Bodhislackva

 
Some people are dying to learn how to ride motorcycles.

Three students have died from injuries suffered during Rider's Edge New Rider Course training:

• Juanita M. Haggerty died May 18, 2002, in Festus, MO.
• Janet Rollins died June 2, 2002, in Laconia, NH.
• Robert J. Eskowski died May 6, 2006, in Kenosha, WI.

I'll repeat their names later.

Rider's Edge is Harley-Davidson's motorcycle rider training program. Their New Rider Course is an introductory course that uses the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Basic Rider Course materials and methods but is unique in having the smallest training range and the largest motorcycle used in beginning rider training: Buell's 492cc Blast. As an MSF instructor remarked:

"My only concern is this: MSF has standards for motorcycles and ranges. I think it is unwise to put the largest possible motorcycle allowed on the smallest ranges allowed."

The Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle and Department of Transportation personnel from various states I've discussed rider training with — administrators and crash statisticians — have all voiced the assumption that rider training is safety training and that culling out students who shouldn't be riding motorcycles is one of the goals of training. All assumed the Motorcycle Safety Foundation to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose mission was education. None were aware that Rider's Edge uses a smaller than usual range layout or that any fatalities had occurred in training, let alone that three of the five known fatalities had occurred in Rider's Edge training. None were aware that women are over-represented in training fatalities — again, three out of five. All were disturbed to find out these facts:

1. MSF literature and training guides have down-played the use of the word "safety" over the years and do not represent their course materials or methods as "safety training" but as "rider training".

2. "Counseling out" is MSF terminology for dismissing a student from training and is not encouraged unless the student is overtly hazardous to himself or others. The decision to dismiss a student is made by the instructor, referred to as a RiderCoach, handling the course. Marginal or incompetent students who, for their own safety, would best be discouraged from pursuing motorcycling are sometimes allowed and occasionally even urged to finish the course. As is remarked in the Fall 2005 issue of MSF's Safe Cycling, p1: "If a student has been unsuccessful during the course, most RiderCoaches acknowledge that counseling out a student is one of the most disheartening parts of being a RiderCoach." Not dismissing a student who goes on to kill himself might be more than disheartening. Robert J. Eskowski was reported by other students in his class to be having tremendous difficulty but the RiderCoach went to some lengths to keep him in the class; Mr. Eskowski died seven days after crashing out of the class.

3. The MSF is a 501(c)(6) non-profit, an industry organization, not an educational organization. It was founded in 1973 as a preemptive response to the perceived threat of governmental regulation of the motorcycle industry because of rising accident rates. The NHTSA began keeping national motorcycle crash and fatality statistics in 1975, a task previously undertaken only by some states.

4. Rider's Edge has had a fatality rate of approximately one student per 33,000 students trained since its inception in 2001. During the same period, other rider training based on the same MSF materials (BRC - the Basic Rider Course) used by Rider's Edge New Rider Course has had one student fatality out of 1,400,000 students and one instructor fatality on the range. Prior to the introduction of the BRC, one student died in training out of the approximately 1,600,000 trained.


I do not have the names of two students who died in training. One of these deaths occurred in 1998 at Valley Forge, PA, under the MSF's older MRC:RSS (Motorcycle Rider Course: Riding and Street Skills) training administered by the Pennsylvania Motorcycle Safety Program. The second occurred on May 11, 2003, at Colorado Springs, CO, under the current MSF BRC training as administered by the Colorado Motorcycle Safety Program; a cruel irony, that was Mother's Day and the woman who died is purported to have received the course enrollment as a present.

These three students suffered fatal injuries during Rider's Edge New Rider Course training:

• Juanita M. Haggerty, 57, of St. Louis, MO; died May 18, 2002, in Festus, MO.
• Janet Rollins, 55, of Meredith, NH; died June 2, 2002, in Laconia, NH.
• Robert J. Eskowski, 58, of Racine, WI; fatally injured April 29, 2006, in Kenosha, WI; died May 6, 2006.

That's substantial over-representation: of five student fatalities, three were women. They were just dying to learn how to ride.


Further reading:

Wendy Moon, a writer for Motorcycle Consumer News, has provided detailed coverage of the MSF and safety issues with rider training on her blog since March of 2005. Her ground-breaking investigation of rider training fatalities is the inspiration for this post.

James R. Davis, a motorcycle safety expert and former MSF instructor, has some strong, informed opinions and a forum topic on these issues.

Read-only archives of the MSF curriculum mailing list are available if you'd like to read what RiderCoaches have to say about what concerns them.

Labels: motorcycle rider training; motorcycle safety