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Posted on 03/12/2006 1:06:35 PM PST by martin_fierro
Bike Week Deaths Worst In Event's History
18 Deaths Most in 65 years
(CBS4 News) DAYTONA BEACH Bike Week in Daytona beach ends today, and this year’s event will go down in history as the deadliest gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts in the event’s 65 year history.
18 motorcyclists have died in the past nine days, three more than the previous deadliest Bike Week in 2000. The Florida Highway Patrol says three bikers died in separate accidents Saturday, and four died on Friday.
Tens of thousands of bikers flock to Daytona each spring for the event, which celebrates motorcycles and bike culture. The FHP is blaming sunnie skies and good weather for the increase in deaths.
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My friend Andy is at bike week. Every time I hear the news of another crushed biker, I wonder if I'll be seeing him next week.
Bush's fault!!!
Kumbaya... Blah, blah, blah... yada, yada, yada....
Wow that's bad. Usually it's not so high.
Better dead than crippled for life.
*flame proof suit firmly zipped*
You couldn't pay me to go to Bike Week. I'd MUCH rather be enjoying twisties and sweepers! LOL
*flame proof suit firmly zipped*
You couldn't pay me to go to Bike Week. I'd MUCH rather be enjoying twisties and sweepers! LOL
*Hic*
My wife took my two year old daughter to bike week a few years ago. She went with her parents. Though she didn't actually transport the kid on the bike.
I was not travelling with them and said something about not thinking it was a good place for a two year old.
What does "sunnie skies" mean? I assume it is a meteorological condition caused by public school education.
The stats are skewed.
They include ANY motorcycle related death anywhere in the State, even if nots not associated with Bike Week.
CBS, AP and others are doing this. The News Journals website has a more accurate nuumber. It is high.
However MOST of the deaths are due to drivers of four wheeled vehicles either running over bikers from behind or pulling out into traffic into oncming bikers.
Not many of the deaths are the fault of the bikers.
BTW I think there is a record number of bikers in town.
And I live right off a State Road and I don't ever recall hearing as many ambulance sirens as I have this year....
Where is Murtha on this? He should be in front of the TV cameras screaming.
The odometer on Robert Fliss' new Harley-Davidson motorcycle read 72.5 miles when he crashed and died Saturday.
Fliss, 51, had just bought the motorcycle amid the Bike Week festivities at Destination Daytona north of Ormond Beach and was riding it home to St. Cloud when he lost control around a curve and skidded into a construction site, authorities said.
That wreck happened in Brevard County. Bikers also were killed Saturday in Daytona Beach and near Ormond Beach, pushing the death toll for what was already the deadliest Bike Week on record in Volusia and Flagler counties to 14. When Fliss' death and three others since March 3 in Orange, Seminole and St. Johns counties are added in, a record-breaking 18 Bike-Week-related deaths have been tallied across Central Florida this year. The previous high body counts for the 10-day annual motorcycle rally were 10 in the Volusia/Flagler area in 2000 and 2002, and 15 throughout the larger region in 2000.
And today bikers haul tail out of the area.
More people were drawn to the area this year because of fair weather, said Mark O'Keefe, EVAC ambulance spokesman.
"The cold, hard reality is we have seen a rise in all types of calls," he said.
Locally, a West Palm Beach man died Saturday after he lost control of his motorcycle and struck a guardrail, authorities said.
Brian Rooke, 34, entered the on-ramp for Interstate 95 southbound about 3:45 p.m. from International Speedway Boulevard in Daytona Beach. As he was taking the curve, he lost control of his motorcycle, skidded, and crashed into the guardrail.
He was not wearing a helmet.
A 44-year-old man died on State Road 40 near the intersection of Pinewood Road west of Ormond Beach, Florida Highway Patrol spokeswoman Trooper Kim Miller said. The Naples man was riding west on S.R. 40 about 6:50 p.m. when he attempted to pass a truck and collided head-on with an eastbound motorcycle. The head-on collision caused a chain reaction crash with three other vehicles that closed S.R. 40 for nearly four hours.
The Naples man, who was not wearing a helmet, died at the scene. The Indiana man on the eastbound motorcycle was flown to Halifax Medical Center in critical condition. Nobody else was seriously injured in the accident, Miller said. Names were not available Saturday night because family members had not been notified.
Also Saturday, Mark DeMaster, 43, of DeLand, remained in critical condition at Halifax Medical Center after an accident Thursday night in Samsula that killed an Edgewater man. DeMaster is a sergeant in the DeLand Police Department's patrol division.
Miller attributed the rise in deaths to the sheer number of people riding motorcycles in the area. Some may not be experienced riders, she said, and motorists are not used to the volume of motorcyclists on the road.
Though there have been many types of accidents, all shared one common trait: a mistake.
"A little mistake," she said, "can turn into a deadly one." http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD01B031206.htm
I'd have to agree.
As opposed to Shiite skies.
Just the year before a beer hag had been killed when the guy parachuting into the cole slaw wrestling pit missed and landed on her........
I know its sad but its also so insane I still laugh thinking about it.
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