The risk for motorcyclists to sustain fatal or serious injury is large in comparison with other transport modes. In the Netherlands about 65 motorcyclists per billion kilometres travelled died in the period 2010-2014 and about 1,000 were seriously injured (2005-2009[i]; see Figure 3). This means that the fatality rate is similar to that of (light) moped riders and many times higher than that of other modes of transport. Between 2010 and 2014, the risk of a fatal crash was 30 time higher for motorcyclists than for car drivers. The risk of motorcyclists to be seriously injured is surpassed by the high risk of moped riders. Car drivers, cyclists and pedestrians have a lower risk of serious road injury.
Figure 3. The fatality rate and the serious injury rate (casualties per distance travelled) in the Netherlands for different modes of transport, averaged over 5-year periods. Sources: CBS (mobility data), BRON (data on road deaths and injured), LBZ (data on serious road injuries) and SWOV (assessment of the number of serious road injuries).
[i] The serious injury rate data is only available up to 2009 because after this year the distribution of serious road injuries by various modes of transport is not reliable.
