[LEFT] Motorcycle accident–related fatalities account for 1 in every 8 deaths on the road. And a new study suggests that blacks are at higher risk than whites: for every two white motorcyclists who die in accidents, three of their African-American counterparts do not survive.
Johns Hopkins researchers analyzed 68,840 motorcycle accidents recorded by the National Trauma Data Bank between 2002 and 2006. The data show that black riders were 50% more likely to die than white riders, despite the fact that African Americans were more likely to be wearing helmets at the time of the crash. The disparity held up even after controlling for the severity of the accident, the biker’s gender and insurance status. White bikers not wearing helmets were still less likely to die in a crash than black bikers wearing helmets; the highest risk group were blacks riding without protective head gear.
The study published in the American Journal of Surgery suggests that safety interventions, like helmet laws, don’t help everyone equally. “Helmet for helmet, African Americans have more lethal injuries,” said Adil Haider, senior author and assistant professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in a statement.
The authors hypothesize that the disparity may be due to differences in levels of health care before and after the accidents: lack of health insurance, less access to or poorer quality of critical care, and a higher rate of pre-existing conditions may make recovery after a crash more complicated for blacks.
It’s also possible that black motorcyclists prefer wearing less-protective helmets or riding more dangerous bikes. Researchers won’t know without further study.
Just taking a guess I’m thinking there are more white guys on cruisers riding like Bruce and more black guys on sport bikes trying to ride like Rick but dying when their skill comes up short.
I think it’s just different kinds of careless. Drunk bar hopping on cruisers vs burnouts, wheelies and street racing on sport bikes. The former you’re more likely to be saved in your low speed going off the road crash, where the latter is going to be a more spectacular life ending crash even with a helmet.
just seeing the way they were riding, what they were wearing to ride, the bikes themselves…I could tell that some people were gonna hurt on their bikes.
shorts and t-shirt + crappy helmet + hyabusa + speeding and swerving through traffic = death
I mean no offense, but seeing a woman that weighs 300 pounds driving a hyabusa, I just know that she cannot handle that bike. Not many people can safely handle a bike like that and there she is hitting the gas through traffic.
They all had show-off attitudes and VERY powerful machines.
The point is that the results are skewed. Lot’s of middle aged white men on their crusiers are leading to innacurate stats. I’d like to see stats on white sportbikers vs. Black sportbikers. I have a feeling that the results will be a bit closer to 50/50.
Everything people have said about quids and reckless driving, totally true, and hilarious yet sad all at the same time.
Ive seen proper black riders. I’m telling you though, go to black bike week in myrtle beach. There was MAYBE 5% of them actually wearing proper gear and not trying desperately to show-off.
Around here, mainly white, yes. I swear though, most white sportbike riders, specifically ones i’ve seen during my time in Albany, are just total croc wearing, shirtless, squids. It’s sad.
I feel like sportbikes in general draw a certain level of douchey-ness regardless of race. The only proper riders i’ve met from around here come from Nyspeed or sportriders.
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Dude, you were at black bike week in Myrtle. I mean cmon, what do you expect? LOL.
I’m lol’ing here at work. I can picture it in my mind. Honestly, as long as I wasn’t riding next to one a bike, I think it’d be a HILARIOUS event to walk around for a day. hahaha
I was stuck between A LOT of them in very slow traffic (more of less surrounded), in a co-incidentally narrow strip of road. I was dangerously close their bars on a bunch of occasions. Even saw one dude get arrested while resisting and yelling the whole time.
So needless to say, this was all an accident. We didn’t mean to head over to ‘black bike week’. We were staying at a place ~35 minutes south of myrtle. We decided to head into myrtle for dinner and before I knew it bam, right in the middle of this.
I try not to be an ignorant white boy, but what would have happened to me if I clipped one of their handle bars?
Fuck walking. Bike vs guy walking, the guy walking is the one getting killed. Bike vs SUV you just put in a claim to the bike owners insurance to have the greasy red spot buffed out of your fender.
