The Most Dangerous Ways to Travel in the U.S.

If there were ever doubts as to the inherent dangers of riding a motorcycle, figures from Ian Savage at Northwestern University should put paid to them. In his research paper entitled 'Comparing the fatality risks in United States transportation acrossmodes and over time', Savage analyzes the number of passenger fatalities per billion passenger miles in the U.S. from 2000 to 2009.

With a rate of 212.57, riding a motorcycle is by far the most deadly way to get around - an enormous distance ahead of the second-most dangerous mode of transport - a car or light truck - with 7.28 fatalities per billion passenger miles. To give this some more perspetive, Savage writes: "A motorcyclist who traveled 15 miles every day for a year, had an astonishing 1 in 860 chance of dying. The rate per passenger mile was 29 times that for automobiles and light trucks."