Shawn. Did you know there are two people named Shawn (Shaun) that live in Fayetteville and own Triumphs? What a co-incidence.
I read your report. I go back a little further with motorcycle reports. One I read was about the enormous amount of people "over" 40 that were being killed on over-powered cruisers. This report is a few years ago. They pointed out that they expected the age group of the "most deaths" to be quite a bit younger, not older.
I, personally, do not think cruisers are over-powered. However, they are very heavy and hard to handle. I would bet anything that more riders lost control trying to ride along with their "sport buddies" not knowing there choice of motorcycle was not capable.
I used to be a "statistical engineer". This points out to me that if you are "against or for" anything in life, you can always come of with enough statistics to support your arguement.
I go back even further to the "Hurt Report". This report was generated in the 70's. I am sure it covered most every aspect of types of deaths. The most interesting thing is that the report could not cooriliate 100% the fact that all deaths were directly related to the lack of wearing a helmet. In fact, they said a large majority of motorcycle deaths were broken backs or necks that would have happened reguardless if a helmet was worn or not.
I point this out that statistics can be really thrown to the wind. When I see a car wreck on TV and there is a beer bottle found (even if the bottle has been empty for months) they always report the accident as "ALCOHOL RELATED".
The Hurt Report pointed out that 95% of all motorcycle wrecks happened within three major catagories. 1) riding in city traffic 2) riding at night 3) riding back and forth to work. In my life, I have stayed away from the above three types of riding.
I think if we could take the latest statistics the report you read has and combine them with the Hurt Report, we might find that the Hurt report is still correct.
Just a thought...........John
