National

Motorcycle Accident Statistics

Motorcycles are the third most common vehicle in a fatal U.S. crash. Only four-door sedans and compact SUVs appear more often. Our record counts 115,475 motorcycles in fatal crashes since 2000. That is more than standard pickups, two-door coupes, or truck-tractors. In 2024 alone, motorcyclist deaths across the 50 states and D.C. added up to 6,227. The national rate: about 1.83 for every 100,000 residents.

Motorcyclists ride with far less protection than someone in a car or truck. The data reflects that. 2024 had 366 days. Spread the deaths across them, and about 17 motorcyclists were killed a day, nationwide. Where a rider lives changes the risk a lot. Some states report a rate several times the national number. Others sit well below it. The full state ranking below makes that spread plain.

What is the fatality rate of motorcycle accidents?

Nationally, motorcyclist deaths worked out to about 1.83 for every 100,000 residents in 2024. Here is the math. We added up every state's motorcyclist deaths in our record: 6,227 total. We divided by the combined population of all 50 states and D.C., about 340.1 million. Then we scaled that to a rate for every 100,000 people. The rate varies a lot by state. Wyoming's 2024 rate of 4.08 is more than double the national number. Florida had the highest raw count, 642, without leading the rate list. Texas had the second-highest raw count, 582. Yet it ranks 30th by rate, at 1.86. A state's population shapes its raw ranking more than its actual risk does.

Where motorcycles rank among vehicles in fatal crashes

Our record breaks every vehicle in a fatal crash out by body type. Here are the six most common types from 2000 through 2024:

• Four-door sedans: 375,829
• Compact SUVs: 154,286
• Motorcycles: 115,475
• Standard pickups: 113,260
• Two-door coupes: 81,842
• Truck-tractors: 74,625

Widen the motorcycle count to include mopeds, scooters, and similar cycles. It grows to 124,105. That larger count is related, but it is not the 115,475 core motorcycle count above.

That vehicle ranking answers a different question than the death totals in the state table below. The 115,475 number counts motorcycles over 25 years of fatal crashes. The 6,227 number counts motorcyclists who died in 2024 alone. Both numbers are real, and both matter. But you can't swap one for the other. The six most common vehicle types add up to 915,317 vehicles. Motorcycles make up about 12.6% of that combined total.

What counts as a motorcyclist death here

The state numbers on this page count riders and passengers who died on a motorcycle, moped, motor scooter, or similar cycle. That is not the same as every death in a crash that involved a motorcycle. A driver or passenger in the other vehicle isn't counted here. The numbers also leave out ATVs and snowmobiles. The record labels those as off-road vehicles, not motorcycles. injured.org hasn't published a ranking for either one.

injured.org tracks a simple ladder of protection across three vehicle pillars. Motorcyclists sit in the middle of it. Pedestrians carry no protective shell at all. A motorcyclist has some gear but no frame around them. A large truck is usually the largest object in the crash, not the smallest. That shifts most of its death toll onto the people it hits, not the people riding in it. A motorcyclist killed in a crash with a large truck counts on both pillars, not split between them. The same overlap runs across all of our vehicle rankings.