Motorcycles cause 10% of traffic deaths in Ontario - Sunnybrook study | GTAMotorcycle.com

Motorcycles cause 10% of traffic deaths in Ontario - Sunnybrook study

GreyGhost

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Excerpts from article and study below. I don't want to copy/paste the entire article here.

A new study suggests motorcycles account for 10 per cent of all motor vehicle deaths in the province, and cost the health care system six times the amount of car crashes.

“(It) is not only the people who are misbehaving, but some of the patients we see in the emergency department are just unfortunate – they drive responsibly and it’s just intrinsically a more dangerous mode of transportation,” he explained.

We identified 26,831 patients injured from MCs and 281,826 injured from ACs. Mean MC- and AC-attributable costs were $5,825 and $2,995, respectively (p<0.0001). The rate of injury was triple for MCs compared to ACs (2,194 injured yearly/100,000 registered motorcycles versus 718 injured yearly/100,000 registered automobiles; IRR=3.1, 95% CI=2.8-3.3, p<0.0001). Severe injuries, defined as those with an Abbreviated Injury Scale >=3, were 10 times greater (125 severe injuries per yearly/100,000 registered motorcycles versus 12 severe injuries per yearly/100,000 registered automobiles

Read the whole thing at http://www.680news.com/2017/11/20/fatal-motorcycle-crashes/

Study here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/364956295/Motorcycle-Crashes-in-Ontario#from_embed

I was surprised mc injury rate was ~2%/yr. I expected higher.

The study is actually very interesting. Scribd sucks and doesn't play nicely with cut and paste. If adjusted for injuries per km instead of per year, the MC stats become an additional 5x worse than autos.

If anyone has a scribd account, grab that study before it disappears. It looks like it isn't supposed to be released yet and may disappear when the journal freaks out that they have been scooped.

EDIT: Baggsy found a link to the official published study (that is easy to download). The one above was a confidential peer-reviewed copy.
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/189/46/E1410
 
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This study seems to direct itself towards medical costs incurred per accident and omits DOAs.
There the ratio seems to be 6:1, with 5:1 being the likelihood of death per accident (MC to car) based on distance travelled per year.
Motorcyclists sustain 3 times the number of injuries per accident as people in cars (makes sense).

“Motorcycles account for five times the deaths, six times the medical costs and 10 times the severe injuries – those injuries being ones that would matter to your life – as compared to cars.”

This headline is very misleading.
 
Well duh!

What about the rate of accidents on motorcycles vs the rate of accidents (including fender benders) in cars? Data we'll never get as a lot of those get settled out of insurance/legal realm.

Cars are cages of protection so, obviously, injury rate will be lower. But also, motorcyclists will try to avoid accidents more than cages and have to "intrinsically" be more efficient at avoiding rather than just brake and pray. So if you might avoid the 'smaller' accidents a lot easier as you have to be a lot more aware and agile, but what will get you are those bigger accidents that are almost inevitable.

With my first car over a decade ago, i crashed at 120-130kph on the highway, both cars were totalled, none of the occupants were injured at all. (got cut off, did an evasive manoeuvre, lost control and clipped 1 foot of the rear of the other car)

On a motorcycle, i'd be dead most likely. In the car, just bent metal on the fender and broken headlight and airbags coming out..

So while i understand those stats...it's kinda what's to be expected the way i see it
 
So while i understand those stats...it's kinda what's to be expected the way i see it

I agree, it's just nice to see what appears to be a reasonably well thought out, current and local study that provides some real numbers. Prior to this, the best collection of broad crash data I have seen was The Hurt Report (1981) which was US based (and obviously almost 40 years old. How much have cars, bikes, attitudes and safety gear changed in the past 40 years?).
 
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Does this mean 1 out of 50 motorcyclists will be injured on average each year? That is really high. Am I interpreting this correctly?

The real number is higher. That doesn't include on-scene fatalities or riders that don't seek medical treatment. I suspect if the injuries were plotted against experience, we would see something similar to the hurt report with a ridiculously high percentage in the 1st year (well into double digits), lower year 2, higher year 3 (although much lower than year 1), then tapering. Most riders with 10+ years (and lots of km) under their belt are probably well under 1% injury rate.

We all know at least a few GTAM riders that have crashed multiple times. Some of those riders were crashing every year or two which really drives up the average.
 
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The real number is higher. That doesn't include on-scene fatalities or riders that don't seek medical treatment. I suspect if the injuries were plotted against experience, we would see something similar to the hurt report with a ridiculously high percentage in the 1st year (well into double digits), lower year 2, higher year 3 (although much lower than year 1), then tapering. Most riders with 10+ years (and lots of km) under their belt are probably well under 1% injury rate.

We all know at least a few GTAM riders that have crashed multiple times. Some of those riders were crashing every year or two which really drives up the average.

wasnt there a recent study showing that the most injury-prone riders were in the 40-50 year old range?
 
wasnt there a recent study showing that the most injury-prone riders were in the 40-50 year old range?

It's possible, I don't recall that one. Many 40 to 50 year olds are just learning to ride and have the money to buy something heavy and/or fast while being old enough to easily get injured in a mishap.
 
It's possible, I don't recall that one. Many 40 to 50 year olds are just learning to ride and have the money to buy something heavy and/or fast while being old enough to easily get injured in a mishap.
... or returning riders who got their licenses 20 or so years ago and thought to pick riding again once the kids get older.
 
Which journal is the article to be published in?

I thought that year 3 > year 1 in Hurt et al? All those people had "mastered" their first motorcycle.

Interesting line about if riders were force to use Cages we'd save . . .

Could they be underestimating the contribution of mopeds, scooters, etc in high density?
 
Either it's an insurance-industry funded study that will precede an increase in rates or it will be leveraged by the insurance industry to justify hefty rate increases.

Wait for it...
 
so....................... you mean to tell me that motorcycles are dangerous ???? wow....just wow................mind blown
 
Excellent. The copy posted on scribd is a confidential copy that has peer review comments in it.

You might want to go back and edit the first post with the official version.
 
Either it's an insurance-industry funded study that will precede an increase in rates or it will be leveraged by the insurance industry to justify hefty rate increases.

Wait for it...
Yeah most scams need to be peer reviewed before they're implemented.
 
They're going to ban/legislate motorcycles because it's costing the government too much.
 

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