Ohio State Highway Patrol urges motorcycle safety; Over 4,000 motorcycle crashes in 2021

DAYTON — New numbers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol suggest that Ohio Roads are getting more dangerous for motorcyclists.

In 2021, there were over 4,000 crashes involving motorcyclists in the state of Ohio, more than 200 of those were deadly.

Nearly 1,200 of them lead to serious injuries.

One Ohio rider shared his story with OSP about how he nearly died in a motorcycle crash.

Wells said he wasn’t going fast when he crashed, around 40 miles per hour, but he still lost control.

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“I come into a turn, and I realized as I started into that turn I’m not leaning the bike to go around the turn, I can’t lean... and the bike is going to slide out from under me, and I go straight across the road, hit the guardrail, and slide down the guard rail,” Ken Wells said.

Wells said his leg was between the guardrail and the bike and seriously injured.

He said the crash could have easily been much worse.

“I was fortunate that day. I went across the left lane, there was nothing coming. I could’ve been... it could’ve been a whole lot worse. I could have killed somebody else,” Wells added.

Wells said he didn’t think he needed to take classes or put in a lot of practice on his bike as he had experience with dirt bikes.

If he had one piece of advice Wells said he would urge all riders to practice on their motorcycles before taking it out on the road.

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