> This drops dramatically when you cut out those who are unlicensed (bearing in mind this is illegal here), drunk, or in their 1st year of riding.
That's misleading. You can't cut those out and not also cut them out for car drivers. ~30% of US car crash fatalities involve drunk drivers, which is roughly the same as the motorcycle rate
Depends whether you're applying the multiplier to the population fatality rate vs your individual chance. It was the former that I was thinking of, but either is possible.
On your specific claim, I don't know about US statistics, but when I looked in Aus (about 5 years ago), the proportion of deaths involving drunk/inexperience/unlicensed riders was much greater than for drivers. Individual choices and skill had a much bigger effect for motorcyclists.
Nonetheless I'm not remotely claiming that death rates are not greatly higher than for drivers. They absolutely are, in all categories. But the headline multiplier may not apply to any given individual.
This is purely anecdotal, but it feels much easier to stay safe in a car than it does on a bike. Crashing on a bike is inherently super dangerous regardless of speeds, whereas crashing in a car is only really dangerous at high speeds (and even then crumple zones are really really effective). The lack of a crumple zone for motorcycles makes it really hard to not judge them as more dangerous.
Put this way, to my judgement a skilled driver should be much safer than an equally skilled motorcycle rider.
Equally anecdotal is that it feels much easier to avoid crashes on a bike. They're nimbler and have access to much more road (and off it, for that matter). Yes, very obviously if you do crash, you're much worse off on the bike.
In the end though, you're right, and we don't even need anecdotes to prove it - the stats are voluminous and clear. Yes, you can reduce your risk somewhat with good bike and skills maintenance, but even with that, motorcycling is much more risky to life and limb than driving a car. If safety is higher in your valuation than whatever your reasons for riding (there are many possible), riding is never rational. Safety is fairly low in my evaluative framework, and my reasons for riding persuasive, so it's not a hard choice in my personal case.
It's not misleading. First off, 75% of all motorcycle crashes are single vehicle crashes - i.e. rider error, usually going wide in a corner.
50% of all motorcycle crashes involve the rider having a blood alcohol level above the legal limit.
A high percentage (not sure the exact number) are inexperienced riders who've been riding less than six months.
Another 50% of motorcycle crashes occur at night.
Obviously there's a lot of overlap in these statistics but by and large if you ride sober, learn how to negotiate corners, and don't ride late at night when the drunk drivers are on the road then your chances of being involved in an accident plummet.
Unfortunately, drunk riding is a thing. Where I live there are lots of planned rides, even charity rides, that ride from bar to bar. Group riding is already more dangerous than riding single and now let's add alcohol to the group! What could possibly go wrong?!
That's misleading. You can't cut those out and not also cut them out for car drivers. ~30% of US car crash fatalities involve drunk drivers, which is roughly the same as the motorcycle rate