ROT Tally: 4 Bike Crashes, 7 Hospitalized, 1 Death, 166 DWIs

AUSTIN, TX — It was perhaps inevitable given the thousands of visitors in town for the Republic of Texas Rally staged in downtown Austin: Fourteen motorcycle crashes, one fatality and a dozen injuries.

Austin-Travis County EMS officials tabulated the various incidents on their Twitter page on Monday. The annual ROT rally, a tradition of more than two decades, took place in the central business district this weekend with a record-breaking number of participants.

Sadly, given the vast number of motorcyclists at the event, there are always casualties resulting from the gathering. This year, a fatality occurred on Saturday when a pickup truck crashed into a motorcycle along FM 973 in eastern Travis County.

The fatal wreck took the life of Raul Diaz Jr., 28, who was pronounced dead at the scene. His pregnant passenger was critically injured and lost her unborn child as a result. The truck's driver was arrested for intoxication manslaughter and intoxication assault, according to law enforcement officials.

According to Austin-Travis County EMS, medics treated a dozen people from Thursday through Sunday night and transported seven of them to the hospital.

Notwithstanding such incidents, the tally was far less than past years. According to records kept by KXAN, ten people died on bikes in and around Austin during the ROT rally from 2010 to 2013—half of those deaths in 2012 alone. One ROT organizer attributed the drop to enhanced safety awareness campaigns in tandem with the law enforcement agencies.

The four-day rally is the largest event of its kind in the entire nation. This year's version represented the 23rd year or the gathering taking place in Austin. On their website, ROT officials made no mention of the crashes that occurred this year or any mention of Diaz, the fallen motorcyclist.

"ROT 2017 is officially in the books!" officials wrote. "We hope everyone had fun at this years @rotbikerrally, we know we loved seeing everyone out there. We want to thank everyone for supporting us 23 years strong! We set some record attendance this year and are already plotting for 2018."

Austin-Travis County EMS officials devised an interactive map with details on each of the incidents here.

Police on Wednesday issued statistics related to the number of arrests made for driving while intoxicated during the Memorial Day/ROT rally period: A total of 166 people were cited for DWI, a number exponentially greater than normal.

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