Anyone who lives or spends any appreciable amount of time in Nevada understands that motorcycles are becoming more popular by the day. The weather here is perfect for driving on two wheels, the roads are open outside of major cities and the landscape is something to behold. Whether people ride motorcycles because they offer a more affordable way to get around, because they simply enjoy the ride or both, motorcycle registrations are up on an annual basis here.
While that is interesting in itself, it also leads to an unfortunate amount of risk that people face when they are out and about. Recently, an opinion article was published in, of all places, The Globe and Mail in Canada. The article was an editorial regarding why the writer chooses not to ride a motorcycle anymore. It discussed several different troubling statistics regarding Canadian motorcycle accidents, but it also tied itself to the trend that is occurring in the United States these days.
Motorcycle accidents are on the rise here across the country, and they have been for several years. Specifically, the article mentioned that according to the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or the NHTSA, motorcycle accidents rose by a factor of 150 percent between 1997 and 2008. In addition, the NHTSA reports that motorcycle deaths rose in 2011, the last year where a complete body of data is available, by a factor of 2 percent to more than 4,600 when compared to the number of fatalities recorded in 2010.
It should be obvious by now why motorcycles are dangerous. They do not protect the riders or passengers nearly as much as larger vehicles do, and when a crash occurs the vehicles that collide with motorcycles are much heavier and create much more force than their two-wheeled counterparts. Not to mention, drivers of larger vehicles have far too often stated that they simply did not see a motorcycle before they collided with it.
Other studies regarding motorcycle accidents have recently been released, and one of them in particular stated that when motorcycles and larger vehicles collide, the driver of the larger vehicle is at fault for that crash 60 percent of the time. In addition, 34 percent of all motorcycle crashes involve only one vehicle as opposed to other types of vehicles, where that percentage sits at 19 percent. All of these statistics should provide people with some perspective regarding the relative dangers presented by choosing this form of transportation.
However, the fact that motorcycles are riskier than larger vehicles does not mean that people who are wrongfully injured in these crashes cannot still stand up for their legal rights when the situation calls for it. In fact, people who have been injured in this manner need to do so in order to hopefully prevent others from acting negligently in the future.
If you or someone you love has been harmed in a motorcycle accident, contact the Las Vegas injury lawyers at High Stakes Injury Law today to schedule a free initial consultation.