Dawn’s motorcycle thread got me wondering just how likely you are to die if you ride a motorcycle. The problem is all the statistics I can find rank it about 1:1000.
This is the part that bothers me:
The odds are statistical averages taken from the whole U.S. population. These odds do not necessarily reflect the chances of death for a particular person from a particular external cause.
Since only a small percentage of the US population actually rides motorcycles that makes the 1:1000 a pretty useless stat. It’s basically saying that I, as someone who doesn’t even own a bike has the same 1:1000 chance of dying in a motorcycle crash as my friend Scott who commutes on has Harley every day.
So, using these numbers, what’s a better percentage?
1:1020 for entire US population.
Only about 9% of the US population rides motorcycles.
There are about 300,000,000 people in the US.
I feel pretty dumb that I can’t figure out what formula I need to sift out the numbers I’m looking for, which is giving people that don’t ride a motorcycle a 0% chance of dying on motorcycle, and assigning the rest of the odds to the 9% that do ride a motorcycle.
I think the 1:1000 is correct … look at the statistical finding of you getting killed in a car crash if you dont drive … or getting hit by lightning when you never leave the house b/c you are agoraphobic
1:92 actually seems low to me considering cars are 1:84. I realize people travel far more miles in cars than on bikes but I thought once the odds of dying in a motorcycle accident were filtered to just the people that ride that motorcycles would end up a higher risk than cars.
PS… for as much as you hear people say, “you’re more likely to be killed crossing the street” it’s surprisingly difficult to find the odds that you’re die crossing the street.
I confirmed that my math is correct by taking the long way.
Total number of motorcycle deaths = 300000000/1020 = 294,117 per year.
Population of motorcycle riders =300000000*.09 = 27000000
Motorcyle deaths/motorcycle riders = 294,117 / 27,000,000 = 0.010893246 = 1 in 92 roughly.
It’s not just you, you hear people use that all the time. I just thought it was funny when I started searching for crossing the road death statistics it wasn’t something that was readily available on Google.
Again, it doesn’t help. Read the first post. All their odds are based on the whole US population. They say it right there at the top of the page of the link you provided.
The odds of dying over a one-year period are based on the U.S. population as a whole,
Since the whole US population doesn’t ride motorcycles it makes the odds look way better than they really are.
If there are 40000000 registered motorcycles and 4387 deaths then wouldn’t it be 911.78481? I mean some people may have more than one bike but those numbers are pretty close I would think.
Using the 4 million registered motorcycles to mean 4 million motorcyclists it works out to about 1 in 14 odds that you’ll die on a bike in your lifetime if you ride. Give or take a little since some motorcyclists will have more than one bike, while some won’t have any and just ride someone elses.
That number makes much more sense considering it’s 1 in 84 you’ll die in your lifetime in a car.
Those aren’t very good odds, which is what I was expecting, and it’s why I don’t ride anymore.