How Much Does a Motorcycle Accident Cost Society?

When you’re suffering because you’ve been severely injured in a motorcycle wreck or you’ve lost a loved one to a fatal motorcycle crash, the primary cost you concern yourself with might be the physical, emotional and financial toll the tragic accident takes on you and your family. You probably don’t have emotion to spare to consider the costs of the accident to others. But you pay for these costs, along with all of us, each time a fatal motorcycle accident occurs. The costs include the following.

• Cost of first response to the motorcycle accident.
• Cost of transport to a hospital or morgue.
• Cost of medical treatment as first responders try to preserve a fragile human life.
• Costs of paying lost wages or other support while an injured victim can’t work because of the accident.
• Costs of paying disability and support if the motorcycle accident causes permanent disability and loss of livelihood.

Studies also reveal that unhelmeted riders cost society much more for care and treatment after their nike crashes, largely because of increased incidence of severe head and brain trauma. Only slightly more than half of unhelmeted riders have health insurance, and this rarely covers the full costs of their injuries. The State usually picks up the rest of the tab.

• After California enacted a universal helmet requirement, the number of bikers hospitalized for head injuries decreased by 48%, and the total costs of patients with head injuries decreased by $20.5 million.
• When Florida weakened its universal helmet law o a statute resembling Texas’ current helmet laws, injuries to the head, brain and skull increased by 83% in the 1st 30 months after the law went into effect. The required minimum $10,000 insurance paid for less than 1/4 of their care from their accidents.
• Public funds paid for the care of 41% of motorcyclists injured in Nebraska, 63% of bikers injured in Seattle, and 83% of those injured in Sacramento.