Riders Are Getting Better and Safer!

Well done!

On Friday, August 25, 2006, The St. Petersburg Times ran an article of the title, "Two-Wheel Trouble." In this article the leading statement is, "The motorcycle industry and government have stepped up efforts to increase safety, but sales are soaring, as are fatalities." This is your typical article of there are more deaths each year, motorcycles are dangerous, people lose their legs, even world class athletes like Ben Roethlisberger can't ride them - the printed article has a picture of Ben with caption, etc... I noticed something the article didn't say though and that is, overall riders are getting better!

In the printed article there are two graphs, one for motorcycles sold per year since 1992 and one for motorcycle deaths per year since 1992. It looks like in 1992, there were approximately 190,000 motorcycles sold and 2,400 deaths. In 2004, there were 725,000 motorcycles sold and 4000 deaths.

So in the past 12 years motorcycle sales have increased 3.8 times and deaths have only increased 1.6 times. Put another way, for every 181 motorcycles sold there was one death in 2004 versus 79 motorcycles sold per rider death in 1992.

Now I realize that motorcycles sold isn't really the best measurement of improving riders but it's what I got. The real numbers to look at would be miles ridden. I'm sure there's a substantial increase there too.

So, to those of you in the rider education industry, well done! It's working! Keep it up and expand your operations even faster - there's a lot more riders out there to train!

To all you riders out there well done! Get trained or keep getting trained!

Ride Smart, Have Fun!