100 Motorbike facts:

Quantatavie research 100 facts, i have produced this research to give me a wide range of factual research on the topic, this allows me to again find areas of interest within the topic and gives me areas to brach off from. 

A bike is stolen every 18 minutes, 75% are stolen from their owner's house.

The Honda C90 is the best selling motorbikes at around 35 million (as at November 2002), end-to-end they would stretch 4 1/2 times around the world or half way to the moon, since 1966, on average, a C90 is made every 30 seconds. UK sales ceased in 2003 after 36 years of production but the bike is still being made in Indonesia and Thailand

Why Do We Ride?

Riders choose to ride for a wide range range of reasons, including cost effective transport, traffic congestion, environmental reasons, fashion, ease of parking, convenience, to name a few.

Motorbikes and mopeds travelled 5.1 billion kilometres in 2002 (figures privided by DfT).

Commuting accounts for two thirds of all motorbike hourneys (figures privided by DfT).

Travelling by motorbike can reduce journey times by up to two thirds.

Up to eight motorbikes can fit in the same parking space occupied by one car.

Car drivers with a full licence obtained prior to February 2001 are automatically qualified to ride a 50cc bike on the road.

Safety

Motorcycle road casualties fell by almost 60% between the early 1980's and 2000, improving on the government target for road casualty reduction of 40% over the same period, the best results fir any riad user grouo.

Motorcycling is as popular now as it was 20 years ago, but rider casualties for every mile travelled are 30% lower compared to the early 1980's

Research proves that other road users are primarily at fault for around 60% of all bike crashes

In 2002 there were 609 riders killed in the UK, up 4% compared with 2001, although the numbers for car drivers actually fell. Essex police keep a record of the country's fatal accidents on its website and 2003 has been the worst since 1999. At the time of writing 23 riders have been killed, all were men, the vast majority were between 26 and 54 years old almost all accidents occured on dry roads. In a third of all cases no other vehicles were involved and two thirds occured in broad daylight.

As a result, Transpost Minister David Jamieson is looking to bring in new legislation to make motorcycling safer.

• Motorcycle crashes accounted for 2% of the total crashes in Maryland in 2006.
   
• Fatal motorcycle crashes comprised nearly 15% of all fatal crashes in Maryland in 2006.
   
• In 2006, there were a total of 1,804 motorcycle-involved crashes; 83 were fatal (87 total fatalities), 1,406 resulted in injury and 315 were property damage only crashes.
   
• For the first time in five years, fatal motorcycle-involved crashes decreased, down 3.4% from the previous year.
   
• Nearly 50% of the fatal motorcycle-involved crashes occurred on Saturday and Sunday.
   
• Over one-half of the total motorcycle-involved crashes occurred on a weekend (Friday – Sunday).
   
• Approximately one-third of the total and 29% of the fatal motorcycle-involved crashes occurred between the hours of 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.
   
• Nearly 70% of the fatal motorcycle-involved crashes occurred on state or county highways, 45.8% and 24.1% respectively.
   
• Of the total motorcycle-involved crashes, more than 60% occurred on state or county highways, and over 20% on US route types (10.8%) and in Baltimore City (9.9%).
   
• Approximately two-thirds of the total motorcycle-involved crashes occurred on roads with posted speed limits of 40 MPH or less.
   
• Over 55% of the fatal motorcycle-involved crashes occurred on roads with posted speed limits of 40 MPH or less.
   
• The majority of fatal and total motorcycle-involved crashes occurred in daylight.
   
• Nearly 22% of the fatal motorcycle-involved crashes occurred in the dark with lights on.
   
• The vast majority of fatal and total motorcycle-involved crashes occurred on dry surfaces.
   
• Most operators involved (91.7%) or killed (98.7%) in a motorcycle crash were males.
   
• In 2006, 13% of the motorcycle operators killed were identified as alcohol-impaired by the crash report, 52.0% were reported as having no apparent defects and in 30% the operator condition was unknown.
   
• In 2006, 12% of the operators killed in motorcycle crashes reportedly did not use any safety equipment.
   
• Four out of five of the motorcycle passengers killed in a crash were noted to be using safety equipment.
   
• Almost 20% of motorcycle operators killed were between the ages of 40 and 44.
   
• There has been a steady increase in the number of motorcycle-involved crashes over the past five years.