Motorcycles cause 10% of vehicle deaths in Ontario, study finds

A new study suggests motorcycles account for 10 per cent of all motor vehicle deaths in the province, and cost the health care system six times the amount of car crashes.

Dr. Daniel Pincus, who works at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and is one of the authors of the study, told 680 NEWS that people need to realize that riding motorcycles has a higher risk of injury or death in an accident.

“Motorcycles account for five times the deaths, six times the medical costs and 10 times the severe injuries – those injuries being ones that would matter to your life – as compared to cars,” he explained.

The authors of the study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, said that while car safety has improved over the past 10 years, injuries from motorcycle crashes have remained stable or even gotten worse.

This study comes two months after more than 10 people were charged in relation to a series of dangerous motorcycle stunts this summer that snarled traffic on major highways in and around the Toronto area.

Police said the charges included dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, fleeing an officer and driving with a suspended licence.

Provincial police previously laid charges in March in relation to similar incidents on Toronto-area highways in 2016. One rider was killed in July last year when he collided with a transport truck as a group of motorcyclists travelling as a pack on Highway 401 slowed traffic while performing stunts.

But Pincus said that it isn’t just motorcyclists who take chances who find themselves in the ER.

“(It) is not only the people who are misbehaving, but some of the patients we see in the emergency department are just unfortunate – they drive responsibly and it’s just intrinsically a more dangerous mode of transportation,” he explained.

“Some of it is preventable but some of it probably won’t ever be.”

Read the complete study below:

Motorcycle Crashes in Ontario by CityNewsToronto on Scribd