"F is for Factoids"

(Admit it, you thought I would do "F is for Fast," didn't you? Fooled ya!)

Here are some interesting (at least I thought so) and mostly random motorcycling facts gleaned from a variety of recent sources:

• According to the US Department of Transportation, as of 2003, there were 5,370,000 motorcycles on US roadways, averaging 1,800 miles per vehicle per year, for a total of over 9 million miles traveled. (Of course, I -- and many of you reading this -- have skewed those numbers. I currently have 4 street legal bikes, each of which averages a lot more miles per year than their figure indicates ... meaning there are a lot of bikes out there only being ridden to church on Sundays?)
  
• According to the US Census Bureau, out of a total of more than 129 million commuters, 147,703 regularly ride motorcycles to work (again, that's 2003 data). Unbelievably, that's only about a tenth of a percent. Perhaps those figures will change as the price of gas continues to skyrocket...?
  
• According to the Motorcycle Industry Safety Council, only 4.3 percent of the 6.5 million motorcycles registered in the US are used as year-round primary transportation. An additional 9.9 percent are used seasonally for this purpose. (My inference: most motorcycles are used for recreational purposes only, roughly 85% according to those figures, and very few motorcyclists have discovered the joy of heated gear.)
  
• US DOT statistics say the average US driver travels 29 miles per day and is driving a total of 55 minutes at an average speed of 32 mph. (Damn, that's slow!) The UK's Motorcycle Industry Association has compared car and motorcycle travel data, which suggests that traveling by motorcycle can shorten in-city travel time by more than 50% and mixed (rural and city combined) travel time by 33%. (I admit that a US comparison might not be as favorable, since California is the only state I know of that tolerates lane-splitting and I don't know of any state's motorists who don't reach for a sidearm at the mere thought of motorcycles filtering to the front at traffic lights. Both are common practice nearly everywhere else in the world.)
  
• According to the Texas Transportation Institute, the average roadway delay per person in 2001 was 26 hours per year. In 2003, it was 47 hours per year, an increase of 81 percent. We can only assume this trend has and will continue. In other words, people flush away a huge portion of their lives sitting in automobiles, wishing they were somewhere else.
  

My point in all the above should be obvious. You'd spend less time commuting and/or stuck in traffic if you rode a motorcycle. Even when you are stuck in traffic, at least you're on a motorcycle! You'd spend less on gasoline (the average motorcycle gets 40-something miles per gallon; and, hey, my BMW regularly gets 62!). And finally, on a motorcycle, you'd be just as cool as me and my buds ... instead of some nerd in a minivan.

Okay, enough on the daily commute to and from that soul-sucking social conformity known as "the job" ... how about everyone's favorite road hazard, deer? According to Sate Farm's claim statistics, 10 states with the most deer crashes between June 1st 2005 and June 30th 2006 account for more than half of all such claims:

• Pennsylvania
  
• Michigan
  
• Illinois
  
• Ohio
  
• Georgia
  
• Virginia
  
• Minnesota
  
• Texas
  
• Indiana
  
• South Carolina
  

Unfortunately, I have no information on how many of those are motorcycle-deer collisions, but we can assume those are still the top 10 states in which to hit deer, no matter what you're driving. It's nice to see that Oklahoma isn't in the top ten! (Oh, and just an aside, when I was taken down by a deer in 2003, I was told by my insurance adjuster to always say I was hit by a deer, not I hit a deer. Makes a difference.)

Maybe we need some good factoids to focus on. How about these numbers related to customer satisfaction (courtesy of J.D. Power and Associates)?

• New motorcycle owners experience fewer problems with their bikes than in previous years.
  
• The number of problems per 100 motorcycles was down from 2005, with engine problems (though also down) still being the majority reported.
  

Not a lotta meat there, though, eh? Sorry, it's what I had. How about this one?

• Figures released by the National Insurance Crime Bureau show a 135 percent increase in motorcycle thefts over the last 5 years, with 70,000 motorcycles reported stolen in 2006.
• Most popular targets are new model sportbikes, with Suzukis at the top of the list.

Yikes! I'll be keeping a close eye on my CBR. But let's get back to something positive:

• The Motorcycle Industry Safety Council reports that motorcycle sales surpassed the 1 million mark for the fourth straight year in 2006, continuing a 14-year surge that began in 1993 with sales increasing every year since.
  

And, finally (from Popular Science, Jan 2007):

• 31 million Americans show signs of compulsive Internet use and are possibly addicted.
  
• 30 percent of U.S. businesses have fired employees for problematic web surfing.
  

Uh oh. I gotta get back to work now. And what are you doing surfing the Net at this time of day anyway...?