The Safest States for Motorcycles

OFF THE WIRE
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11204953/1/the-safest-states-for-motorcycles.html?cm
The Safest States for Motorcycles

 Greg Emerson 08/01/11 - 10:39 AM EDT
NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- Riding a motorcycle has always been something of a double-edged sword in the U.S. On the one hand, there is nothing more American than a leather-clad biker riding a Harley(HOG) down the interstate with his old lady riding behind him in cutoff denim shorts. On the other hand, probably every single one of our mothers told us never to get on those death traps.
The truth is that motorcycle riding is up. Way up. Between 1996 and 2005, motorcycle registrations increased 61% while vehicle miles traveled of motorcycles grew only 8.6%, according to the Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration. That means a lot of new riders, riding not very far or not very often.

Not surprisingly, motorcyclist deaths rose dramatically during that time. While fatalities related to car crashes dropped from 1997 to 2005, deaths from motorcycle crashes increased a solid 115%.

Methodology To help keep all those weekend warriors looking to get on a bike and go riding from losing their heads, we looked at the most recent fatality data -- from 2009 -- to determine which states were the safest for the aspiring Evel Knievels among us.

We ranked all 50 states and the District of Columbia to see which ones had the smallest proportion of motorcycle deaths as a proportion of total traffic deaths.

 Half of the states fall below the national average of 15.4%, and half above. Here are the 10 states with the lowest.

Tenth-safest: Vermont Motorcyclist fatalities, 2009: 68 Proportion of total vehicle deaths: 11.8% With the length of the winter in Vermont, there is not much of a window for motorcyclists to stretch their legs on the open road. Perhaps that goes a long way to putting Vermont among the safest states for bikers. Perhaps if we added snowmobiles to the equation the state would find itself at the other end.
That being said, Vermont has had a helmet law on the books since 1968, which can't be said for the many states that have repealed and amended their helmet laws to be less strict since the majority of these laws were passed in the late '60s and early '70s
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Eighth-safest (tie): Virginia Motorcyclist fatalities, 2009: 671 Proportion of total vehicle deaths: 11.5% In stark contrast to Vermont, Virginia has 10 times the motorcycle fatalities, plus instead of being up on the Canadian border and having a small population, Virginia has a large urban hub at Richmond and a highway system that sees a ton of traffic moving north and south.
But like Vermont, the state has had its helmet law on the books, unchanged, since 1970. With motorcycle deaths accounting for 11.5% of traffic fatalities, Virginia comes in eighth, tied with Kentucky.

Eighth-safest (tie): Kentucky Motorcyclist fatalities, 2009: 745 Proportion of total vehicle deaths: 11.5% Kentucky, tied as it is for the proportion of its vehicle deaths that were motorcyclists in 2009, provides an interesting contrast to Virginia's strict helmet law. The state passed its own helmet requirement in 1968, which in 1998 was repealed for riders age 21 and over who had been licensed for more than a year and could provide proof of insurance. The state took one more step in 2000 when it repealed the health insurance requirement altogether.
So as long as you've had your license for over a year, you can ride without a helmet in Kentucky. You just have to have luck on your side to not pay the price of riding dangerously.

Seventh-safest: Missouri Motorcyclist fatalities, 2009: 806 Proportion of total vehicle deaths: 10.8% Missouri comes in seventh for its motorcyclist deaths in 2009, with just under 11% of traffic fatalities affecting motorcyclists. There were 806 motorcyclist fatalities in 2009, in the top third of all states for the absolute number of deaths on two wheels, but its low proportion of the total shows that Missourians, also subject to the same blanket helmet law in place since 1967 that says any rider or passenger must wear a helmet, ride quite safely overall.

Sixth-safest: Wyoming Motorcyclist fatalities, 2009: 129 Proportion of total vehicle deaths: 10.1% With just over 10% of its road deaths taking motorcyclists' lives, the state of Wyoming is generally just a safe place for road travel. Low population density means there just aren't that many vehicles on the road, and wide open spaces definitely improve sight lines. The state had the 11th-lowest absolute number of motorcyclist deaths in 2009.
Its helmet laws, perhaps as a result of generally low road fatalities, have been amended twice since implementation in 1973 (later than all but four other states) to repeal the helmet requirement for riders 19 or older (1983) and then for any rider 18 and over (1993).

Fifth-safest: Alabama Motorcyclist fatalities, 2009: 776 Proportion of total vehicle deaths: 9.8% Kicking off the top five, motorcycles accounted for fewer than 10% of road fatalities in Alabama in 2009. That's quite a feat considering Alabama has the 10th-worst roads in the country. While the number of deaths, at 776, puts the state in the top third in that absolute metric, the state does well protecting its riders with strict helmet laws that have remained unchanged in almost 44 years.

Fourth-safest: West Virginia Motorcyclist fatalities, 2009: 334 Proportion of total vehicle deaths: 7.5% West Virginia, neighbor to a state tied for eighth place, follows the pattern of many other states on this list in maintaining a helmet requirement on its books since the law was originally passed in 1971.
That the state appears to be comparatively safe for motorcyclists is especially notable because West Virginia came in fourth in a ranking of the Worst Roads in the U.S., for the most part because it had the fourth-highest fatality rate in the country in 2009.

Third-safest: Mississippi Motorcyclist fatalities, 2009: 632 Proportion of total vehicle deaths: 7.4% Mississippi, despite being the second-to-last state in the union to implement a helmet requirement, has kept it active and unchanged since 1974.

Second-safest: Nebraska Motorcyclist fatalities, 2009: 211 Proportion of total vehicle deaths: 7.1% Nebraska may have the second-lowest proportion of road deaths for motorcyclists, but that is still no reason for its lax helmet laws. It implemented a helmet requirement like everyone else's in 1967, and while it remained on the books until formal repeal in 1977, the NHTSA notes that the law was never enforced. That being said, to have only 211 motorcyclist fatalities in a year in a state without a helmet law contradicts the conventional wisdom that helmet laws save lives. Perhaps Nebraskans just take the initiative themselves and wear helmets whether they are made to or not.

Safest: North Dakota Motorcyclist fatalities, 2009: 135 Proportion of total vehicle deaths: 5.2% At the top of the list for motorcycle safety is North Dakota, a state that has about as consistent a traffic safety record as there is. The state ranked second-best in the country for the quality of its roads, with particularly high marks for low levels of congestion and the quality of its road surfaces.
South Dakota may have Sturgis and its world-famous motorcycle festival, but North Dakota beats its neighbor to the south in terms of keeping bikers safe. With only 5.2% of North Dakota's traffic fatalities being motorcyclists, the state performs far better than the rest, and at nearly a third of the national average.