[Jagular]

Interesting. Although you can't uniformly point to a causality I like the idea of education (or lack thereof) and graduated m/c licensing (i.e., you have to ride a lower HP m/c for a certain time before getting a bigger, faster machine).

From the few black riders I know (ok, three, which isn't exactly a large sampling), even the most inexperienced seem to buy/ride the biggest, fastest sportsbikes they can afford. Thankfully, my friends haven't been injured. My kids ride and they started with less powerful bikes, as did most of their friends.

That said, the m/c injuries/fatalities of people I know have been white, experienced riders on cruisers and Goldwings.

 

[Gossamer]

doesn't make much sense to me either. Blacks are 50% more likely to die with similar injuries but are more likely to wear helmets.

Some detail isn't being looked at.

 

[Jagular]

After re-reading the article, the trauma points are the same (e.g., severe head injury), which pretty much rules out the education/skill level of the riders.

To me, while I hope it isn't true, the study suggests that there may be a lesser level of care given to black riders.

 

[dsjr70]

I know in my area it is typical to see a black guy on an R1 or Hyabusa very seldom on a cruiser. I can understand the risk being allot hire do to the speed of the bikes compared to a cruiser but what doesnt make sense is if they have similar injuries what does color have anything to do with it?

 

[ammo]

Glad to see I'm not the only one scratching my head on this one..

 

[dsjr70]

After re-reading the article, the trauma points are the same (e.g., severe head injury), which pretty much rules out the education/skill level of the riders.

To me, while I hope it isn't true, the study suggests that there may be a lesser level of care given to black riders.

Yeah, I went back after you posted that and read it again. It either leads to what your stated or that black ridersare further away from a true trauma center or that the study is pretty much useless and it is a coincidence?
I just bring up that second point because a friend of mine went down a few years ago a few blocks from our local hospital and they had to airlift him 30 miles to the trauma center in Orlando because our local hospital is not equipt to handle a serious accident.

 

[Keith Grey]

At the very least, this articleis just a good example of piss-poor journalism.

You said it brother!
I was an EMT for a while and I can tell you they are probably doing a study designed to generate press and perhaps further funding, unless they are under reporting the findings, that is.
The largest classifiers should be (at least for TBI)Head impact speed, point of contact, and weight/physical condition/age of the riders. Also important in these "Similar" injuries BS comparisons are Helmet quality and type.
DID I Mention they never talked about the quality or Rating of Hospitals and the impact this had on the findings? Where you land in the "Golden Hour" after trauma means an awful lot to the outcome!
The reporting on this is just too attention getting and generalized fo it to be good scientific analysis.
Sorry for the RANT, but I hate junk science as much as crappy reporting.

 

[CVI-Cowboy]

I find this article to be questionable and inflammatory. IF they have the same injuries, what difference does it matter what bike they were on, if they had a helmet, if they had on a clean pair of short... So why even bring it up? By what clasification was it determined that they had the same injuries. If I go down on my 2-wheeled sofa and get a concussion and a sport bike guy goes down at 130mph and has brains leaking out of his head, are they both considered head trauma and therefore "Similar"?

I wonder if the same DATA could have been used to make a case against Sport Bikes (had they decided to leave race out of it). To implicate that medical facilities are looking at a patient and deciding to provide sub-standard care based on race is offensive.

Studied and statistics are an interesting thing. I'm sure they could have twisted the data to make a case against Girl Scout cookies.

 

[phoenix9]

I agree that there is a lot in this article that is NOT being said....or documented.

Similar injuries? how are they classifying the injuries?

What bikes were involved in the accidents?

What are the average ages of the individuals?

Where are the accidents occuring?

What was the insurance level of the individuals?

I can go on and on asking questions that were not even touched on in this article. If there is an extreme discrepancy (as there appears to be) then multiple factors should start to become apparent if the researchers are doing there jobs.....but it appears that a mass piece of raw data was examined and a "conclusion" was reached. If you don't have ALL your facts, then STFU and do more homework before you produce a paper on half-baked guesstimations.

 

[dsjr70]

Well for $49.99 we can buy a copy of the actual study from the American Journal of Surgery. This is directly from their site...
Abstract

Background

Studies have shown racial disparities in outcomes after motor vehicle crashes; however, it is currently unknown if race impacts the likelihood of mortality after a motorcycle crash (MCC). The primary objective of this study was to determine if race is associated with MCC mortality.
Methods

We performed a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of MCCs included in the National Trauma Data Bank between 2002 and 2006. Multiple logistic regression was used to adjust for age, sex, insurance status, year, helmet use, and injury severity characteristics.
Results

Black patients had a 1.58 (95% confidence interval, 1.28-1.97) increased odds of mortality after a MCC, but were more likely to use a helmet (1.30; 95% confidence interval, 1.19-1.43) compared with their white counterparts (n = 62,840).
Conclusions

Black motorcyclists appear more likely to die after a MCC compared with whites. Although the reasons for this disparity are unclear, these data suggest that resources beyond encouraging helmet use are necessary to reduce fatalities among black motorcyclists.
My conclusion is they have no conclusion and would like more funding to study it... Reminds me of the old saying if more red cars kill people should you stop making red cars or should you assume there are more red cars sold?

 

[Keith Grey]

Reminds me of the other old saying:
If the man in the Whitehouse is African-American, African-American studies and funding go up by 800% the first year!!
Course if he was an entitled WASP from New England, pretending to be a Southern Baptist native of Texas, the best funding increases arein Private Security contracting! Plus you get less peer review from shoot outs,,,,
I'm OK with ridiculous studies going nowhere useful. They keep the academically inclined away from more real world pursuits where they get folks hurt.

 

[Andy]

What was the insurance level of the individuals?

Sadly, that could be a topic of its own.

 

[CVI-Cowboy]

Race is a factor!!!

if you street "race" motorcycles or cars, you are more likely to get hurt or hurt someone else...

 

[Jagular]

My conclusion is they have no conclusion and would like more funding to study it...

I agree with this. The study identifies a real discrepancy in mortality rates based on race and it deserves root cause analysis. Whatever the underlying issue(s), I don't think you can dispute the findings that a black rider is more likely to die from injuries sustained from motorcycle injuries than a white rider.

 

[freezeradio]

Maby there is a hidden law that doctors go by. Maby It IS racial. It would be sad . But you cant rule out the RACIAL card in todays messed up society. I'm just sayin.

 

[CVI-Cowboy]

Whatever the underlying issue(s), I don't think you can dispute the findings that a black rider is more likely to die from injuries sustained from motorcycle injuries than a white rider.

Sorry, but I do not blindly accept the premise. If the study had a predetermined goal, they could have played with the numbers to make the ratio as far out of whack as possible.

Why is it lumped into black and white? What bucket do native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Aborigines, Pakistanis get included in?

???Were people of mixed race excluded from the findings???

???If a person was 1/16 black, what category did they go into? Did it depend on their outcome (alive or dead)???

???If you don't know all of the facts and variables, you can't just except someones findings???

All that said, It would be interesting if this was studied by a group like ABATE that was not fishing for grants or trying to get some professor better cocktail party invitations.

 

[aussiejack]

If all things were equal and race was the difference I expect it would show up in a sport such as boxing where reaction to injury has a long history.
Statisticians and accountants can be creative people who sometimes turn into lawyers and politicians. Get enough together and you get a global financial crisis.
Apart from that we are in safe hands. Now I will step off my hobby horse. Many smart people were mentioned in my response, but not many wise people. Whoops forgot to dismount.

 

[Keith Grey]

Why is it lumped into black and white? What bucket do native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Aborigines, Pakistanis get included in?

???Were people of mixed race excluded from the findings???

???If a person was 1/16 black, what category did they go into? Did it depend on their outcome (alive or dead)???

All that said, It would be interesting if this was studied by a group like ABATE that was not fishing for grants or trying to get some professor better cocktail party invitations.

++1 Cowboy
My work for the US Gov't leads me to believe that since there was no "mixed race" or Bi-Racial talking points it is much more likely a case of have, and have not in regards to Medical Facility Quality and Availability, as well as depth of insurance. Money Talks.

The two groups who folks with an agenda need to inflame with this crap, are; Not too bright politicians who react as desired when the numbers are higher, and the even LESS intelligent mindless Biggots.(If you have a few cultural or anecdotal biases, that doesn't include you BTW)

While Tribal Culture has narrowed their legal definition for inclusion as their income has gone up. It pays the kneejerk reactionaries to call bi-racial people African-Americans, even though they may be 3/4 caucasion and can as easily be identified as Latino, Native American or perhaps Mestizo or even Middle-Eastern.

Race for me is a distinction without a difference. What no one seems to clearly define in our country without the race card, is little$ vs BIG$.
This is one of the easy tricks the Insurance Co.s use to keep smart americans hating the idea of National Health Care. Please notice I didn't say "Health Insurance" before you give me a beatdown over this.

Ooops still ranting, sorry for the side track,

 

[Hobb]

I do statistical reporting for a living, and first off, kudos to everyone who's posted for critical thinking! Stats are given way too much weight, with way too little thought given to where the data came from, how they were generated, what definitions were used, or who's funding the study.

Second, the original article was utter crap.

Third, the actual study looks pretty straight-forward to me (thanks for posting it, dsjr70, you rock!). The lack of a conclusion isn't a bid for more funding -- at least no more so than any other scholarly study -- but rather an acknowledgement that they only looked at certain factors, and so can't draw conclusions based on data they didn't look at. For example, they can't say ER folks are racist, 'cause they didn't measure their attitudes towards race.

To me, the implication is pretty clear. The researchers couldn't responsibly say it, but I can, since I'm now officially just some guy on the internet. It looks like an income/geographic location (i.e., hospital) thing to me. My guess is that african americans tend to make less money than whites (even after controlling for insurance status), and so live in poorer neighborhoods, and so when they crash they tend to get taken to worse hospitals. I'd guess that each hospital treats blacks and whites the same, but the ones with fewer resources and higher patient counts get more black patients, and the nicer hospitals with more individualized care and higher-paid, maybe even better educated doctors get more white patients, just due to the fact that rich people are are more likely to be white (or vice versa, if you prefer). I'd be very curious to see what the results look like when controls are added for income. Given their methodology, it would be tough to control for geographic location, but I'd also be curious to see how motorcycle crash death rates (or any death rates) for hospitals correlate with proportion of patients who are black. I imagine it's kind of the same thing as how inner-city schools seem to have both fewer resources and worse educational outcomes.

Sorry for the long post -- I get excited about numbers. I'll just finish up by saying that certain factors -- income, ethnicity, and health problems, for example -- all tend to have relatively strong correlations, so it can sometimes be difficult to tease out which factor is playing the most important role.