Easy riders or ambulance fodder?

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise has a story today about a motorcycle crash out near Paul Smiths College. The rider was medevac’d by helicopter to a hospital.

State police were not able to give the biker’s name at the scene, but Trooper Eric Mendelsohn said the man’s injuries appeared to be mostly “facial road rash.”

This is the season when we’ll see one or two motorcycle accident reports a week in the North Country — some of them truly horrific.

Last summer, I reported on the fact that motorcycle touring is big business and dangerous business.

Here’s an excerpt from a brochure issued by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.

Motorcycle fatalities represent approximately five percent of all highway fatalities each year, yet motorcycles represent just two percent of all registered vehicles in the United States.

One of the main reasons motorcyclists are killed in crashes is because the motorcycle itself provides virtually no protection in a crash.

For example, approximately 80 percent of reported motorcycle crashes result in injury or death; a comparable figure for automobiles is about 20 percent.

My concern with the motorcycle touring culture isn’t that people choose to ride — obviously it’s a joy to thousands of people and this is a free country.

My worry is that the motorcycle industry markets these machines aggressively to people who are underprepared and underskilled…and often poorly informed about the risks.