Motorcycle User Casualties, 2010

This Statistical Bulletin assesses the relationship between motorcycles and road casualties in Wales for the period up to 2010.  It presents information about; Relative risk for motorcyclists; Motorcyclist casualties by age and sex; The category of motorcycle, by engine size, that the casualty was riding, Time of motorcyclist casualties, by month and day of week, The local conditions, by light and weather, Motorcyclist casualties by junction location and Motorcyclist casualties by local authority area.

The key points from the latest release include:

• In 2010, the chance of a motorcycle rider being killed or seriously injured, per kilometre travelled, is around 63 times greater than for a car driver.
• Since 2002 approximately 89 per cent of motorcyclist casualties are male.
• Since the late 1990s, casualties aged 30 and over have exceeded those aged under 30.
• Around half of motorcyclist casualties in Wales as a whole were riding machines with an engine capacity of over 500cc.
• Compared with car occupant casualties, motorcycle user casualties were more likely to occur in the spring/summer, and less likely to occur in winter.
• Compared with car occupant casualties, motorcycle user casualties were more likely to occur at weekends.
• The highest numbers of motorcyclist casualties were in Powys and Swansea (20 per cent of the total) followed by Flintshire, Carmarthenshire and Gwynedd.

Note

The number of road traffic fatalities during 2010 has been revised downwards (at 3 August 2011) from 95 to 89 compared with figures used to compile this Statistical Bulletin. This change does not affect earlier years and the figures for seriously and slightly injured casualties are unchanged.

The reason for this change is that these fatalities have been reclassified as being the result of natural causes, rather than the result of the associated traffic accident. The people involved were all older car drivers and no other person was involved in any of these incidents. So this change has also reduced the number of accidents in 2010 by six as well. This revision only affects South Wales Police and changes the number of fatalities in that area during 2010 from 36 to 30.

This revision does not affect any of the figures shown in this Bulletin about motorcyclists and so this Bulletin is not being changed; though the revision to total fatalities may affect any comparisons between casualties in this group and casualties as a whole for 2010.

Contact

Tel: 029 2082 5062
E-mail: stats.transport@wales.gsi.gov.uk

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