Of the 32,367 individuals killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2011, some 4,612 of them were on motorcycle occupants. The latter statistic was a 2.1 percent increase from the previous year, in which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recorded 4,518 deaths. As for injuries, the numbers decreased, from about 82,000 the previous year to around 81,000 in 2011.
The numbers don’t lie; motorcycle injuries
and deaths still happen on a daily basis in the country. In fact, age-wise,
motorcyclists aged 60 or older account for an increasing ratio of individuals
who incur injuries in motorcycle crashes in the U.S., indicating that such
incidents won’t decrease anytime soon.
This is according to an article by
MyHealthNewsDaily via the Fox
News website. The study also revealed that 60-something-year-old
motorcyclists seriously injured in those crashes require hospitalization .This
is according to statistical record analyses of emergency department visits for
motorcycle-related injuries spanning the last decade, particularly from 2001 to
2008.
Moreover, the study further revealed that of
all the age groups, people ages 60 and up had the highest injury rates within
the said time period. In fact, from 2001 to 2008, the number of elderly
motorcyclists injured increased by an astonishing 247 percent; from about 4,300
injuries to about 15,100.
Comparing it with the other age groups, the
number of injuries for people ages 40 to 59 increased by 61 percent within the
said time period. On the other hand, people between the ages of 20 and 39 (who
had the most number of motorcycle-related injuries with more than 920,000)
experienced a 28 percent increase.
