A little good news-fewer crashes!

[toocrazy2yoo]

From back home, Washington Post. Rhode Island didn't come out too good, but still. They coulda given the MSF courses some credit at least for fewer newbs crashin'. Something tells me the reporter doesn't know shit about bikes..


Motorcycle deaths unaccountably plunge after long rise


By Ashley Halsey III
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 22, 2010; B04

After rising steadily for nearly a dozen years to set a record in 2008, the number of people killed nationally in motorcycle accidents dropped dramatically last year, according to a report issued Thursday.
The report by the Governors Highway Safety Association found that fatal crashes declined nearly 16 percent in the first nine months of 2009, compared with the same period the year before.
There was no ready explanation for the drop, a year after the 5,290 motorcycle fatalities set a record. The speculation included that the economy was keeping motorcyclists off the road, that a 42 percent drop in new motorcycle sales last year resulted in fewer novice riders and that publicity about deaths had heightened the awareness of both motorcyclists and motorists.
The number of fatalities dropped 38 percent in the District, by 26 percent in Maryland and by 13 percent in Virginia, the report said.
"It's good news that fatalities are decreasing, but I really don't have a clue as to why," said Samir Ahmed, an Oklahoma State University expert who is leading a four-year, $3 million research project on the cause of motorcycle accidents. "I really don't see anything that would cause that, unless people are just not riding."
During the nine-month period of the comparison, the District and 38 states reported a drop in motorcycle deaths, and 12 states recorded an increase. California had 133 fewer deaths, Florida had 111 fewer and Ohio had 48 fewer. Only two states -- Hawaii and Rhode Island -- had double-digit increases. Once numbers for the final three months of 2009 are factored in, the report projects, the annual fatality decline will be 10 percent.
Ahmed cautioned against reading too much into data from a nine-month period.
"The fact that there was a blip from one year to the next won't really tell us that much," he said. "The upward trend has been going on for 12 years. Show me several years of downward, and then we have something."

[Punjistick]

Probably the economy and fewer people riding/buying bikes.

[Stoneman]

In 2008, everyone and their mothers were running out and buying some sort of 2-wheel transit. The reason is a simplistic Darwinism theory. The idiots that'd drop 'em within the first 2 weeks realized they just weren't gonna make it, smartened up and got rid of 'em. Then they answer their own question by citing the over 40% drop in m/c sales in '09. Brilliant!

[toocrazy2yoo]

In 2008, everyone and their mothers were running out and buying some sort of 2-wheel transit. The reason is a simplistic Darwinism theory. The idiots that'd drop 'em within the first 2 weeks realized they just weren't gonna make it, smartened up and got rid of 'em. Then they answer their own question by citing the over 40% drop in m/c sales in '09. Brilliant!

Darwin covers some of that. And for all my bitchin' about the basic course put on by APEX down in Va., I'd love to see some stats on riders of states that require the BRC and states that don't. That way you could flush the economy out of the stats. Say, accidents/fatalities per 1000 newbs, first year. I gotta figure instructors at BRC flush the "ain'ts" far less permanently than Darwin out on the street. Oh, the instructors may WANNA kill em, but I think they ain't allowed. Or somethin'.

[ilikenapalm]

Didn't it rain all of June last summer too?