In The Denver Gazette, reporter Scott Weiser puts names, faces, and numbers to Colorado’s surge in motorcycle deaths. The story centers on 20-year-old rider Chelsie Willing, who was killed April 17, 2025, when a car pulled out in front of her in Colorado Springs. Her family describes a community shattered and a memorial that keeps growing. The author is Scott Weiser.
Weiser lays out the hard stats: Colorado recorded 165 motorcyclist fatalities in 2024, the most on record, and roughly 115 so far in 2025. Motorcycles make up just 3 percent of registered vehicles but account for about 24 percent of traffic deaths. Intersections dominate as crash locations. Nearly half of riders killed in 2024 were not wearing helmets. The piece quotes attorney Jerry Bowman on inattentive motorists and on confusion between illegal lane splitting and legal lane filtering. Colorado State Patrol Chief Col. Matthew Packard urges riders to gear up and practice, and reminds drivers to look twice.
The Bullet Point Brief
• One family’s loss. Chelsie Willing’s death at 20 is the human cost behind the statistics, and her memorial keeps growing.
• The surge is real. 165 motorcyclist deaths in 2024 and an estimated 115 in 2025 so far. Small share of vehicles, big share of fatalities.
• Helmets matter. State patrol data says 44 percent of riders killed in 2024 were not wearing helmets. Gear up like your life depends on it.
• Look twice, then look again. Bowman cites phone-distracted drivers and widespread confusion about lane filtering vs lane splitting.
• Where and when. Intersections and urban arterials lead the danger list. Younger riders are heavily represented in recent years.
My Bottom Line
First, the obvious. Drivers need to pull their heads out of their phones. It is not optional. It is the law. If you are piloting two tons of steel, act like it. At the same time, more new riders are discovering bikes for passion and affordability. That means training and gear are not accessories. They are survival.
Here is the part the article does not dwell on but Coloradans feel every commute. There are too many cars on roads that have not kept pace with population. CDOT’s ruling class treats capacity like a sin because someone told them lanes equal greenhouse gas. So they choke projects, push unreliable transit, and call the resulting misery a plan. It is not. Congested, stop-and-go corridors are dangerous for everyone, especially riders.
If we want fewer headlines like Chelsie’s, do the simple things well. Phones down. Eyes up. Clear, enforced rules on filtering vs splitting. Real rider training. Helmets. And yes, build the capacity where the people actually live and drive. Safety is not a sermon. It is results.
Source: The Denver Gazette
