Here’s The Current Minnesota State Motorcycle Fatalities For 2022
We're pretty much halfway through motorcycle season for your average rider in the Twin Ports area. There are always a few of course who pull the bikes out even when there is snow and salt on the roads, but for the sake of this article, they don't factor in as average riders.
The motorcycle fatality statistics aren't fully out for July yet, but January-June of 2022 is available for us to see and give us something to think about. For the six-month period, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety has reported 174 people killed in traffic crashes, and of that amount 25 were motorcyclists. In June alone there were 13, which makes sense as that's a pretty busy motorcycle riding month.
By the end of July in 2021, there were 42 motorcycle related fatalities. It does look like we are tracking better so far for this year, but until the official July 2022 report is out, we won't know. Over the last few years, it does look like motorcycle related fatalities in Minnesota are trending up, which is not good.
It's a good reminder for those of us who ride to make good choices and for those that don't ride to be extra vigilant in looking for bikes. Last week I personally had a lot of close calls on the motorcycle that weren't my fault. Though Minnesota laws would partly blame me if an accident did happen because I chose to be on the road.
It really is a group effort though, not all falling on the motorcycle rider and not all on a car driver. We need to be working together to keep all of us safe out there. Hopefully we can start trending down from the way motorcycle fatalities have been the past few years.