Motorcyclists Were 1 in 14 Traffic Deaths in 1975. Now They’re 1 in 6.

In 1975, motorcyclist fatalities accounted for 7 percent of all U.S. traffic deaths—3,189 riders out of 44,525 total.^[1] Half a century later, the 2024 FARS Annual Report tells a different story: 6,228 motorcyclists killed, making up 16 percent of the national toll.^[1] In absolute terms, the number nearly doubled. As a share of who dies on American roads, it more than doubled.

Meanwhile, passenger vehicle occupant deaths dropped 26 percent over the same period, from 30,785 to 22,713, and their share fell from 69 to 58 percent.^[1] Cars received airbags (mandated 1998), electronic stability control (mandated 2012), automatic emergency braking, crumple zones reengineered every model cycle, and an entire federal crash testing apparatus that grades vehicles like term papers. Per 100 million miles traveled, the occupant death rate plummeted. Motorcycles got nothing. No federal safety standard adopted since the 1970s applies to motorcycle crash avoidance or crashworthiness. Not one mandate in fifty years, while the rest of the vehicle fleet was transformed by regulation after regulation backed by FARS data not unlike the data showing motorcyclists dying at record rates.

It was not for lack of evidence, either. Published in 2021 and spanning 65 models over seven years, the broadest IIHS study of motorcycle ABS found that bikes with the technology had 22 percent fewer fatal crashes per 10,000 registered vehicle years than identical models without it.^[2] Cruisers and standards saw a 32 percent reduction; even supersport riders, who historically brake last and hardest, got a 12 percent benefit, and by 2016 Europe had mandated motorcycle ABS outright, with Japan, Brazil, India, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom following soon after.^[3]

IIHS and HLDI petitioned NHTSA for a mandate in 2013, then again in November 2023, noting that every major motorcycle market on earth had already acted.^[3] NHTSA mandated ESC for cars within six years of the first study proving it worked, yet the same agency has spent more than a decade ignoring evidence of comparable strength for motorcycles from the same institution. Manufacturers have voluntarily raised ABS adoption from 20 percent of new bikes in 2013 to 59 percent in 2023, but 30 to 40 percent of new machines still ship without it, and the used market is saturated with ABS-free inventory from every preceding year.

Fair objection: motorcycles are not cars, and you cannot wrap a rider in a crumple zone. Behavioral interventions remain critical, especially helmets, training, and sober riding. But ABS is not a structural cage; it prevents the specific failure mode, wheel lockup during hard braking, that feeds a measurable share of fatal crashes. At roughly $1,000 per bike, the cost buys a 22 percent reduction in rider fatalities. Every other industrialized motorcycle market made that arithmetic work years ago.

One caveat deserves explicit treatment: part of the share increase reflects the denominator shrinking, since passenger vehicle deaths fell so far, rather than solely the numerator growing. But motorcycle deaths did not stay flat; they nearly doubled in absolute terms, from 3,189 to 6,228 across five decades. Both effects are real, both point the same direction, and neither lets NHTSA off the hook for inaction.

What you should do: If shopping for a motorcycle, choose one with ABS standard, not optional. Wear a DOT-certified helmet regardless of state law; only 18 states and the District of Columbia require helmets for all riders.^[4] Check whether your bike has any open recalls at nhtsa.gov/recalls. And if NHTSA ever opens a public comment period on motorcycle ABS rulemaking, submit one sentence: it is a decade overdue.