I used to be an EMT in the US. I also was an avid motorcycle rider for many, many years. And an avid bicycle rider for even longer.
It is dramatically easier to screw yourself up on bicycles
and motorcycles than cars. It’s frankly shocking how stupid someone can be in a modern car and survive.
It doesn’t require another car to kill someone on a motorcycle or bicycle, but the squids tend to filter themselves out pretty quickly. Many of them actively collide with cars due to their own recklessness and/or stupidity, making the statistics somewhat hard to interpret.
Was the 80 year old driving the RV ‘the cause’ of the head on collision, or the 22 year old with the 1.5l super bike illegally passing over a double yellow at 50 over the speed limit around a corner?
I can provide graphic details of who ended up winning in that situation, regardless.
If everyone had to ride instead of drive (including drunks, soccer moms, burnt out graveyard shift workers, medical workers on their second 24 hour shift, retirees, etc), you’d see a lot more dead folks overall.
Because even though cars are also more dangerous to other people, for the most part, those other people are in cars in the US, and the danger still generally cancels out.
Even head on collisions at highway speeds are more survivable than anyone should reasonably be able to expect.
Vehicle vs ped calls are still the worst though.
Protip: don’t get out of your car after an accident on the highway unless you’re really really sure you can see all other traffic. Chances are you can’t, especially at night. Especially when the drunk coming the wrong way on the highway never turned on their headlights. Wait for the firefighters to physically block the road with their rigs first. That was a gnarly call.