When a motorcycle crashes alone, hitting a fixed object is about three times as deadly
Among motorcycle crashes with no other vehicle, 8.4% of those that hit a fixed object (a barrier, pole, tree or wall) were fatal (622 of 7,399), against 2.4% of the rest (285 of 11,952). Most of the rest are classed as overturned: the bike went down on the road.
The numbers
- Hit a fixed object
- Other solo crashes
Motorcycling crashes, 2021–2026 (2026 so far). Found in 2021–2023 (9.5% vs 2.8%); held in 2024–2026 (7.1% vs 1.9%).
What it doesn't say
Fixed objects are what crash reports list, not where they stand; the riding-road pages show where solo crashes gather.
The share is within crashes: with no counts of how many people walk, ride or drive where, it can't say how likely a crash is for anyone.
How it was found
A scan of the crash records found it in the earlier years, among thousands of patterns tested with a false-discovery control, and it held in the later years, which the scan never saw. A person then read it and checked it isn't an artefact of how crashes are recorded. The numbers above are recomputed from the data each time the site is rebuilt. All findings and the method
Where to look next
- On roads posted 50 mph or more, head-on motorcycle crashes kill about one rider in four
- Solo motorcycle crashes in bends happen going downhill nearly twice as often as going uphill
- People hit on foot in the dark with no street lights are killed about four times as often
- A crash with a person on foot on a freeway kills them more than a third of the time