Are California Motorcycle Fatalities Getting Better or Worse?

A decade of data shows a complicated answer — and one number that should concern every rider.

By Steven M. Sweat, Personal Injury Lawyers, APC | May 2026 | Sources: NHTSA FARS, UC Berkeley SafeTREC, California OTS, CHP/SWITRS

The short answer is: better than last year, but worse than a decade ago — and considerably worse than the national trend suggests it should be. That nuance matters, because California’s motorcycle safety story is not a simple arc in either direction. It is a series of spikes, plateaus, and partial recoveries that add up to a persistent problem.

The most recent finalized data — from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), UC Berkeley SafeTREC, and NHTSA — shows that 583 motorcyclists were killed in California in 2023, down 10.2% from the 649 deaths recorded in 2022. That is genuine progress. But 583 is still roughly 19% higher than California’s pre-pandemic 2019 total of approximately 491.

So which is it — better or worse? The honest answer depends on which baseline you choose. And understanding why that baseline matters is the point of this article.

The Last Decade: What the Data Actually Shows

Looking at a decade of SafeTREC and NHTSA data produces a picture most people would not expect. California motorcycle fatalities did not trend steadily upward or downward — they oscillated, with a sharp pandemic-era spike that has only partially unwound.

Year	CA Fatalities	Nat’l Fatalities	CA YoY Change	Context
2014	488	4,594	—	Pre-spike baseline (SafeTREC)
2018	488	4,985	0% vs. 2014	CA held flat; national +8.5%
2019	~491	5,014	+0.6%	Final pre-pandemic year
2020	539	5,579	+9.8%	Pandemic: less traffic, more risk-taking
2021	565	5,932	+4.8%	Continued spike; alcohol-impaired +18.8%
2022	649*	6,218	+14.9%	Near-record; CA 2-yr plateau begins (*OTS figure; SafeTREC shows 634)
2023	583	6,335	−10.2%	Largest CA decline in recent years
2024 (prelim.)	~545–560	6,228 (est.)	~−4% (est.)	Preliminary SWITRS / NHTSA early estimate

Sources: UC Berkeley SafeTREC Motorcycle Safety Facts (2020, 2023, 2024, 2025); NHTSA FARS 2014–2022 Final Files and 2023 ARF; NHTSA Early Estimates 2024; California OTS Quick Stats July 2025. *2022 CA figure: OTS reports 649; SafeTREC’s FARS-based figure is 634 — the difference reflects timing of preliminary vs. final FARS data. OTS figure used for YoY calculation.

A few things stand out in this data:

2020–2022 was the worst three-year stretch in recent California motorcycle history. Pandemic conditions — less congestion, higher speeds, more impaired driving — drove fatalities sharply higher. California went from approximately 491 deaths in 2019 to 649 in 2022, a 32% increase in three years.
2023 reversed course — but only partially. The 10.2% decline is the largest single-year improvement in recent years and outpaced every other vehicle category in the OTS dataset. But 583 deaths is still the third-highest California total since 2014.
California is doing better than the nation — but that is a low bar. Nationally, 2023 set an all-time record of 6,335 motorcycle fatalities — the highest since NHTSA began keeping records in 1975. California improved while the national figure worsened. That is a meaningful distinction, but it does not mean California has solved the problem.
The pre-pandemic baseline is not as safe as it looks. Even 2019’s approximately 491 deaths represented a historically elevated number — the 2014 figure was about 488, meaning the state had made essentially no net progress over five years before the pandemic arrived.

Why the Fatality Rate Matters More Than the Raw Number

Raw fatality counts are influenced by how many motorcycles are registered and how many miles are ridden. A better measure is the fatality rate per 100,000 registered motorcycles — which strips out population growth and registration trends.

66.57 fatalities per 100,000 registered motorcycles in California — 2023.

Down from 68.05 in 2022. Source: UC Berkeley SafeTREC / OTS 2025.

This rate-based measure tells a somewhat more optimistic story than the raw numbers. California’s per-registration fatality rate in 2023 is meaningfully below its pandemic-era peak. But it remains well above the rates seen in the early 2010s, when the state was averaging closer to 55–60 fatalities per 100,000 registered motorcycles.

The national picture on this metric is bleaker. Per vehicle mile traveled, motorcyclists nationally are 28 times more likely to die in a crash than passenger car occupants — 31.39 fatalities per 100 million VMT for motorcyclists vs. 1.13 for passenger cars. That disparity has widened, not narrowed, over the past decade, even as vehicle safety technology has improved dramatically for enclosed vehicles. Motorcycles have not benefited from the same trajectory of airbag, crumple zone, and automatic emergency braking improvements.

What Drove the 2020–2022 Spike

The pandemic-era surge was not random. It had identifiable causes that safety researchers documented in real time:

Speed: Emptier roads in 2020 and 2021 encouraged higher riding speeds. Unsafe speed is already the #1 crash factor in California motorcycle fatal and serious injury crashes — responsible for 28.2% of incidents in 2023 — and the pandemic made that problem worse. (UC Berkeley SafeTREC 2025)
Impairment: Nationally, alcohol-impaired drivers in fatal motorcycle crashes increased 18.8% between 2020 and 2021 alone. In California, alcohol and drug impairment contributed to 8.7% of fatal and serious motorcycle crashes as the coded primary factor in 2023 — but actual DUI involvement in fatal-only crashes is substantially higher. (SafeTREC 2023, NHTSA)
Reduced law enforcement presence: Traffic enforcement dropped significantly during the pandemic. Citations for speeding and impaired driving fell, removing a deterrent that road safety research consistently shows reduces crash rates.
Risk compensation: Behavioral research suggests that people who survived the pandemic’s early phases were more likely to engage in higher-risk activities. This translated directly into higher-speed, higher-impairment riding patterns that persisted into 2021 and 2022.

The 2023 improvement likely reflects a return toward baseline conditions — not a structural safety breakthrough. Traffic patterns have normalized, enforcement has recovered, and the behavioral anomalies of 2020–2022 have partially unwound. The question for 2024 and beyond is whether California can push below the pre-pandemic baseline — or whether it returns to the slow, stagnant trend that characterized 2014–2019.

What Would ‘Actually Getting Better’ Look Like?

Progress in motorcycle safety requires movement on the factors that researchers have identified as primary drivers. Based on the California data, genuine improvement would mean:

A sustained reduction in unsafe speed violations — the leading crash factor at 28.2% of fatal and serious injury incidents. This requires both enforcement and road design, particularly on the high-speed rural and desert corridors in Riverside, San Bernardino, and Kern counties where per-capita fatality rates are highest.
Reduced left-turn and right-of-way violations by other drivers — together responsible for approximately 39% of California fatal and serious motorcycle crashes. This is a driver awareness and infrastructure problem as much as a rider safety problem. Improved intersection design and public education campaigns are the primary levers.
Higher awareness of lane splitting legality among car drivers — UC Berkeley SafeTREC found that only about 53% of California car drivers knew lane splitting was legal at the time of their study. Drivers who do not expect a motorcycle between lanes are more likely to make dangerous lane changes without checking.
Continued high helmet compliance — California’s 94% helmet use rate among motorcyclists killed in crashes is well above the national average of 65% (for 2023 — national DOT-compliant helmet use was 73.8% per NOPUS). Helmet compliance has been a consistent California strength and should be maintained.

For a complete breakdown of crash causes, county-level data, lane-splitting research findings, and economic cost analysis, the full California motorcycle accident statistics resource at victimslawyer.com compiles all available data from NHTSA, OTS, SafeTREC, and CHP/SWITRS in one place.

So: Better or Worse?

Better than 2022. Better than the national trend in 2023. But still worse than 2019, and significantly worse than 2014. The 2023 improvement is real and should be acknowledged — but it does not close the gap opened by the pandemic-era spike, and it does not reflect a structural change in the conditions that make California motorcycle riding dangerous.

The most honest framing: California motorcycle safety has been moving in a long, slow negative direction for a decade, interrupted by a sharp pandemic-era spike and a partial 2023 recovery. If the 2024 preliminary data holds — suggesting another modest decline to around 545–560 fatalities — that would represent two consecutive years of improvement. That is the trajectory California needs, sustained over many years, to get back to and below the pre-pandemic baseline.

Two consecutive years of decline (2023 and projected 2024) would be the first since 2016–2017.

That matters — but sustained improvement requires movement on speed, left-turn awareness, and impairment, not just baseline normalization.

If You Were Injured in a California Motorcycle Crash

Statistics describe patterns. When a crash happens, it is not a statistic — it is a collision caused by a specific driver’s specific failure, on a specific road, at a specific moment. In California, the data consistently shows that the majority of serious and fatal motorcycle crashes involve driver error by the other vehicle — left-turn violations, right-of-way failures, unsafe lane changes. California’s pure comparative negligence rule means you can recover even if you bear some portion of fault.

Steven M. Sweat has represented injured motorcycle riders across California for more than 30 years. If you or someone you know has been hurt in a motorcycle accident anywhere in the state, contact our firm for a free, confidential consultation. We handle all motorcycle accident cases on a contingency-fee basis — no fee unless we recover compensation for you. Call 866-966-5240 or visit our motorcycle accident attorney in California practice area page for more information.

Sources

UC Berkeley SafeTREC, Motorcycle Safety Facts (2020, 2023, 2024, 2025 editions)
California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), Traffic Safety Quick Stats, July 2025
NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2014–2023 Annual Report Files
NHTSA Early Estimates 2024 (DOT HS 813 710)
CHP Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS), 2020–2024
NHTSA National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS), 2023
GHSA Motorcycles and Traffic Safety, 2024