Young Motorcyclist, No Helmet, A Wheelie And a Tree = Tragedy
As an experienced Nashville accident and injury lawyer I have never seen a collision between a motorcyclist without a helmet and a tree come out in favor of the motrrcyclist.. My sympathies go out to the family of Darry D. Smith, 22, of Oneida, who, according to an article on the web site of WBIR TV in Knoxville, was with friends when he attempted to pull a wheelie on his 2009 Yamaha and lost control, ran into a ditch and was thrown from the bike against a tree.
While travel by motor vehicle has become steadily safer in the United States, motorcycles remain the most dangerous type of motor vehicle to drive. Motorcyclists are involved in fatal crashes at a rate of 35.0 per 100 million miles of travel compared with a rate of 1.7 per 100 million miles of travel in cars. In 2007, 5,154 motorcyclists were killed—an increase of 7 percent over the 4,837 motorcyclists killed in 2006. There were 103,000 motorcyclists injured during 2007. Motorcycles made up nearly 3 percent of all registered vehicles in the United States in 2006 and accounted for only 0.4 percent of all vehicle miles traveled. Per vehicle mile traveled in 2006, motorcyclists were about 35 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a motor vehicle traffic crash and 8 times more likely to be injured.
In Tennessee over 90% of motorcycle drivers in crashes from 2004 to 2008 were between the ages of 15 and 59. The number of motorcycle drivers in crashes has increased in every age group over 14 years old since 2004. As a percentage of all motorcycle drivers in crashes, drivers from ages 15 to 24 and 45 to 69 increased, while drivers between the ages of 25 and 44 decreased.
Motorcycles are not toys and should not be treated as if they were. If any good can come from a tragedy such as this it would be that others who knew and loved Mr. Smith will themselves practice motorcycle safety and use this incident to pass on the word to others.
If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee motorcycle accident you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Nashville accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation to find out about your rights and remedies.
Phillip Miller is a Tennessee Accident Attorney specializing in
Phillip has an AVVO rating of 10.0 (Superb), has been designated as a “Superlawyer”, and is the President Elect of the Tennessee Association for Justice.
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