Motorcycle fatalities fall in U.S., Pennsylvania
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After 11 straight years of increases, motorcycle fatalities in the U.S. fell by 16 percent last year. Pennsylvania also saw a reduction in deaths to their lowest total since 2006.
That doesn't mean that motorcycle riding is safe -- according to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, riders are 35 times more likely to die in a crash than people in cars.
"One year doesn't make a trend," said Danielle Klinger, spokeswoman for PennDOT, which launched a motorcycle safety campaign called Live Free Ride Alive in March.
Three motorcycle riders died in separate crashes in the area on Wednesday.
Richard McClain, 25, of Larimer, collided with a car at Baum Boulevard and Negley Avenue in Friendship.
Caleb Altmire, 26, of Apollo, hit a vehicle that had turned in front of him at Route 286 and Route 22 in Monroeville.
Christopher Goodwin, 20, of Jeannette, ran into a parked pickup truck on Arlington Avenue in Jeannette.
All were wearing helmets.
Nationally, until last year, motorcycle fatalities continued to climb even as overall traffic deaths fell.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, cycle fatalities more than doubled in one decade, going from 2,294 in 1998 to 5,290 in 2008.
Over that same span, Pennsylvania fatalities grew from 111 in 1998 to 237 in 2008 -- a 114 percent increase -- before falling to 204 last year, according to PennDOT.
Discussions about motorcycle safety typically begin with the debate over helmets. Twenty states require all riders to wear them. Pennsylvania repealed its helmet law in 2003 and now requires them only for riders younger than 21 and for older riders in the first two years of having a license, unless they complete a safety course.
The NTSB says wearing a helmet reduces the overall risk of dying in a crash by 37 percent. PennDOT's Live Free Ride Alive website, at www.livefreeridealive.com, says helmeted riders are three times more likely to survive head injuries.
In 1998, while the helmet law was still in effect, 19 of the 111 fatalities in Pennsylvania were riders without helmets. By 2008, nearly half of motorcycle deaths, 114 of 237, were unhelmeted riders.
One of the larger and more active groups representing riders, the Alliance of Bikers Aimed Toward Education, or ABATE, disputes that helmets make for a safer ride and lobbies against laws requiring them.
First Published October 1, 2010 12:00 am
