a helmet.
  • It’s unknown if 4 riders were wearing a helmet or not.

Single-vehicle crashes vs. Multi-vehicle crashes

  • 12 of the crashes involved only the motorcycle
  • 16 of the crashes involved a motorcycle and another vehicle

Motorcycle vs. deer

  • 4 of the crashes involved a motorcycle colliding with a deer.

Passengers killed

  • 3 passenger have died in a motorcycle crash

Motorcycle License Endorsement

  • 25 of the operators had a valid motorcycle license endorsement or permit.
  • 2 of the operators did not have a valid motorcycle license endorsement or permit.
  • It’s unknown if one of the riders had valid motorcycle license endorsement or permit.

Negotiating a curve

  • 9 of the crashes happened while motorcyclists were negotiating a curve.

Rider deaths by age:

  • Under 20: 1
  • 20’s: 6
  • 30’s: 1
  • 40’s: 6
  • 50’s: 10
  • 60’s: 5
  • 70’s: 1
  • 80’s: -

Rural vs. urban area

  • 14 of the crashes happened in a rural area.
  • 12 of the crashes happened in an urban area.
  • 2 of the crashes is unknown.

Registered Motorcycles Drop

The number of registered motorcycles declined by 10,000 from 2015 to 2016 after being stagnate for the previous four years.

The Mostly Useless Motorcycle Safety Advisory Task Force

ST. PAUL — Department of Public Safety Commissioner Mona Dohman has reappointed, Frank Ernst, Debra Heisick, Natonia Johnson, Mark Koon, Monte Ohlrogge, Dwight Smith, Bob Swenson, Tim Walker, David Weeres and Geoffrey Wyatt, and appointed new members, Tracey Lynne Armstrong, Jonathon Paul Fernholz, Bridget Karp, David Nei and Dean Nelson to the Motorcycle Safety Advisory Task Force.  Their appointments run through June 30, 2019.

There is no information listed as to whose interests these “representatives” represent. You’d think police, MNHP, dealers, MMSC coaches and the private training sector, daily commuters, MNDOT engineers, and actual representatives of Minnesota motorcyclists would be in this mix. However, it’s usually just the ABATE pirate crowd and their only input is “no helmet laws,” criminalize anyone who hits a motorcyclist in an intersection and ignore the majority of motorcycle crashes that are the fault of motorcyclists, and DO NOT EVER talk about motorcycle noise.

Supposedly, this group “will focus on three areas:  motorcycle rider training, motorcycle rider testing and licensing, and public information and media relations.” If history is any indicator, media relations will be a bigger topic than anything useful.

2017 Toward Zero Deaths Conference

This might be an opportunity for non-ABATE bar-hoppers to have some input into the state’s motorcycle safety. planning. The “Minnesota’s Toward Zero Deaths” traffic safety initiative. You can find a little more information about the conference at http://www.minnesotatzd.org/events/conference/2017/index.html. Registration is $95 for a two-day conference, “including breakfast, lunch, and a reception.” I scanned the website and can’t find any evidence that motorcycles are even discussed in the conference, but it’s possible we might come up since we accounted for 15% of 2015’s Minnesota traffic deaths (the latest data on MNDOT’s site).

3 comments:

Scott Seidl said...

All this negativity. I wish there were a way to collect stats on how many riders avoided near death collisions with deer or lived to tell about the guy that cut them off in an intersection.
Is there a way to know what percentage of total riders fit into each age bracket?

Anonymous said...

The problem I still have with the LOUSY statistics that say "wearing a helmet" or "not wearing a helmet" is that it is meaningless! The question has to be if they died from head injuries to even be a relevant statistic. "Not wearing a helmet" and died from massive chest trauma, or bled out from a leg torn off, or whatever is absolutely the unknown. I wish they would either be precise or forget reporting it all together.

T.W. Day said...

Like guns stats, it's all political. Between the ABATE gangbangers and the cops, nobody wants to do a serious job at a crash scene. Personally, I'd like to know when a helmet is on the scene, did it stay on and was it a helmet or just a DOT hat? ABATE doesn't want helmets even evaluated, let alone real helmets vs. toy helmets. The cops would rather eat donuts and watch the EMTs scrape up the remains rather than do serious documentation.

At another end of the analysis spectrum, there are some interesting stats, though. For example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2446440/ and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0012707/. It's pretty obvious that helmets reduce head injuries and fatalities, the question is "does anyone care?" Motorcyclists are not making much of a useful contribution to traffic management, are over-represented in fatalities and injuries, and are pretty much a public noise nuisance. I think we're just going to piddle along until autonomous cars shove motorcycle stats into the 50%-or-greater territory and ban the vehicle from public highways.