Conducted by the US-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the research involved a study of fatal motorcycle crashes, plus an analysis of insurance claims by researchers at the affiliated Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI). The studies show that fatal crashes were reduced by 38% and all collision claims by 19% when motorcycles were equipped with ABS.

The IIHS notes that stopping a motorcycle in an emergency is more complicated than stopping a car. For one thing, front and rear wheels typically have separate brake controls. Both underbraking and overbraking the front and rear wheels contribute to crashes. In an emergency, a rider faces a split-second choice to brake hard, which can lock the wheels and cause a motorcycle to overturn, or to hold back on the brakes and risk running headlong into the emergency.

This is when anti-lock brakes can help. They reduce brake pressure when they detect impending lockup and they increase the pressure again when traction is restored. Brake pressure is evaluated multiple times per second, so riders may fully brake without fear of locking the wheels.

http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/pdf/r1110.pdf

"Anti-lock brakes are beneficial on motorcycles because 2-wheelers are so much less stable than cars, and it’s this instability that contributes to so many crashes," Adrian Lund, President of both IIHS and HLDI, points out. "By reducing wheel lockup during braking, anti-lock brakes keep a lot of motorcycles from overturning."

http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/pdf/hldi_motorcycle_antilocks.pdf