Helmets worn by motorcyclists saved an estimated 1,829 lives in 2008, and an additional 822 lives could have been saved had all motorcyclists worn helmets (42% of fatally injured motorcyclists in 2008 were unhelmeted). The economic cost savings due to helmet use was approximately $2.9 billion in 2008, and an additional $1.3 billion could have been saved if all motorcyclists had worn helmets. According to the National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS), the use of DOT-compliant helmets increased to 67 percent in 2009, from 63 percent the previous year. Helmet use has been increasing slowly but steadily over the past five years. While the number of fatalities in every other type of vehicle has decreased over the past several years, motorcyclist fatalities nearly doubled over the past decade. Although motorcycle registrations have increased over the past decade, the increase in motorcyclist fatalities rose even more steeply, reaching 5,290 in 2008, making up 14 percent of all traffic fatalities. This has occurred despite the fact that motorcycles make up less than 3 percent of registered vehicles in the United States, and account for only 0.4 percent of vehicle miles travelled. Over the past decade, the age group with the largest increase in motorcyclist fatalities (from 760 in 1998 to 2,687 in 2008) was the 40-and-older age group. During this same time period, the largest motorcycles (those with engine size 1,000 cc and above) saw the largest increase in fatalities. This Research Note describes and quantifies the impact of motorcycle crashes, looking not only at the over-representative number of fatalities, but also at injured motorcyclists, and the economic impact of motorcyclist crashes. NHTSA’s methodology to determine these is based on the number of motorcyclist fatalities, which is known from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database, a census of all traffic fatalities in the United States. (Author/publisher)
Abstract