Insurance Companies Say “It’s Past Time” For Feds To Mandate ABS

[advrider]

This just in: insurance companies from the US are very worried about you, their customers. And as such, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) are petitioning the US federal government to make ABS mandatory for motorcycles.

The news about this latest petition (they’ve done this before) came from a press release on the IIHS/HLDI website on November 13. You can read the whole thing here, but here’s the gist of it:

• ABS is increasingly common on motorcycles. Between 2013 and 2023, ABS-equipped bikes went from 20 percent of US sales to 59 percent of US sales, and the EU’s 27 states, the UK, along with Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, India and Brazil have all mandated the tech on new motorcycles.
• The IIHS Director of Statistical Services says fatal crash rates for bikes with optional ABS are 22 percent lower than the bikes sold without the technology. This is supposed to be true across the world of motorcycling, from cruisers to sportbikes.
• Across all machines, the HLDI says its research shows bikes with ABS have 21-24 percent lower collision claims than bikes without ABS.
• According to the insurers, European researchers say ABS adoption meant “large” reductions in fatalities and injuries from motorcycle crashes in 2015 and 2016, confirming earlier research.
• While ABS can create problems when antilock brakes free-wheel over gravel or loose surfaces, the insurance bodies say this is addressable with an “off” switch, similar to what’s currently seen on many adventure bikes.
• This isn’t the first time the insurers have asked the NHTSA to make ABS mandatory on all new motorcycles, and they say lives have been unnecessarily lost as a result of the delay in adoption.

David Harkey, president of the IIHS-HLDI organization, says the US should be taking a leadership position in safety regulations, or at least keeping up with the rest of the countries in the world as they adopt new technology. The PR closes out with this note:

No technology can prevent every crash or fatality, and even with a government mandate it will be years before every motorcycle on the road is equipped with ABS. But with motorcyclist crash fatalities reaching a record high of 6,084 deaths in 2021, the latest year of data currently available, accelerating adoption with a well-designed regulation is crucial.

Some thoughts

The above lines were written just to tell you what the insurers are saying, not to editorialize either way. Nobody at ADVrider is saying the US government needs to mandate ABS on new motorcycles, or that it shouldn’t. Nevertheless, this announcement certainly ties into thoughts explored earlier this year, in the piece below:

The War On Crashing

Where is it all headed? Should government mandate ABS on new bikes? We’ll probably revisit this stuff in another state-of-the-union piece soon, but while we work on that, sound off below, please! Tell us: Do you think ABS should be mandatory or not, and why?

 

 

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