Daytona Beach Bike Week is a yearly tradition held in Daytona Beach, Florida, where an estimated 500,000 motorcycle riders and enthusiasts congregate for a 10-day festival of motorcycle racing, concerts, parties, and street festivals. Bike Week is heralded as one of the most popular motorcycle rallies in the nation, and alongside Biketoberfest (another motorcycle-related Daytona Beach festival), and the two yearly NASCAR races (the Daytona 500 and the Coke Zero 400), acts as one of the city's greatest draws for tourists.
Despite this event being a time of great joy and excitement for its attendees and the city of Daytona Beach, there are, sadly, motorcycle accident-related fatalities virtually every year at Bike Week. Since 2000, only a couple of years have gone by without at least one motorcycle accident death, and, in total, there have been 98 deaths (2000-2014), and countless hundreds of serious injuries. The current record for most Bike Week deaths occurred in 2006, when 20 attendees died over the course of the event.
The number of annual motorcycle fatalities incurred at Bike Week since 2000 can be seen here:
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Florida leads the nation in motorcycle fatalities, partially due to deaths occurring at Bike Week and Biketoberfest. Information provided by AAA claims that motorcycles, despite comprising only 7% of all motor vehicles in the state, are involved in roughy 20% of all fatal accidents. This is due, in part, to riders not using helmets or other proper safety attire, combined with the fact that motorcycles are smaller and harder to see than cars, so careless or distracted automobile drivers often hit motorcyclists simply by not noticing that they are there.
Lastly, motorcycles, by design, are inferior to cars at protecting drivers because they don't offer any structural support to the driver-- no seat belts, no airbags, no protective metal frames, and virtually every motorcycle accident turns into an Occupant Ejection Accident.
With Biketoberfest coming in a couple short months, and next year's Bike Week just a few months after that, there is no time like the present to learn about how you can help to minimize motorcycle accidents, whether you are a motorcycle rider or an automobile driver. These helpful tips, provided by AAA, will help keep everyone safer on the road:
Safety tips for motorists:
Safety tips for motorcyclists:
If you or a loved one has been injured in a motorcycle accident, it is imperative that you speak with an experienced Daytona Beach injury attorney immediately to discuss your legal options. We are here to help-- call 386-777-7777.