Out of the 7,138,476 motorcycles operating on U.S. roads, 346,925 were registered in the state of Ohio in the year 2007. Although motorcycles represent only 2.8% of all registered vehicles in the state of Ohio, motorcycling accounts for more than 13% of Ohio highway traffic fatalities. Since 2005, Ohio has had a distressing distinction of being among the fifteen states that have sustained more than half of all motorcycle fatalities recorded in the USA (NHTSA 2007; NHTSA 2008a). For the past ten years, the overall motorcycle crash fatalities have been increasing while the motor vehicle occupant crash fatalities have been almost constant for both the state of Ohio and the United States. In 2007 the fatality rate per registered vehicle for motorcyclist was about six times that of passenger vehicle occupants (III 2009). From 1997 to 2007, motorcycle fatalities have increased by 144 percent (III 2009). Of the 873 motorcyclist fatalities that occurred between years 2003 and 2008, only 25% were reported wearing helmets. Although several risk factors affecting fatal motorcycle crashes have been documented in the U.S., problems specific to fatal crashes involving Ohio motorcyclists have not yet been studied. …

The primary objective of this study was to identify risk factors related to motorcycle crashes that result into fatalities or severe injuries in the state of Ohio using both the ordered probit and the multinomial probit models. The extent and the characteristics of fatal motorcycle collisions were also examined. Understanding how the risk factors are related to the occurrence of a crash is critical for road safety efforts, especially in the identification of appropriate countermeasures to reduce motorcycle related fatalities and severe incapacitating injuries.