INDIANAPOLIS — Kent Abernathy, Commissioner of the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, announced today that the BMV and Ride Safe Indiana will be participating in the Motorcycle Safety Awareness Rally Thursday, May 5 on Monument Circle in Indianapolis to kick off Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month in May. The rally is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Commissioner Abernathy is giving remarks at 12:15 p.m.

“I’m happy to be speaking at this year’s rally and hope to help raise awareness of the importance of motorcycle safety,” said Abernathy. “We understand there is more to motorcycle safety than teaching motorcyclists how to properly ride. If we don’t also educate Hoosier drivers how to share the roadways with motorcycles, we are doing everyone a disservice.”

According to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 4,586 motorcyclists were killed in 2014 in traffic crashes, a decrease of 2.3 percent from 2013 (4,692). Those deaths account for 14 percent of the total highway fatalities that year, despite motorcycle registrations representing only 3 percent of all vehicles in the United States in 2014. Injured motorcyclists also decreased from 93,000 in 2013 to 88,000 in 2014.

For more information on motorcycle safety, visit the website, here.