Returning to the office from lunch on his 2007 Honda Gold Wing motorcycle one day this spring, Lou O’Connell got a glimpse into the future, if only by two seconds or so. A car pulled out of a shopping center in Weston, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale, and into his path. He could see that he was going to hit the car.
Mr. O’Connell said that although he did not expect to be killed in the impending crash — becoming one of the 5,000 or so motorcycle riders who will die on American roads this year if recent trends continue — he knew that at the very least he was about to go flying over the handlebars.
But then there was a bang and a cloud of powder in front of him. Though the front of his bike had slammed the passenger side of a black Nissan 350Z, Mr. O’Connell found himself nearly uninjured — intact enough to lay down the bike and stride over with some well-chosen words for the car’s driver.
Mr. O’Connell’s accident was, so far as Honda knows, the first in which the air bag of a motorcycle deployed to protect a rider. At least for now, the air bag is an option only on the big Gold Wing touring bikes, which cost nearly $25,000 fully equipped with features like heated handgrips and antilock brakes.
“It’s amazing,” said Mr. O’Connell, who escaped with only bruises on his shins. Without the air bag, his injuries might have been serious: Florida relaxed its helmet law in July 2000, and he had been seduced by good weather to ride without one. “It was so nice, I couldn’t resist, and I couldn’t resist the American dream,” Mr. O’Connell, an immigrant from Ireland, said. “The American dream is to ride a motorcycle without a helmet.”
Honda began development of motorcycle air bags in 1990 and tested the system for a decade before making it available on the Gold Wing for 2007. A Honda spokesman, Jon Row, emphasized that the air bag was something of a last measure in today’s safety technology, and is not intended to replace the need to wear a helmet.
Mr. O’Connell, 40, and the father of two young children, said the accident persuaded him to wear his helmet whenever he rides.
The crash was something of a milestone in motorcycle safety, one of the few positive developments in recent years. Riding a motorcycle is becoming riskier. Deaths last year increased by 5.4 percent over 2005, according to preliminary estimates of the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System, and are up for the ninth consecutive year. Deaths have increased 125 percent over 10 years, a period in which registrations rose more than 50 percent.
Even when adjusted for more bikes covering more miles, the picture is grim. While the death rate for people in vehicles fell by about 17 percent for each mile traveled over that period, the rate for motorcycle riders more than doubled, according to the report.
That timeline coincides with factors including a rising average age of riders, more powerful engines and the repeal of state laws requiring universal helmet use, in part a result of pressure applied by lobby groups that persuaded legislators to “let the rider decide.” Wearing a helmet cuts the risk of death by about 37 percent, according to Ted R. Miller, a researcher at the Pacific institute for Research and Evaluation. Making helmets mandatory increases use because police officers can check compliance at a glance.
Measuring the effect of motorcycle helmet law repeals is tricky because of factors like the increase in motorcycle sales. Still, the numbers are powerful. Texas, which loosened its laws in 1977 and then reinstated universal coverage in 1989, again backed down on the regulations in 1997 for riders over 21; fatalities shot up 31 percent in the first year after the law was relaxed. A study in Florida sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that in the two years after that state repealed its universal helmet law in 2000, fatalities for every 10,000 motorcycles were up 21 percent, compared with 13 percent nationally.
At the National Transportation Safety Board, the death toll has not gone unnoticed because it is now larger than the number of deaths in airplane, marine, railroad and pipeline accidents combined. Deborah A. P. Hersman, a member of the board who presided over a two-day motorcycle safety forum last September, said in an e-mail message, “This is the only mode of transportation in which the overall number of fatalities and the rate of fatalities continue to steadily rise, and yet there is no public outcry.”
While it might seem that older riders would be more experienced and less likely to take risks, other factors may lie behind their portion of the fatality increases.
“It’s the baby boomers,” said Barbara L. Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, a Washington-based group of state officials. Many riders are returning to bikes years after having given up riding, and “they don’t realize how powerful the bikes are,” she said.
Government statistics support, in raw numbers at least, the assertion about older riders, even if the data cannot assign blame for the fatal crashes. Umesh Shankar, an analyst at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said that the number of fatalities among riders 40 and over had more than tripled.
The industry, though, says the statistics are misleading. The Motorcycle Industry Council, a trade association, says that the fatality rate — which takes into account miles traveled — has been calculated incorrectly, in part because the Transportation Department does not accurately tally the number of miles ridden. For instance, government statistics say motorcycles traveled 9.6 billion miles in 2003; the industry council’s research says they actually traveled 20.6 billion miles.
The Motorcycle Safety Foundation, which is allied with the industry council, does agree that returning riders can be a problem. Dean L. Thompson, a spokesman for the safety group, said that older riders should “not be in denial about their skills, which decline over time.” Riders should know their limits, he said.
With gasoline prices high, some riders are putting more miles on their bikes. Mr. O’Connell, the Gold Wing owner, loves to ride but also uses the bike in his business. He is a commercial real estate broker, and says when he arrives to show a property, the big Honda impresses customers.
The industry’s consistent message is that more rider training will reduce the number of deaths. Last fall, Ms. Hersman took a basic rider course, and got a motorcycle endorsement on her Virginia drivers license.
Ms. Hersman may be better prepared than most riders; according to the industry, only about 38 percent of riders have taken an organized rider education course. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation urges riders to take recurrent safety courses, wear protective gear and not ride while impaired.
Air bags, which have cut the fatality rate in cars, are not adaptable to all motorcycles. They are well suited to touring models like the Gold Wing or the very popular cruiser bikes, where the rider sits upright, but sport bikes with a crouched riding position present a design challenge.
Electronic antiskid systems, a technology that has been very effective in preventing car and truck crashes, are not applicable to two-wheel vehicles, but traction control devices are already available on many BMW motorcycles. In addition, BMW offers tire pressure monitoring, which can help riders prevent problems on the road.
(C)MATTHEW L. WALD
