Sarasota, FL : A motorcycle crash on Sunday, November, 5th 2017

When Ron Havens takes a road trip on his Honda Gold Wing motorcycle, he sees a lot of riders like himself — guys over 60 who rode when they were young and are back at it now that they’re retired.

And some are not as skilled as they imagine.

“The people our age think we’re really good riders and we don’t take courses,” said Havens, 73, of Springfield, Illinois. “And the bikes are bigger now than what I rode in the ’70s — bigger, faster, with more acceleration.”

National statistics on motorcycle fatalities show a curious trend: Whereas in 1975, 80 percent of motorcycle fatalities involved riders 29 years old or younger, now the age group with the most fatalities is 50 and older, at 35 percent, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit highway safety research group funded by auto insurance companies. Ninety-one percent of those killed in 2015 were male.

The total number of motorcycle fatalities also has been rising. It accounted for 14 percent of all deaths on U.S. roads in 2016, with 5,286 fatalities, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA. This was 5 percent higher than 2015 and more than double the number from 20 years ago.

Why is the death toll growing among older people? There are a couple of possible reasons, according to transportation and safety experts.

One reason is that they’re a big part of the population. There were 76 million U.S. residents born between 1946 and 1964, and they are going to make up a large share of deaths whether it is 1975 or 2015, said Insurance Institute spokesman Russ Rader. People who once had Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” on vinyl have more time and disposable income now, and still like to ride motorcycles.

Rader said the improved economy has meant more overall traffic on the roads, which has meant more crashes for all vehicle types.

Another factor could be that some people who stopped riding when they were in their 20s to start families started riding again in their 50s or 60s, not realizing that their skills had eroded, according to state safety experts.

“We have older operators getting on these huge motorcycles and not being able to handle them. They’re getting themselves killed,” said Terry Redman, manager of the Cycle Rider Safety Training Program, a unit of the Illinois Department of Transportation. In 2015, the age range with the most motorcycle fatalities in Illinois was 50-54, with 23 deaths.

Similar trends are being seen in other states.

“We call that age group ‘retreads,’” said Sarah Buzzell, who manages the Wisconsin Motorcycle Safety Program, referring to riders who come back to motorcycles after a long break. She said that in 2016, motorcyclists aged 45-65 made up nearly half of the state’s motorcycle fatalities.

“People don’t realize their skills are perishable,” Buzzell said. “They get on the road thinking they can do what they did at 20. Grip strength and balance changes, and people tend not to take that into account.”

Source :
Most likely to die in a motorcycle crash: men 50 and older