Sapulpa police responded to the second accident involving a motorcycle on Thursday evening less than two miles away and on the same street as the first incident reported earlier this afternoon.
According to officers at the scene, at around 9:20 pm this evening, a motorcyclist was heading northbound on Highway 75-Alternate when he told police he hit a “possum or small animal” and was thrown from his bike just south of Teel Road.
The toppled motorcycle then slid along the asphalt for at least another 300 feet and collided with a dark-colored Chevrolet SUV traveling southbound toward Keifer.
The driver of the motorcycle, who police say was not wearing a helmet, was transported to the hospital with what police are calling “severe, but likely not life-threatening injuries.” The driver and occupant in the other vehicle were not injured, but are shook up.
Police still had the road blocked as of 11:00 pm Thursday evening and an officer was redirecting southbound traffic to an alternate route.
Saferoads.org says that motorcycles are the most hazardous form of motor vehicle transportation. “In 2020, 5,579 motorcyclists were killed, an 11 percent increase from the previous year, and 82,528 were injured” in the US.
That site also reported “8.7 times as many unhelmeted fatalities (1,670 fatalities) in states without a universal helmet law compared to states with a universal helmet law (192 fatalities). Oklahoma does not legally require a helmet unless the driver is under 18 years of age.
