The article is typical anti-motorcycle spin. Here is my take on the increase of fatalities..
Total fatalities and rate of fatalities are two different statistics. If you hate motorcycles, report the total number of fatals. If you discuss motorcycles fairly, you report the rate of fatalities.
The article does not touch on the real reasons for the increase in California.
The San Francisco Bay Area is having a job boom from a roaring economy. If you aren't working at a high paying job in NorCal, you must be dead. A lot of good jobs brings the workers but the SF Bay Area housing costs prevents those workers from living there.
So these new workers gravitate to the more affordable fringe commute communities such as Los Banos, Patterson, Modesto and Stockton. Two hour commutes each way is worth it to live the California dream, right? But as these long distance commuters sit doing the slow burn in their cars stopped in gridlock traffic, they have an epiphany.
That epiphany is motorcycles. You see these jealous cage commuters see a massive amount of motorcycles all lane splitting their way to work in half the time it takes for them to get to work in a cage.
So these cage commuters go buy a motorcycle and try to learn how to ride it. They take some courses, maybe get a motorcycle drivers license and viola, they too can lane split and enjoy shorter commute times. But lane splitting is highly dangerous if done improperly, with tragic results.
One only needs to listen to traffic reports every 10 minutes on the Bay Area news station KCBS (AM740) to hear of a plethora of motorcycles down in the traffic lanes on all the major freeways in the Bay Area. Are the crashes lane splitting related? One can assume so, especially since the freeways are slow moving and stopped almost any time of the day.
So what is the cause of the increase of motorcycle fatalities in California? The good economy, full employment and the high cost living. More people, more traffic, more motorcycles, more crashes, more deaths.

 

The main reason a lot of motorcyclists die is because they dont take riding seriously. Since most of you think owning a motorcycle is a "TOY", then the "TOY" mentality sticks. Riding can be fun and therapeutic, but at the same time dangerous. Im a commuter, and in the Bay Area, if you are not in your A game when riding, you are gonna cause an accident or die. You need to be mentally prepared to scan everywhere front to back, side to side. A lot of people do not understand the consequences and what it can lead to. Motorcycle classes do not show the gruesome side of it. If they implemented it in their curriculum like showing riders with their brains spilled, road rash, broken bones, out or seeing videos of them flying through and intersection and getting nailed by a left turner, then they would take riding more seriously.

 

Yes, I was thinking of the kaos out on the 580/680/Altamont Pass when writing. You know exactly why I am referring to. Stay safe.

 

Another tidbit that article leaves out is ever increasing deluge of 3rd world drivers we have here. They come here with habits from the old country and that means size wins they will bulldog a bike out the way in a heartbeat and won't blink doing it. It's second nature to them.

 

Good point, larger vehicles always has the right of way in some countries..

 

Uh, duh, the population in California has also been on the rise over the past 22 years. With close to 40 million people here now, that's TWICE as many people since 1975.

 

Lane splitting is not recent
There are more drivers and riders on the freeways
Automobile accidents and deaths have also risen
What’s authors point?

 

The author has a political agenda against motorcycles.

 

IMHO in the state of MI, life is pretty cheap. T-bone somebody at a traffic light, run a stop sign kill somebody, or turn left in front of a motorcyclist, mostly probation time. Ticket for texting while driving, if proven, $150.00, by todays standards that's chump change.

 

Pretty slanted article, but the statistic that 26% of motorcycle accidents are single vehicle accidents, indicates that the great majority of those are preventable and caused by the rider.