Motorcycle Fatalities in America

Key findings

Motorcyclists are among the most exposed people on public roads. In 2024, 6,227 motorcyclists died in crashes recorded by the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System — a census of every fatal motor-vehicle crash on US public roads.

• 31.6% wore no helmet (1,966 of 6,227). A further 33.6% wore a DOT-compliant helmet; for 28.3% the helmet was worn but compliance could not be confirmed.
• The deadliest window is evening, not night. The peak crash hour is 5pm (489 crashes), and the five-hour window from 3pm to 8pm accounts for 2,258 crashes — 36.9% of the fatal motorcycle crashes with a recorded time of day.
• 63.6% of fatal crashes involved another vehicle. Nearly two in three motorcycle deaths happen in multi-vehicle collisions, not solo run-offs.
• Florida, Texas and California alone account for 1,746 deaths — 28.0% of the national total — despite differences in population, climate and helmet laws.

These are deaths of motorcyclists only — riders and passengers on the motorcycle itself. Other people killed in the same crashes (occupants of other vehicles, pedestrians) are not folded into this count.

Helmet use among the fatalities

Helmet use at the time of a fatal crash is recorded by NHTSA for every motorcycle occupant. Of the 6,227 who died, the breakdown is as follows:

The no-helmet figure (31.6%) is a lower bound on the true proportion of unhelmeted fatalities: of the 28.3% recorded as wearing an unverified helmet, some would not have met DOT standards. At most 65% of those killed were confirmed to have been wearing any helmet at all.

State helmet laws matter here. Florida, which has a partial helmet law and leads the national count at 642 deaths, and Texas, second at 582, both allow riders over 21 to ride without a helmet under certain conditions. California, third at 522, has a universal helmet law. These are three of the four most populous states, so population also explains much of the volume.

When the crashes happen

Fatal motorcycle crashes peak in the late afternoon and early evening, not at night. The deadliest single hour in 2024 was 5pm (489 crashes), followed closely by 6pm (484) and 7pm (452). The window from 3pm to 8pm — five hours — accounts for 2,258 crashes, 36.9% of the fatal motorcycle crashes with a recorded time of day.

The late-afternoon peak reflects when recreational riding is heaviest: post-work commute traffic, weekend afternoon rides, and the point when alcohol consumption begins to rise. The pattern is distinct from large-truck crashes, which peak at midday, and from pedestrian deaths, which cluster at night.

Urban roads account for a larger share of crashes (4,060 of 6,165, or 65.9%) than rural ones (2,077, or 33.7%), reflecting both where most riding happens and the density of conflict points in city traffic.

State by state

Every state has motorcycle fatalities. The variation in raw counts mostly tracks population and riding season length, but high-population states also interact with helmet-law differences.

The full state-level file, including all 51 jurisdictions, is available as a download below.

Method

Source: the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 2024 national file, a census of every fatal motor-vehicle crash on US public roads. The 2024 file records 36,297 fatal crashes in total.

Motorcycles are identified by the vehicle body-type field (BODY_TYP) in the FARS vehicle file. The codes used are: 80 (two-wheel motorcycle, the dominant category with 5,671 vehicles), 81 (moped), 82 (three-wheel motorcycle, 2 rear wheels), 83 (off-road motorcycle), 84 (motor scooter), 85 (unenclosed three-wheel / autocycle), 87, 88, and 89 (other and unknown motored-cycle types). Code 90, ATV/all-terrain cycle, is excluded because ATVs are a distinct vehicle category.

A death is counted as a motorcyclist fatality only when the person record’s vehicle number matches a motorcycle vehicle in that same crash. The join key is (ST_CASE, STATE) because ST_CASE alone is not unique across states. Pedestrians, cyclists, and occupants of other vehicles killed in motorcycle crashes are not counted here.

Helmet use is recorded by the investigating officer in the person record (HELM_USENAME). The classification into DOT-compliant, no helmet, and unknown-compliance follows the FARS codebook directly. Single-vehicle versus multi-vehicle is determined by counting the number of vehicle records per crash in the FARS vehicle file.

This analysis counts deaths in crashes involving a motorcycle. It does not assign fault, which FARS does not record.

Download and reuse

The state-level aggregate is available as a CSV: motorcycle-fatalities-2024.csv.

These findings are free to republish, including the charts, the table and the figures, with attribution to Cash4Crashes and a link to this page. For a breakdown of a specific state, county or metro area, or an earlier year for comparison, contact help@cash4crashes.com.

If you were injured in a motorcycle crash, our guide to motorcycle accident claims covers how these cases work and what steps help protect your rights.

Cash4Crashes is a lead-generation service that connects people injured in crashes with attorneys in our network. We are not a law firm and nothing on this page is legal advice.