STURGIS, S.D. (KELO) — Throughout the Sturgis Rally, law enforcement agencies are tracking crashes and crimes.
The South Dakota Department of Public Safety releases a Sturgis Rally Tally – a 24-hour (6 a.m. to 6 a.m.) recap for crashes, DUI arrests, drug arrests, citations and warnings for both Sturgis and the Rapid City district.
The second Sturgis Rally Tally, through 6 a.m. Monday, has been released. You can view in the graph below.
Note: Rally Tally numbers from DPS do not include data from the Rally’s official opening day Friday, Aug. 5.
There have been 61 DUI arrests, which is up from 50 at the same date in 2021. There have been 22 injury crashes, two less than the 24 at this date in 2021. There have been two deaths from crashes so far.
For drug arrests, there’s been 59 misdemeanor drug arrests, up from 57 at the same time in 2021. There’s been 31 felony drug arrests, up from 30 in 2021.
For 2021, there were 60 injury crashes, four that were fatal, 50 non-injury crashes, 122 DUI arrests, 151 misdemeanor drug arrests, 112 felony drug arrests, 1,572 citations and 4,319 warnings.
Day 3 crashes
From 6 a.m. Monday to 6 a.m. Tuesday, there were eight injury crashes and no fatal crashes.
There’s been a total of two fatal crashes since the rally officially started.
Day 2 crashes
A 51-year-old man was killed in a crash at 2:25 p.m. Sunday on Interstate 90 mile-marker 47, two miles west of Summerset.
An eastbound 1986 Honda GLI200 motorcycle swerved to miss an eastbound 2006 GMC Envoy which was ahead of it. The motorcycle hit the Envoy and the driver was thrown from the motorcycle.
The 51-year-old man was also driving eastbound in 2005 Harley Davidson FLHRS Road King motorcycle and hit the first motorcycle that was lying in the roadway. The 51-year-old man was thrown from the motorcycle and was pronounced dead at the scene. He was wearing a helmet.
A 64-year-old man was the driver of the Honda motorcycle and suffered serious non-life threatening injuries. He was taken to the Sturgis hospital, and he was not wearing a helmet.
The 48-year-old male driver of the Envoy was not injured. Seatbelt use is under investigation.
There were 10 injury crashes from 10:45 a.m. Sunday to 2:15 a.m. Monday.
A 73-year-old woman is facing life threatening injuries after a mechanical failure caused a 74-year-old man to lose control of a motorcycle on Interstate 90 near mile marker 78 by the New Underwood exit.
Both passengers were thrown from the motorcycle. The 74-year-old man sustained minor injuries. Neither wore a helmet.
Day 1 crashes
One fatal crash and four injury crashes were reported on the first day of the rally according to the South Dakota Highway Patrol.
Preliminary information on the fatal crash states that around 11 a.m. Saturday a 2013 Harley-Davidson FLHX motorcycle was westbound on South Dakota Highway 34 when it rear-ended a second westbound 2013 Harley-Davidson FLHX motorcycle that had slowed down.
The 58-year-old male driver of the first motorcycle later died at a Rapid City hospital.
The 68-year-old male driver of the second motorcycle sustained non-life threatening injuries.
Neither driver was wearing a helmet.
Crashes before rally started
Before the rally officially started, a 28-year-old man died in a motorcycle crash near Lead early morning on Sunday, July 31. George Seliger, 28, of Wausau, Wisconsin, was thrown from his motorcycle after failing to negotiate a curve west of Lead of U.S. Highway 14A and losing control. He was not wearing a helmet.
On Thursday, Aug. 4, one person was injured in a motorcycle crash near Rapid City.
Across South Dakota, there were 466 total motorcycle crashes, according to the Department of Public Safety.
There were 671 total drivers in those crashes. Nineteen drivers were killed in those crashes and 384 drivers were injured.
Four counties in the Black Hills area were among those with the most motorcycle crashes in 2021. Pennington County had the most with 109. Lawrence was third with 54. Custer and Mead each had 47. Minnehaha, in eastern South Dakota, had 89 crashes.