Dying to Ride -- Harley Worth It

Does anyone see the irony of mandating seatbelts and airbags for passenger vehicles while allowing the most reckless among us to sit on the outside of an enormously powerful vehicle to which the driver is connected by nothing more than his hands?

The handlebars of a motorcycle look much like the base of a slingshot, which is what a motorcycle becomes when it strikes anything with its front wheel. As the last sentence in the following article details, a lot of people die riding them. How have they remained legal on US highways when it is not possible to add any crash-survival equipment to them? Why do insurance companies continue to insure motorcycles and the people who ride them?

Highway crashes kill more than 41,000 in 2007

Aug 14, 2008

WASHINGTON - Traffic deaths in the United States declined last year, reaching the lowest level in more than a decade.

Some 41,059 people were killed in highway crashes, down by more than 1,000 from 2006.

The fatality rate of 1.37 deaths for every 100 million miles traveled in 2007 was the lowest on record, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in its report Thursday.

California had the largest decline, 266 fewer fatalities than the previous year. The largest percentage decreases were in South Dakota and Vermont.

North Carolina's death toll increased the most in the nation, up 121 over the previous year. The District of Columbia and Alaska had the highest percentage increases.

Motorcycle deaths increased for the 10th straight year. There were 5,154 motorcycle deaths last year, compared with 4,837 in 2006.