As the gift deluge of Hanukkah and Christmas are upon us, sporty toys will inevitably land in inexperienced hands. Those who get motorcycles should know that there is a remedy for rookies that will significantly boost their chances of survival — safety classes.
The Georgia Motorcycle Safety Program, part of the Georgia Department of Driver Services, has received its annual grant to educate the public, which includes the classes they help conduct at 30 sites around the state. The federal money also enables the program to recruit more motorcycle instructors, which they need.
That need is actually a good thing, program officials say, because it means there is a demand for the classes that the Motorcycle Safety Foundation offers to riders of varying ages and abilities. People actually want the training, yes. But the MSF classes also serve to help riders get licensed in the state.
MSF uses both a black top and a dirt course on the Honda corporate campus on Morrison Parkway in Alpharetta. I attended part of a recent class on the asphalt and got a better understanding of just what training students receive.
“Having the formal training from the professional certified coaches here — it just gives you an outline of what you really need to be focused on. Being able to ask them questions and then them being able to give immediate feedback to help get you to a real better, more comfortable rider,” site coordinator Brandon Guest told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and 11Alive.
Photojournalist Stephen Boissy and I watched a group of instructors display the rigors through which they put students. The emphasis was on slower speeds, as they zigzagged their bikes through markers and made varying degrees of turns.
Students practice on slower maneuvers because they are difficult. “That’s where we see students starting to struggle the most,” Guest said.
The trick is to carry just enough throttle to keep the bike upright, but not too much gas to blow the turn. Student Bob Murphy said this was a key tenet of the first half of the first day of the two-day class.
“Primarily learned about getting smooth and using the speed of the motorcycle to stable-up. Not being afraid to add a little throttle, so that I’m going straight, versus wobbling all over the place,” Murphy said during the lunch break.
Murphy explained that he messed around on his friend’s motorcycle some 45 years ago in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in college. He had the muscle memory, but knew he needed a rundown of the basics before he got a bike of his own. He has a bike picked out to buy, but is taking advantage of the class providing him and other students the motorcycles and then the testing they need to get properly licensed at the Georgia DDS offices.
That is precisely why Dakota Williams chose this route, saying taking a MSF class is definitely cheaper than buying or renting a bike and doing the class at the licensing office. Williams has two-wheel experience on Mopeds, but is graduating to motorcycles, where he said he sits on the bike and not in it.
“I know how to use the shifter now,” Williams explained during lunch. “Just getting used to the movements. You can use the throttle and the brake at the same time, stuff like that.”
And it’s better for riders to acclimate in a controlled environment and with hands-on coaching, than in the middle of Atlanta traffic, where starts and stops and any number of things can come at people quickly.
Guest said the class also teaches riders how to suit up properly: full-faced helmet, gloves, long sleeves and long pants. And they deploy the TCLOCS bike check before riding: tires, controls, lights, oil, chassis and stands.
State stats provided by the Georgia Motorcycle Safety Program show that bikers who take a class like this are 95% less likely to be in a fatal crash.
This seems like a no-brainer. Much of what happens in traffic is out of our control, but taking these educational steps are very attainable ways to lessen the chances of death or injury on two wheels. That fact alone is a warm breeze on a Sunday ride.
Doug Turnbull covers the traffic/transportation beat for WXIA-TV (11Alive). His reports appear on the 11Alive Morning News from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and on 11Alive.com. Email Doug at dturnbull@11alive.com.
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