DataDan
Mama says he's bona fide
Bay Area Moto Deaths, 2007-2008
If you've been around BARF for the past few years, or just been a motorcyclist in the Bay Area, you're probably aware of the alarming number of rider deaths that have occurred since 2007. This year seems to have been somewhat better, but '07 and '08 were dramatically worse than preceding years. The attached chart of fatal crashes by month shows graphically what we have seen in a continuous stream of news articles and posts over the past two years. The bars on that chart represent many tragic stories that have often been the subject of RIP threads.
To help make sense of this disturbing trend, I'm going focus my annual Motostats thread on Bay Area crash statistics. For a broader view of US motorcycling, see the thread Motostats 2006, which isn't quite current but still reflects prevailing trends.
My purposes in presenting the information that will follow are: 1) to help riders avoid crashes by understanding how they happen; 2) to try to put to rest some myths; 3) to provide a reference that will answer questions that often come up about the riders, motorcycles, locations, and circumstances in fatal crashes.
Over the next few weeks, I'm planning posts on fatality rates per registered motorcycle, locations of fatal crashes, the kinds of motorcycles involved, and the riders who became victims. I will focus on 2007 and 2008 in the nine counties on the Bay plus Santa Cruz, but for perspective, I'll be comparing recent years to past years, to the rest of the state, and to the US.
Though it takes longer to analyze the data, eventually I'll post information on crash scenarios and causes (for example, the number of motorcycle-vs-left-turner collisions). Note that I will not be discussing or even mentioning particular crashes. Bay Area motorcycling is a tight community, and I don't want to risk offending someone by identifying a friend or loved one who died on a motorcycle.
If you have suggestions about the kinds of information that would be helpful or interesting, let me know and I'll oblige if I can. The data behind my posts is all from published sources. I'm not going to cite them, but if you have any questions on sources or methods, I'll be glad to provide them.
If you've been around BARF for the past few years, or just been a motorcyclist in the Bay Area, you're probably aware of the alarming number of rider deaths that have occurred since 2007. This year seems to have been somewhat better, but '07 and '08 were dramatically worse than preceding years. The attached chart of fatal crashes by month shows graphically what we have seen in a continuous stream of news articles and posts over the past two years. The bars on that chart represent many tragic stories that have often been the subject of RIP threads.
To help make sense of this disturbing trend, I'm going focus my annual Motostats thread on Bay Area crash statistics. For a broader view of US motorcycling, see the thread Motostats 2006, which isn't quite current but still reflects prevailing trends.
My purposes in presenting the information that will follow are: 1) to help riders avoid crashes by understanding how they happen; 2) to try to put to rest some myths; 3) to provide a reference that will answer questions that often come up about the riders, motorcycles, locations, and circumstances in fatal crashes.
Over the next few weeks, I'm planning posts on fatality rates per registered motorcycle, locations of fatal crashes, the kinds of motorcycles involved, and the riders who became victims. I will focus on 2007 and 2008 in the nine counties on the Bay plus Santa Cruz, but for perspective, I'll be comparing recent years to past years, to the rest of the state, and to the US.
Though it takes longer to analyze the data, eventually I'll post information on crash scenarios and causes (for example, the number of motorcycle-vs-left-turner collisions). Note that I will not be discussing or even mentioning particular crashes. Bay Area motorcycling is a tight community, and I don't want to risk offending someone by identifying a friend or loved one who died on a motorcycle.
If you have suggestions about the kinds of information that would be helpful or interesting, let me know and I'll oblige if I can. The data behind my posts is all from published sources. I'm not going to cite them, but if you have any questions on sources or methods, I'll be glad to provide them.