Michael White crashed his motorcycle when riding on Route 180 in Hocking County earlier this year.
He was transported to Hocking Valley Community Hospital emergency room for a possible concussion. Two front headlights and the tail of the motorcycle were broken, and the body of it was scraped off and had a huge dent on the gas tank.
After two and a half hours in the emergency room, however, he walked out perfectly fine
except for road rash, a sprained ankle and bruises.
“You want to enjoy the ride. You don’t want to hurt someone really bad,” White, 44, said.
State and federal data show that White is one of many local residents to be involved in motorcycle crashes.
In the past two years, there have been 337 motorcycle-involved crashes in the Southeast Ohio region, including Athens, Hocking, Miegs, Morgan, Perry, Vinton and Washington counties. Those crashing resulted in 182 minor injuries, 29 property damages and six fatal injuries, according to the most recent data available from the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
Nationwide, 11 percent of all roadway accidents that occur in the United States involve motorcycles, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“Obviously you can’t control what other people or other animals do. That’s why you have to be really careful,” White said. “Sometimes it looks like someone is running toward you, yet they turn right in front of you, but that doesn’t mean it’s that person’s fault when an accident happens.”
Motorcycle injuries happen statewide and often result in injuries that require emergency medical transport via helicopter.
“We do fly quite a bit across the state. It’s a common flight for us,” said Amanda Ball, outreach coordinator for Medflight Ohio, a nonprofit that carries trauma patients in far-out areas to established trauma centers. “Normally there’s a lot of head injuries from not wearing helmets or protective gear.”
There are a number of possible causes of a motor vehicle accident, such as poor weather conditions, not utilizing a turn signal, lane splitting and disobeying speed limitations. However, whenever there’s an accident that involves motorcycles, more often than not, an intense debate between the driver of a car and the motorcyclist over who's at fault occurs.
White, of Amanda, Ohio,
said the accident was a scary moment in his life, but he still loves to ride his Harley-Davidson.
“Riding a motorcycle is only dangerous if you make it dangerous,” he said.
This article appeared in print under the headline "Motorcyclists encounter danger, injury on Southeast Ohio roads"
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