Speaking for Norway... It seems like two years of travel restrictions has made every 50+ something (who got their licence in their early twenties, and who has not ridden since) - run out and buy the most powerful bike they can afford - only to be scraped off the road within the hour after having received the keys. And there is a record number of new licence holders as well. The news has a lock on it, with new stories allmost every day. First responders I have spoken to tells me it is an abnormal ammount of accidents and that their impression is that there has been a growth in number of inexperienced riders being the main cause for the increase in accidents. Then again, the numbers have increased for cars as well.

I've seen more idiodic riding this season than probably the last ten years combined... and a bunch of senseless accidents (the last one only two days ago - when a noob female rider was choppered to the hospital after having slid underneath the guard rail after a classic left turn miss).

What's your impression where you are at (excluding places like Vietnam where things possibly can't become more crazy)?

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Good question. I just did a quick google to see if I could find any recent stats in British Columbia but I could not. I did find that there are an average of about 50 deaths per year in BC.

Just a personal observation, but I see about the same number of riders now as in previous years, and I haven't noticed any change in ridership recently. As far as I can observe there hasn't been a significant change in accidents. I could easily be wrong!

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250

I'm sceptical to the narrative that Norwegian motorcycle accident numbers are "skyrocketing". The numbers are fairly small (around 20 killed per year), and as such it is hard to statistically understand the reason if any, or to draw conclusions from a year-to-year variation.

There are some long term trends, and they are showing the opposite. Here are the number of people killed on motorcycles, the two colours are men and women respectively.



This June has been particularly bad, with 7 killed. The question is whether this is an anomaly (and as such is of no further consequence) or if it is a trend. We can look at the numbers for June from 2012 onwards:



So, even if this June is the highest for the period, it is not "skyrocketing". Rather, it seems that it is within the expected variation for the numbers.

However, it is extremely important to look at how people die, even if we don't accept that the numbers are increasing. Generally, motorcycling (in Norway) is around 6.7 times more likely to lead to a fatality per person-kilometer driven than cars. Those numbers aren't as available as we break down on demographic variables, which makes further analysis more difficult.

However, it is clear that middle-age plus people are more likely to die while riding motorcycles than younger people. I am unsure if this is because they are worse riders, or because they're simply riding more. It seems to me that most people I meet on two wheels are past family raising age, and as such it would make sense if they were also more likely to have fatal accidents.

I looked at the number of killed motorcyclists by age, and how the development from the period 2000-2010 compared to 2011-2021:



This shows significant decrease for the demographics below 45, and significant increase for those above. I have been unable to find good numbers on the development in the demographics for riders, but all evidence I have is that the trend is that older riders ride longer trips on heavier bikes. That would go a long way to explain why the 30-year old going off the road on his litre bike is replaced by the 50 year old on his GS in the statistics.

Through conversations with the researchers in this area, I've learned that the most deadly accident type is running out of road in left hand turns on country roads. Speed is not seen as the main contributing factor, and it seems that the main problem is people freezing up somewhere in the curve. Missing a right hand turn just gets you into the wrong lane, which is fine unless there's traffic coming the other way, while left hand turns just have the barrier and trees.

This problem can only be mitigated through training, and in my opinion, more training is the only relevant response to the trend of more older riders being on the road, and therefore at risk of death or serious injuries. Understanding that a motorcycle can handle way sharper turns than most of us are prepared to go into can give the confidence to look through the turn and push harder on the handlebars, rather than panicking and hitting the breaks.

So whenever I read about motorcycling accidents, I try to figure out what kind of accident it was, to understand if they are contributing to the trend. In June, one accident was a guy apparently falling off his bike (which continued for 900 meters down the road), one kid losing control while doing a wheelie in traffic, hitting a car in his own lane and getting pushed into the opposing lane where he had an unfortunate run-in with another car, and one guy losing control of his bike on a straight. Those are the three that I've managed to find the reason for among the seven in June, and none of those are the kind of accident that, on average, kills most of us. So, I'm not that worried.

We can assume that there are 200,000 active motorcyclists in Norway, and 20 deaths means around 10 per 100,000. That's a lower risk than the risk of being killed by a gun in all but 9 states in the US, and 1/15 of the chance of being killed by cancer.

Summary: I'm not that worried, but I'm also not being stupid on the road.

Put in a wider context, the number of road fatalities in the UK averages out at just under 4/day across the year. In contrast the death rate from covid over the last year has averaged about 100/day. Guess where the government is targeting its spending and ever more restrictions on freedom.

Don't see any rise of motorcycle accidents and that's strange though because I do see big increase of people stupidity all over world. That easily translates to riding skills and wisdom.

As for the restriction, what restrictions? didn't see any for motorcyclists.
International travel maybe but local riding? didn't see any restriction,
nor that I would comply anyway. Been riding as usual, more off-road maybe.

There's a lot less reckless motorbike riding here since the price of petrol went up!

Same number and size of bikes, same quality of riding (while wearing safety flip-flops, lol), just less people *racing* around

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Great Analysis.

I wish there was more of that from our road safety agency here in Ireland-instead of the 'speed kills' finger wagging. It does not seem to suit their agenda to differentiate cause from effect.

I am 100% with you on the training -not just for older adults, but for all. Fast drivers can drive slow, but slow drivers can't drive fast. Also, car skills do not transfer to a bike.

I was a driving instructor and the three factors I identified are:

1. Poor driver skills (coupled with little conception of potential dangers). I only taught learners obviously, but I observe all road users all the time. Driving has gotten noticeably worse post lockdown.
2. Bad urban road design coupled with the proliferation of warning signs (distracting at the very least where greatest danger lies).
3. Bad car design. We know from psychology that increasing safety leads to more risky behaviour.

As an exercise I tried to conceive of a car that would totally disengage the driver from driving. I came up with: improved safety devices to reduce the consequences of bad decisions, insulate and isolate the driver from the conditions and situation, provide distracting electronic toys and phones, provide them with good company and make them toasty warm and comfortable. The modern car turns out to be remarkably similar to the couch beside the fire with the TV on. How often do we fall asleep in this situation?

So from a safety perspective, there is poor skill and judgement across the board, and tiredness and distraction more specifically.

I have thought for some time that to reduce accident s further then there should be a spike fitted to the centre of the steering wheel to increase the distance between cars and spike fitted to the doors so that the driver looks properly before pulling out.

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