As part of a Texas Department of Transportation grant, researchers at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute conducted a five-year analysis of motorcycle crash data.
Researchers found:
- The number of registered motorcycles doubled from 179,329 in 2000 to 445,395 in 2014. This dramatic increase suggests that crashes with motorcycles will continue to be a traffic safety issue.
- The counties with the most motorcycle registrations were Bexar, Collin, Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Harris, Montgomery, Tarrant, and Travis, which corresponds to the most populated areas of Texas.
- In 2015, there were over 8,000 motorcycle crashes. The severity of those crashes were classified as:
- 6 percent fatal injury
- 22 percent incapacitating injury
- 38 percent non-incapacitating injury
- 21 percent possible injury
- 14 percent no injury
- The percentage of crashes classified as fatal or incapacitating is similar from 2010 to 2015.
- Overall more crashes occur in urban areas (70 percent) but rural crashes are more severe. Of rural motorcycle crashes, 36 percent resulted in a fatal or incapacitating injury compared to 23 percent in urban areas.
- The rate of fatal or incapacitating motorcycle crashes was 8.4 per 100,000 population in 2015.