The powered two‐wheeler (PTW) riders is a group where fatalities are not decreasing at the same rate as for other road‐users. It is also a group that is likely to increase in the future due to traffic congestion. To develop countermeasures to protect PTW drivers, it is necessary to understand the accident event in detail, the injuries and their sources.

The German database GIDAS was queried for PTW crashes where the driver was injured (cases with passengers were excluded). During the time period 1999–2014, cases involving 3,361 PTW drivers were collected, sustaining 10,917 injuries. Eighty (80) drivers sustained fatal injuries in 79 crashes. The fatal cases were selected for detailed study regarding injuries and their sources.

Each case was studied in detail to conclude the detailed accident event and the most likely source of fatal injury. It was found that PTW losing control and PTW not being noticed by another vehicle were the most common accident scenarios leading to a fatal PTW crash. The most common injury sources were passenger cars, especially the lower parts of the cars, followed by surrounding objects, mainly guard‐rails and trees.

A battery of countermeasures was proposed to improve the protection of PTW drivers from fatal accidents. Countermeasures that are worth promoting or investigating further are innovative helmet or jacket designs, improved PTW visibility, guard‐rail redesign, anti‐lock brakes and stability control, car‐/truck‐mounted warning and auto‐brake systems, improved car frontal energy absorption and under‐run protection for heavy vehicles.