Australia's motorcycle road toll down

Australia's rolling 12-month motorcycle road toll was down by 14.1 per cent at the end of May, according to statistics released by the federal government.

The statistics shows that there were 220 fatalities during that period, down from 256 at the same period in 2009. Of those deaths, 211 were male (down 12.4 per cent) and nine female (down 40).

The motorcycle road toll continues to fall faster than the overall road toll, which dropped just 5.7 per cent (1442 deaths as opposed to 1529 in 2009). NSW and the ACT were the only states to see an increase in fatalities across the board, with NT having the highest number of road deaths per 100,000 population - with Victoria the lowest.

As far as motorcycle fatalities are concerned, the 40-59yrs age group was the only one to show a worrying increase, up 22.9 per cent. All the others fell: 0-16yrs (33.3 per cent), 17-20yrs (34.8), 21-25 (42.9), 26-39 (21.7) and 60-plus (55).

For the sake of gathering statistics, a death is classified as resulting from a road crash if it occurred on a public road, is unintentional and the death occurred within 30 days of injuries sustained in a crash.

Meanwhile, fresh statistics released by the British government show that as the number of motorcycle kilometres travelled has increased the number of casualties and fatalities has actually fallen. This has been the ongoing trend since around 2002.

The figures show that motorcycle traffic rose by two per cent but the number of motorcycle casualties was four per cent lower than in 2008. The number reported as seriously injured fell by four per cent to 5350 and there were 472 motorcycle user fatalities in 2009, which was also four per cent lower than during 2008.