A WorkSafe spokesperson said the organisation was notified of the incident and attended the scene. However, it was not a work-related incident.
The New Zealand Transport Agency road toll statistics show that for 2017 (up until Friday) 35 out of 353 road fatalities were motorcyclists compared to 43 of 279 last year.
Last year the Ministry of Transport released a report into motorcycle crashes in New Zealand, stating that motorcyclists faced a number of risk factors that did not affect car drivers.
These included decreased stability, a lower level of occupant protection and the fact that a motorcycle is less visible to other road users than a car or a truck.
The report said that between 1985 and 2015 a total of 2044 people died in motorcycle collisions and 48,270 were injured.
Several studies have compared the risk of death and injury for a motorcyclist to that of a car driver, the report stated.
The New Zealand Household Travel Survey showed that, on average, the risk of being killed or injured in road crashes was 21 times higher for motorcyclists than for car drivers over the same distance travelled.
A rider without a helmet was three times more likely to suffer severe brain damage than a rider with a helmet in the same type of crash.
The report said the number of motorcyclist casualties dropped markedly during the 1990s to a minimum between 2000 and 2004.
Numbers increased between 2004 to 2008, but have dropped since then.
The proportion of crashes that result in death is higher for large motorcycles than for small motorcycles with riders of motorcycles 500cc or bigger making up 63 per cent of deaths.
This is partly due to the fact that smaller motorcycles tend to be used in urban areas with lower speed limits.
The rider losing control of the vehicle is a major feature in motorcycle crashes, the report said.