Advancements in vehicle technology and upgrades to traffic safety laws have reduced overall traffic crash fatalities and injury severity nationwide. The same cannot be said about motorcycle fatalities which have steadily increased since 1997. Between 2002 and 2010, ND recorded 63 fatal crashes, 1490 injury crashes, and 324 property damage only (PDO) motorcycle crashes for a combined total of 1877. Crashes peak in 2008 and reflect an 87.3% increase over 2002. When evaluating driver crash severity, data indicates 238 of these crashes were fatal or disabling. Although the overall number of crashes during this period was higher on urban roads, crashes were more severe on rural roads which had the largest share of fatalities, 76.2%. When considering multi-vehicle crashes, right-of-way (ROW) crashes represent 54% of the crashes. ROW crashes also result in more fatalities and injuries than all other types (combining rear-end, head-on, sideswipe and rear-to-rear). (Author/publisher)
Abstract