- Utah saw a spike in motorcycle fatalities, with 14 deaths in July the deadliest month ever in Utah for motorcylists.
- Only 37% of riders involved in fatal crashes had a motorcycle license endorsement, UHP says.
- Safety advocates urge riders to wear gear, avoid reckless driving and get training.
DRAPER — Darby Coffen says motorcycle riders should always wear the proper safety gear and check their equipment before going on any rides.
But above all else: "Just don't be stupid."
On Thursday, Coffen joined members of the Utah Department of Public Safety at Edge Powersports, 14301 S. Minuteman Drive, to urge motorcyclists to change the way they ride on Utah's roads. The call for increased safety habits comes on the heels of an "alarming spike" in motorcycle fatalities in July which is now the deadliest month ever for motorcyclists.
Fourteen riders were killed in Utah in July, "shattering" the previous record for motorcyclists killed during a single month, according to the Utah Highway Safety Office. As of Wednesday, a total of 44 motorcyclists have been killed in 2025 in Utah, which is already more than all of 2023.
The state is on pace to exceed last year's record of 53 motorcycle fatalities.
Only 37% of the riders involved in fatal crashes this year had a motorcycle license endorsement, said UHP Major Jeff Nigbur, meaning 63% did not. Just under 10% of those killed had ever taken a motorcycle safety course, he said.
The top contributors to fatal crashes include failure to yield the right of way, reckless driving, aggressive driving, disregarding traffic signs and signals, and failing to stay in a lane, which Nigbur says mainly involves motorcyclists going into a turn too fast and not knowing how to negotiate the curve in the road.
"It is not worth your life. Speeding, taking corners too fast, splitting traffic, things of that nature are not worth your life. Because guess what? If you make a mistake — and you can, going that fast — you will die," he said.
"I see motorcyclists being careless every day. Specifically, lane splitting is a big problem right now," Nigbur continued.
In Utah, motorcyclists are allowed to move to the front of the line at a stop sign or red light by driving between cars on roads where the speed limit is 45 mph or less.
"But for whatever reason, our motorcycle community has taken that to mean lane splitting, and lane splitting is 100% illegal in this state and is not lane filtering. Lane splitting, which we're starting to see a lot more of, is motorcycles at freeway speeds, 70-80mph, that are going in between cars on the lane lines. And that is just not super smart," he said.
'Dad is not coming home'
Charlie Coffen, 28, was an experienced motorcycle rider who was involved in the racing community. In July 2024, he was in Moab for a bachelor party and ended up taking a ride on his friend's dirt bike. Coffen always wore a helmet and appropriate safety gear, his widow, Darby Coffen, said Thursday. But for whatever reason, he did not wear a helmet on that day and he rode on a trail that had a blind corner.
"And in front of him was a 10-foot cliff," she recalled while pausing to fight back tears. "And he fell off that cliff and he hit his head. Try explaining that to a 4-year-old and a 5-year-old, that their dad is not coming home."
Coffen shared her husband's story to encourage other riders to always "expect the worst but hope for the best. Prepare for a crash, but hope that you won't crash. I hope that's not too harsh to say, but that's the reality of it."
She was taking her young sons to a high school play on that day when she got the phone call that Charlie had been in a crash. Just as she and a friend were preparing to drive from Provo to Moab to be with him, she got another call that her husband had died.
But during the drive to Moab, Darby Coffen said she was able to "talk" to her husband.
"I felt his spirit very close to me and I could feel him holding my hand and he was sitting right in the car with us," she said. "I was happy that I could still feel him really close to me, and I was hoping that it would stay like that forever, how I could feel him so close and how I could talk to him and he would talk back to me. And then the next morning I couldn't feel that anymore and I couldn't hear him anymore."
That morning, she said she went into the bathroom of her motel room and she heard a bell. At first, she thought it was possibly caused by something hitting the shower rod. But when she realized the rod was plastic. She remembered a line from the movie "It's A Wonderful Life": "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings."
"That was him telling me that he got his wings and that he was OK. That was a very personal way of him telling me he was going to be OK and I was going to be OK," she said.
Coffen says you never get over a loss like that and it never gets easier, but life goes on.
"You just have to work with what you've got now and have a good support system," she said.
She encourages other motorcyclists to remember, "You're not the only one on the road," and that sometimes it's not what you're doing that will cause a crash but what others around you do who are not paying attention.
Bryan Green, the owner of Edge Powersports, concurred that riders should "assume the car community cannot see" them, and automobile drivers also cannot properly judge the speed of a motorcycle. But he also encourages new riders to get the proper training and not let the excitement of getting a motorcycle cause a new rider to do something that exceeds their skill level.
"And above all else, do not do stupid things on motorcycles because you are so, so vulnerable on those," Nigbur reiterated.
