The Washington State Patrol reports that the number of motorcycle deaths have dropped significantly this summer compared to last summer.

According to the Seattle Post Intelligencer...

As of August 31, there were 43 deaths resulting from collisions involving motorcyclists. For the same time period in 2006, there were 61 deaths.

Labels: Washington Motorcycle Deaths

In Kirkland, WA, last Friday, a passenger on a motorcycle was killed after being thrown off.

The rider of the motorcycle, Nicholas J. Frye, survived, but is now being investigated for possible vehicular manslaughter.

Frye says he lost control of the motorcycle because of some extreme grooves in the freeway that channeled his bike sideways while trying to make a lane change. The bike crashed into guardrail.

You can read the full story here...
http://www.komotv.com/news/local/8794872.html

I just rode down a short stretch of the I-405 through Renton and Tukwila, WA last June, but I don't think I caught any of this. However, Southern California isn't without its shared of grooved freeways. But I think what the story described here are some extremely grooved road created by a construction zone.

Roadway construction crews don't seem to take motorcycles into consideration. There was a stretch of I-15 through Temecula, CA, where they removed two inches of asphalt. Then where this patch ended there is an abrupt two-inch edge returning to asphalt. When I hit that abrupt edge, my forks bottomed out and I took a jolt to the shoulders. I didn't fall off the bike, but it sure shocked the shit out of me.

Reading this story, it sounds like Washington State Department of Transportation is trying to shift the blame to the rider, when in fact is that motorcyclists are still being discriminated against when it comes to taking our safety in consideration.

Labels: Grooved Freeways, Washington Motorcycle Deaths