Month: October 2024

This is a PDF of the PowerPoint by Eric Teoh, Director of Statistical Services with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in his presentation to the Michigan Motorcycle Safety Action Team October, 2024.  The presentation reviews the four simple steps that would reduce motorcyclist deaths if we would only take them, as outlined in Teoh’s August 2023 article – speed, all-rider helmet requirements, motorcycle ABS and ADAS must detect motorcycles.  Also, included in the presentation is Teoh’s recently released study indicating more than 22,000 motorcyclist fatalities between 1976 and 2022 are due to allowing unhelmeted motorcyclist.

 

2024 IIHS News Release – The Human Cost of Unhelmeted Motorcyclists

More than 20,000 motorcyclists who died in crashes in the U.S. since the mid-1970s would have survived if stronger helmet laws had been in place, a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows. If every state had required all riders to wear helmets from 1976 to 2022, a total of 22,058 motorcyclists’ lives could have been saved. The number represents 11% of all rider fatalities over those years. “Requiring all riders to wear helmets is a commonsense rule not that different from requiring people in cars to buckle up,” said IIHS President David Harkey. “We have an obligation to protect everyone on our roadways through smart policy.” The study is here: https://smarter-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024-IIHS-The-Human-Cost-of-Unhelmeted-Motorcyclists.pdf