The Reno, Nevada police reported that a motorcyclist was killed after his motorcycle crashed in southeast Reno on Wednesday June 19th. The deadly accident occurred on Rio Poco Road around 5:30 p.m.
The driver of the motorcycle was a 72-year-old male and resident of Reno. He was driving north on Rio Poco Road when he crashed into a pickup truck. The motorcycle was attempting to turn on a yellow light in front of the pickup which had a green light when the collision took place. The driver of the pickup vehicle stayed at the site of the crash, and police have verified that speed nor impairment were contributing factors to the tragic accident.
This latest motorcycle fatality in Nevada is part of a worrying trend of increased motorcycle accidents in the state, according to David Boehrer Law Firm. While fatalities have increased on roads and highways across the nation – not only in Nevada – the increase in Nevada is particularly pronounced. From 2015 and 2016, there was a 53% increase in motorcycle fatalities in Clark County alone. Safety experts have attributed the increase to a number of factors including more people driving on the roads and a dramatic upswing in distracted drivers.
According to a report by the Nevada Highway Safety Performance Plan by the Nevada Department of Public Safety, the population most commonly involved in deadly or very serious motorcycle accidents is men between the ages of 26 to 55. Motorcyclists are most at risk of being involved in a severe accident on the weekends in May and September, but the summer season in general sees a higher percentage of accidents. Surprisingly, 67 percent of crashes occur in daylight, the most common time of day between 3pm and 6pm. In Nevada, Clark County consistently experiences the most fatalities.
Nationwide, motorcyclists make up an overwhelming proportion of U.S. road trauma. According to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA), 5,286 motorcyclists were killed in 2016, a figure which accounted for a 5.1 percent jump from the previous year. Additionally, in 2016, motorcyclist deaths were 28 times more likely to occur than passenger vehicle deaths. State by state, Nevada consistently ranks in the top 10 of all states for accidents involving motorcycles.