Scotland is a great place for motorcyclists to take to the road with its magnificent scenery and back roads to explore.  Motorcyclists are also a very vulnerable group when it comes to road traffic accidents.

In the UK for  2017 the  number of casualties for motorcyclists was 18,042. There were 349 motor cyclists killed, an increase of 9%. This was the largest increase of any road user type. These are mainly male casualties with 30% of them being in the 17 – 34 age group. Nearly half of the UK casualties occurred in London and the South East of England.

Statistics for Scotland

In Scotland there has been a decrease in the casualty figures to 620 motorcyclists for 2017. 29 motorcyclists died directly from the accident and 281 were seriously injured.

Almost half of the accidents involving motorcycles took place on non-built up roads. It was also where 90% of the deaths occurred and 58% were seriously injured.

Looking at the longer term trends, the number of motorcyclists killed or seriously injured on Scotland’s roads is in decline, however, the 16 -22 age group has the highest rate of casualties.

At the start of the Summer Police Scotland launched a Road Safety Campaign Think Bike Think Biker  Summer time and the weekends are when the majority of the motorcycle accidents take place.

And the message to other vehicle users:

Reporter: Fiona Grahame