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Rider Safety

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Safety and training; two words that tend to elicit a yawn or an eye roll from most people. Motorcycling, though definitely not the safest activity you can choose, is pretty exciting and challenging, yet for the most part, the safety training associated with our sport is quite boring.

Riding around a parking lot, MSF style, is not particularly difficult, and does a terrible job of emulating real world threats. Track days, though fun and offering the chance to push the limits of your motorcycle in a controlled environment, don’t typically present the kinds of dynamic threats we need to see in order to stay safe on the road.

So if parking lots and tracks don’t offer the training environment you want, how do you get the training you need? Well, over a recent weekend, I had the opportunity to attend Stayin’ Safe Advanced Rider Training.

Stayin’ Safe is owned and operated by Eric Trow. A motorcycle training professional with over twenty years of experience, Eric offers on-street rider training.

Part training and part tour, Stayin’ Safe offers courses from two to three days through some of the nicest riding areas in the country. I had the opportunity to take the Southern California class which lasted for three days.

I’ll just say up front, this was a great experience and I learned much more than I thought I would.

We have talked a great deal about autonomous vehicles here at Asphalt & Rubber, but usually the focus of that discussion has been about how autonomous four-wheel vehicles will interact with non-autonomous two-wheeled vehicles.

The time was sure to come though when a motorcycle OEM played with the idea of autonomous motorcycles, and that time is now.

Releasing early details about its autonomous motorcycle program, Honda Motor Corp. is staggeringly close to making the act of riding a motorcycle as simple as selecting a destination, and holding on tight.

Movements in how California teaches would-be motorcyclists how to ride their bikes could signal a greater change nationwide, after Total Control Training ousted the long-time running MSF Basic RiderCourse for California’s Motorcyclist Safety Program (CSMP).

Total Control Training will take over the CSMP from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) starting January 1, 2015. The class is administered by the California Highway Patrol, and is a major gateway for new riders in the Golden State — roughly 65,000 new motorcyclists take the CSMP each year, at 120 sites.

Total Control Training is so far the only riding program that meets the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Model National Standards for Entry-Level Motorcycle Rider Training, and the group has won contracts to train new riders in the military.

The Spanish-speaking community is increasingly becoming a part of the American motorcycling landscape; and according to the MSF, Hispanic riders already account for 7% of American motorcyclists…that’s almost as big of a piece of the pie as female riders (12% at last count).

To keep up with that trend, and to increase the adoption of safe motorcycle riding in America, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation has released its recently updated Basic RiderCourse handbook, as well as three “Quick-Tip” sheets, in Spanish.

These new materials compliments the already existing all-Spanish 15-hour hands-on Basic RiderCourse that the MSF teaches hundreds of times each year across the United States, with fluent Spanish-speaking MSF RiderCoaches.

The Motorcycle Safety Foundation announced today announced that it has officially recognized the Yamaha Champions Riding School, making it only the second third-party curriculum to receive this distinction by the MSF.

A hat-tip to the curriculum at YCRS, the recognition by the MSF doesn’t seem to mean that you will be able to substitute a YCRS class for a motorcycle practical exam; though it does mean that the YCRS curriculum meets the high standards set forth by the MSF, which reviewed the school’s coaching methodology and key principles.

Dorna and Phillip Island have been embroiled in a debate over moving the Australian GP to an earlier venue — a subject that seems to come up every time the premier series comes to the fabled island circuit. After Phillip Island rebuked the idea of moving its date for the MotoGP Championship, choosing to instead balance the race later in the calendar against other major events that come to Oz, namely Formula 1 (March 27th) and World Superbike (February 27th).

Not one to take rejection lightly, Dorna put Phillip Island on notice, suggesting that while the two parties did have a contract that saw the race pegged to the month of October, that agreement was only valid if Phillip Island kept its FIM homologation. This statement presumably suggested that Dorna would influence the FIM to remove accreditation for PI to run MotoGP events, should the Australians hold their ground. With neither party budging, serious concern began to grow over the Australian track.

With the MotoGP Safety Commission meeting today in Qatar, the issue of moving the Australian GP was broached and decided upon, with the Commission choosing to keep MotoGP’s stop in Phillip Island during the month of October. Glad to see his home race intact, Casey Stoner still had some thoughts on the issues surrounding the Australian GP date. Click after the jump to see his thoughts.

You’ve likely seen the video where a “crash proof” motorcycle, which has rider detection aids on-board, gets plowed by a truck as it enters the highway. If you haven’t seen this video, well…we just sorta ruined it for you, and we’re going to ruin it some more for the rest of you who thought it was real, as the group behind the video’s making has finally stepped forward, and revealed it was all a hoax to get you thinking about rider safety.

Produced by the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership (TVSRP), as part of the Safer Rider campaign, the locale has been trying to make riders in their 30’s and 40’s aware of the area’s high casualty rate on the roadway. “Our aim was to produce a video that encouraged people to discuss the attitudes and ability involved when riding a motorcycle and for it to spread virally within the motorcycle community,” said Craig McAlpine of TVSRP.

Starting this November, Oklahoma riders will have to start paying a $3 fee that helps fund motorcycle safety in the OK State. The tax will be added to existing registration fees, and affects new bikes and their renewals.

While the Oklahoma Advisory Committee for Motorcycle Safety and Education will decided how the funds are used, it’s under the presumption that revenue generated from the tax will be spent on safety advertising and promotion.

Despite the hit to the wallet, the Daily Oklahoman says that riders in Oklahoma aren’t complaining about the increased registration costs.

How many recalls does it take before the NHTSA tells you to get out of the motorcycle helmet business? Well if you’re Advanced Carbon Composites, the answer is five – five motorcycle helmet recalls in a row. For a company that warns buyers away from buying inferior products from China and India, Advanced Carbon Composites (ACC) has had a number of problems with its EXT series (all four of them) of motorcycle helmets, including the helmets failing to meet the basic DOT safety guidelines, which finally lead to the ACC ceasing to produce motorcycle helmets at the behest of the NHTSA.

kevin-schwantz-old-school

For the second time in recent months, the US Government is having a major motorcycle racer talk to US servicemen about safely operating motorcycles. A few months ago it was , and today it is Kevin Schwantz, the 500cc GP World Champion, who will speak at a number of road safety seminars.

 

Trying to find a common theme with his subjects, Schwantz refers to his races as battles (rightfully so), but emphasises there is a time and a place for riding fast:

“They were battles fought on the racetrack. It may look intense but it’s actually a very controlled environment. And that’s nothing like the battles our brave service personnel are fighting. For the military sportbike riders we’re talking about today, the real battleground is right here at home – on the streets.”

Back in October, CNN ran an interesting story about how motorcycle related deaths have killed more Marines in the past 12 months than enemy fire in Iraq. Similarly, the US Navy is finding a similar rise in motorcycle accidents by military personnel. In 2008, 25 Marines died on motorcycles, compare that to the 22 killed in hostile action in Iraq. Pentagon sources say a rising trend started in 2004, when seven Marines died on bikes.

Source: Visordown