Black motorcyclists — even in helmets — more likely to die in crashes

[sofa king]

http://scienceblog.com/38939/black-motorcyclists-even-in-helmets-more-likely-to-die-in-crashes/

African-American victims of motorcycle crashes were 1.5 times more likely to die from their injuries than similarly injured whites, even though many more of the African-American victims were wearing helmets at the time of injury, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers.

...

Haider, who is also co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Surgical Trials and Outcomes Research, suspects several factors may combine to account for the gap in survival between black and white victims. Previous studies of other accidents and illnesses have shown that lack of health insurance, reduced access to care, poorer quality of care and a greater number of pre-existing illnesses or injuries contribute to racial differences in survival. It is also possible, he says, that riders of different races may prefer different types of helmets or more dangerous types of motorcycles. More research is needed, he says, to determine what role, if any, these issues may play.

Motorcycle crashes injure roughly 88,000 people a year in the United States and kill 4,810 annually. The rate of fatal motorcycle crashes has been steadily rising for the past decade and now account for nearly 1 in 8 motor vehicle deaths.

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There's a lot of bad news in that article. It seems to suggest that we have not yet entered a post-racist society. And, the rate of motorcycle deaths is rising.

It's my own personal observation that there are two main kinds of riding accidents: those you can limp away from, and those you never walk away from, with a small percentage of lucky individuals surviving major accidents, sometimes with major injuries and lost limbs. Those few survivors almost certainly pull through thanks to fast arrival of aid. You would think, therefore, that those people injured in cities, where ambulance response time should be very good, would have a better chance of surviving major accidents. This article seems to suggest that is not the case, which is also not good.

I'll tell you what I want: an airbag suit that deploys like reactive armor does on tanks. If it worked, it would also be fun for jumping off of cliffs and buildings, I would think.