Virginia Freedom Riders :: Freedom Forums

Sharon · Road Warrior Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 249

This is information many of you all have seen, but I thought it should be posted here too.

MRF E-MAIL NEWS Motorcycle Riders Foundation
236 Massachusetts Ave. NE
Suite 510
Washington, DC 20002-4980
202-546-0983 (voice)
202-546-0986 (fax)
http://www.mrf.org (website)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jeff Hennie, MRF Vice-President of Government Relations
jeff@mrf.org (e-mail)

NHTSA News and the First Timers

Late last week the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration held a motorcycle safety meeting as part of their ongoing quarterly motorcycle safety networking series. The meetings have been regularly taking place over the past the three years. The top safety agency initiated the meetings as a way to bring together all of the stakeholders in the motorcycle world including industry, rights organizations, educational groups and other government entities.

This meeting was not a groundbreaking gathering but rather an update on what is happening in the motorcycle community at large. Perhaps the most noteworthy development pertains to the motorcycle crash study mandated by Congress a few years back. The controversial study came to a bump in the road when Oklahoma State University declared that lack of funding would sideline the report. To their credit, the industry, via the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) and Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC), ponied up the missing $3 million dollars need to fuel the study. Now with a full tank of gas, the study can begin in earnest. The sample size is estimated to be between 900 and 1200 individual crashes and will use the OECD methodology, the same employed by the Motorcycle In Depth Study (MAIDS) study conducted in Europe recently. This is an important aspect because should the study have used another methodology it would have been difficult at best to compare the two studies.

The comprehensive crash study is now awaiting approval from the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB). A mere formality the feds insist on to guarantee that the money is well spent. The timeline is difficult to pin down - I think someone in the safety meeting said it best, "the study should be approved in six months, give or take six months" in other words, hurry up and wait.

The second round of 2010 safety grants has also been approved although no list is available just yet. NHTSA administrator Nason is sitting on the list of award letters which she insists on autographing herself. That list should be available any day now and the MRF will bring it to your attention when it's available.

Another study the feds conducted in the great state of Georgia concerning alcohol use and peer to peer pressure to not drink and ride is completed and is currently awaiting approval from DOT Secretary Peters. The findings of that study are also under wraps until she gives it the thumbs up. Secretary Peters has been awfully busy these days taping a motorcycle PSA on personal protective equipment. A sneak peek was not available but one can venture to guess that it will revolve around a low speed crash she had with her husband a few years ago. Stay tuned to your TV set for air times.

The MSF had some interesting news about a press event they held earlier this summer in California. In order to put media types directly in touch with motorcycle safety they did what any logical safety organization would do, have them actually crash a car into a motorcycle. You read that right; they innovative folks at MSF actually staged a near collision with reporters in a car and a trained stunt rider nearly running into the passenger vehicle. The theory is that the near miss will give the reporters a real world view of what can happen when car drivers don't pay full attention to the road and particularly motorcycles. Not a bad idea from your friends in Irvine, CA.

Another interesting fact brought to the table by the MSF was the fact that the state of PA, an avid MSF advocate, actually had to cancel beginner rider courses due to lack of interest. Also in CA there have been reduced wait time in some markets from 90 days down to as little as one week. Perhaps the training bubble has burst in some areas, is oversaturated or just needs more promotion. Either way its a welcome dilemma as opposed to courses filling up overnight and often exceeding capacity. It is this rider's opinion that more training available to the general public, the better.

Your friends at NHTSA closed the meeting by informing the group that they will in fact be pursuing some national standards for rider education, currently there are none. It's important to note they will not be developing curriculum. They are very clear on that instead they will develop a set of standards on what to expect a rider course graduate to be able to do. Its unclear how this will sort out, but rest assured, the MRF will be there every step along the way to usher in this new set of standards and to make sure its a gold standard and nothing less.

If Washington DC felt a little crowded last week with motorcyclists it wasn't because of the NTSB or NHTSA meetings. It was because ABATE of Nebraska sent six of the best citizen lobbyists to town to work over their congressional delegation. This marked the first trip to the Nation's Capitol for the NE based group during my tenure. ABATE President Larry Schutt and gang did a terrific job lobbying their Senators and Representatives. Perhaps its coincidence but Senator Chuck Hagel chose that very day to announce his retirement, what's the matter Senator? Too scared to meet with the bikers? It came to ABATE of NE's attention that they were the only state in their region that had not come to DC recently, so they did the admirable thing; put a team together, raised a little money and came to DC. So those of you whose state has not been to DC lately, take a cue from the cornhuskers, stop sitting on your hands and make the trek to Washington. You won't be disappointed.

Jeff Hennie
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Sharon Keaton
VA Freedom Riders
ABATE of VA