Motorized two-wheelers account for 10 per cent of motor vehicle deaths

Yet those modes of transportation only account for 2% of what’s driven on roads

When you do get into an accident, the results of a motorcycle collision are much more devastating.

TORONTO The next time you strap on your leathers and take that hog for a ride, consider the costs.

A new study published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, says motorcycles, mopeds, motor scooters and motorized bicycles are the cause of 10 per cent of motor vehicle deaths in the province even though they only make up two per cent of what’s on the road.

The Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre — Canada’s largest trauma centre — and the University of Toronto also found motorcycle crashes cost Ontario health-care system six times the amount of car crashes, 10 times the severe injuries, and five times the deaths.

“The cause for alarm is that when you do get into an accident, the results of a motorcycle collision are much more devastating,” said Dr. Daniel Pincus, one of the study’s co-authors.

“Some specific injuries, which we see clinically, are really bad extremity injuries, mangled extremities, bad chest injuries.”

Researchers studied crash victims who came to the hospital in Ontario between 2007 and 2013. The stats showed 26,831 people

were injured in motorcycle crashes compared to 281,826 injured in car collisions.

Pincus said motorcycles have always been more dangerous than cars because of the driver’s exposure to the road, but that hasn’t translated into better safety measures.

“What we didn’t know was the cost, so we think this can be an added argument to improve motorcycle safety,” said Pincus, an orthopedic resident physician at Sunnybrook Hospital.

“The answer is not for people to stop (riding) motorcycles. A lot of people enjoy riding them. The answer, I think, is trying to improve safety and try to improve preventable causes,” he added.

“In Ontario, we’re actually probably doing a better job. There’s mandated helmet legislation; a lot of places in the states there isn’t.”