Anyone have any Motorcycle Safety Crash Data?

Unfortunately I work with personnel who believe motorcycles are the most dangerous things in the world.  Mind you I am having this conversation with fellow Paratroopers deployed here in Baghdad, Iraq (that's not dangerous, right?).  Anyhow, does anyone have any data on the ratio of motorcycle fatalities per motorcycle owners in US compared to automobile fatalities per automobile owners in the US?  I want to know what I am talking about before I get pulled into this discussion again.  

You can find the stats in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Traffic Safety Facts 2003 (PDF, 2004 edition not yet available).

It's not pretty. Per registered vehicle, 4 times more motorcyclists die per year than car drivers. Per mile driven, it's much worse than that.

As I see it, the risk isn't in the motorcycle, it's in the rider. Motorcycling attracts risk-takers, and they tend to get injured in everything they do. But there's still a wide variation. Some riders can go for many years without a crash while others wad their first bike on the way home from the dealer.

You're not going to convince anyone that motorcycles are safe. The best you can hope for is to show by your example that with a healthy respect and for the skill required, for the inherent hazards, and for your own mortality that it is possible to ride safely.  

I wrote a story for my Computer Assisted Reporting class last semester about helmet usage, here are some of the stats I used:

-Riders are 23 times more likely to die in a crash than passenger car occupants.

- In 2002, the automobile fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled was 1.51.  For motorcycles the fatality rate was 34.3 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.  

- Motorcycles account for 2% of registered vehicles, .3% of vehicle miles traveled and nearly 10% of traffic fatalities.


Something else interesting I found by looking at my story that I will also post in the thread about helmet laws:

Helmet laws may also reduce the number of motorcycle thefts.  After Texas enacted a compulsory helmet law motorcycle thefts in 19 Texas cities declined 44 percent from 1988 to 1990, according to www.hwysafety.org, Web site for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.  
“And in former West Germany, where on-the-spot fines were introduced in 1980, motorcycle thefts plummeted 60 percent,” according to www.hwysafety.org.  

Hey i'm in the military also.  And if i'm gonna risk my life going to Iraq to make some guys pockets fat, i'm defenitly going to take a risk on a bike and have some fun.  I know quite a few people who would rather ride a motorcyle than go to Iraq any day.