Vermont Motorcycle Fatality Statistics
Vermont had a total of 11 fatalities in motorcycle accidents for 2015. This number is up from 2014 when there were seven reported. It is also the year with the highest number of fatalities in the last decade along with 2012. This information comes from a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Vermont has a universal helmet law for motorcyclists. This means that everyone is required to wear one regardless of age. All 11 victims in fatal motorcycle accidents were wearing helmets at the time of the accident. The state was one of the few to have a 100 percent helmet usage rate in 2015, which saved seven lives. Previous years were around the mid-eighties with 2013 dropping to 71 percent.
The majority of victims in 2015 were over the age of 59 with four. Three were in the 40-49 age group while there were two in the 20-29 age group and another two victims in the 50-59 age range.
Vermont had 30,106 registered motorcycles in 2014. The fatality rate per 100,000 registrations was 23.25, which was down slightly from the prior year and dropped significantly from 2012.
Seven of the 13 counties in Vermont reported at least one motorcycle death in 2015, but none of them had more than five for the year. Most of the deaths occurred in the lower half of the state.
Bennington County was one of the counties located in the southern half of the state, and it reported two deaths after having zero for the past two years. Chittenden is in the northern part of the state, and it had one death, which was a decline from two for the previous year. Franklin and Orange counties had two for 2015 while Rutland County had just one. Orleans County reported zero for the first time in five years.