News of the Week 4-30-18
When Motorcycle and Cars Collide
When motorcycles and cars collide there can never be a good result. As our Connecticut weather improves more and more motorcycles will be taking to the road. And as that happens the incidence of motorcycle-car collisions will increase. By definition, accidents are not intentional acts. They occur because at least one driver is inattentive, distracted or uses bad judgement. Motorcycles may be hard to spot or maybe traveling faster than you thought but inevitably with little protection, and in Connecticut, many cyclists without a helmet, serious injury or death to the motorcyclist are is not an unusual result putting the drivers of cars in serious financial peril
The following material is obtained from “ctbythnumbers” :
The state Department of Transportation expects 47 motorcyclists to die in traffic accidents in this year and next. According to a Department of Transportation report for Fiscal 2017, there was a fluctuating number of motorcyclist fatalities from 2010 to 2014, with a low of 37 in 2011 and a high of 57 in 2013. Those numbers are expected to remain constant, department projections indicate.
The report said the majority of motorcycle fatal and injury crashes occurred between the hours of noon and 8 p.m. and the crashes most commonly happened on Saturdays and Sundays. Most fatal and injury crashes occurred in the summer months, and almost all motorcycle operators involved in crashes were male.
Cited most often as contributing factors were “driver lost control,” “driving too fast for conditions,” and “road condition/object in road.” In multiple vehicle crashes where the other driver was at fault, the major contributing factor in 47 percent of these crashes was failure to grant the right-of-way, the DOT report indicated. May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month.
Only about 42 percent of motorcyclists in Connecticut wear helmets, according to Neil Chaudhary, PhD, leader of a Trumbull team of premier investigators on behavioral traffic safety-related issues at Preusser Research Group, Inc. In states where helmets are required, there is near 100 percent compliance, he recently told the Newtown Bee, adding professional driver training, offered throughout the state, can help riders to develop stronger defensive driving skills.
The Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center reports the estimated loss to the state from motorcycle related injuries and death is $400 million. The group says helmet use reduced the risk of death by 37% and head injuries by 69%, FOX61 reported.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that about 5,000 motorcycle operators and hundreds of motorcycle passengers lose their lives in accidents each year in the United States. These numbers account for about 13 percent of total traffic fatalities, even though motorcycles account for just three percent of all registered vehicles, the Newtown Bee reported. In addition to the fatalities, about 100,000 operators and passengers are injured each year.
