A 67-year-old motorcyclist was flown to an area trauma center Saturday night after crashing into the back of a pickup truck on State Route 7 near Alder, according to the Washington State Patrol. The crash happened around 9:40 p.m. as both the motorcycle and the truck were traveling north on the two-lane highway roughly 12 miles south of Eatonville.
Troopers said the motorcyclist had been following the pickup too closely before slamming into it, according to the Washington State Patrol, as reported by the Tacoma News Tribune. The rider needed treatment for his injuries and was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash, the outlet reported.
The truck's driver, a 29-year-old Kentucky man, was not hurt, per WSP. The crash partially blocked the roadway, and the blockage lasted two hours and 50 minutes before the highway reopened.
A Corridor With a Troubled 2026
The stretch of SR 7 near Alder has already seen repeated severe and fatal motorcycle crashes this year. Two motorcyclists were killed at the same location near Pilgrim Road within a week of each other in April, as detailed by FOX 13 Seattle. One of those victims, a 19-year-old Joint Base Lewis-McChord resident, died on April 18 after failing to negotiate a curve near Pilgrim Road, prompting Pierce County Fire District 23 to warn drivers that the section features sharp curves, changing road conditions, and little margin for error, according to KING 5.
A week later, on April 25, a 67-year-old Spanaway man riding a 2009 Harley-Davidson was killed on SR 7 near Pilgrim Road when he collided with an SUV and a sedan while traveling northbound, as reported by The Daily Chronicle. Saturday's crash victim was also a 67-year-old motorcyclist heading north on SR 7 when he crashed, echoing that earlier pattern. Days before that, on April 20, a 63-year-old Tacoma motorcyclist was killed near Elbe after colliding with a stopped vehicle, an incident that led state troopers to arrest the other driver on suspicion of DUI, as previously covered in Hoodline's report on that fatal SR 7 crash.
Why This Stretch of Highway Is So Dangerous
The Washington Department of Transportation describes SR 7 through southern Pierce County, between Eatonville and Elbe, as a rural two-lane corridor marked by rolling terrain, narrow shoulders, and sharp curves carrying a mix of local traffic and seasonal recreational motorcyclists, according to the Tacoma News Tribune. That combination of geography and traffic has made the corridor a persistent trouble spot, with the Washington State Patrol periodically running targeted High Visibility Enforcement patrols along SR 7 in Pierce County to curb speeding, tailgating, and aggressive driving.
Statewide, motorcyclist fatalities have actually been trending downward, with preliminary data from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission showing 104 deaths in 2025, down 8% from 113 in 2024 and 27% from a historic peak of 142 in 2023. But motorcyclists remain dramatically overrepresented in Washington's traffic deaths: between 2021 and 2025, motorcycles accounted for just 3% of all traffic collisions statewide, yet made up 16% of all traffic fatalities, or 584 deaths, per the same commission data.
Impairment and excessive speed remain the two most common behavioral risk factors in fatal Washington motorcycle crashes, and roughly 35% of motorcyclists killed in the state over the past decade were not validly licensed to operate a motorcycle, the commission found. National data cited by the agency shows motorcyclists are about 28 times more likely than passenger car occupants to suffer fatal injuries per mile traveled, a vulnerability rooted in the absence of seatbelts, airbags, and protective framing.
Saturday's crash marked yet another serious motorcycle incident in Pierce County this year, following a string of fatal wrecks across the region, including a Spanaway rider killed in a truck collision just a day earlier, a double fatality on SR 509 in Tacoma in July, and a fatal crash on SR 512 near Puyallup in May. It remains unclear how the 67-year-old rider from Saturday's crash is currently recovering; no additional update on his condition has been released.
