This month is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month.
The Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau and the Iowa Department of Transportation are partnering to bring attention to a rising trend of motorcycle fatalities and encourage riders to be prepared and protected.
Colleen Powell, a spokesperson for the safety bureau, tells Radio on the Go News that some are not following basic safety rules.
“We know speed has been a factor even in our passenger cars, the people just driving way too fast, excessive speeding. We may also be seeing that on motorcycles, people being distracted. We of course are always telling our drivers to pay attention to driving. It takes all of our senses. I think people have gotten used to doing multiple things at once and unfortunately that has been taken to the road as well.”
Powell says safety gear is also very important.
“74% of our motorcycle fatalities are unhelmeted, and that’s compared to the national average, which sits closer to 38%. So we’re almost double here in our state. We’re one of three states without a helmet law. Right now, people’s choice, but we always encourage people to be protected the same way we encourage people to wear seat belts when they’re in a vehicle.”
In Iowa, motorcycles make up three tenths of one percent of all registered vehicles, and point 33 percent of all vehicle miles traveled. Yet last year, motorcycle fatalities accounted for 16 percent of total fatalities.
