Safety In Numbers

SAFETY IN NUMBERS

UP FRONT

Allan Girdler

We were sitting around the bar after the closing sessions of the International Motorcycle Safety Conference and somebody said something along the lines of, the best thing about meetings like this is that all sorts of different people get together and exchange ideas.

Just because it’s a cliche doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

In the case of the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s conference, held in Washington, D.C., the judgement was right on. It was a good conference, several hundred people learned a lot and most of it, we got from each other.

When the MSF first mentioned the meeting, they invited me and asked that I pass along the invitation. They hoped the conference wouldn’t be attended by just the professionals, the members of the safety establishment, but by daily motorcycle nuts, lay riders who’d be interested in what’s going on back at the universities, test tracks and state vehicle departments.

Sure, I said, and we printed the address and information. Also, I figured I’d attend and do the usual sort of news stories one sees after confabs like this.

Halfway through the week-long affair, I changed my mind.

This isn’t to say the papers weren’t useful, interesting, valid and thought-provoking. They were all of that. There was neat data on handling, driver awareness, rider training, behavior in accidents, performance of helmets and more.

But there were no secrets. If I’d been asked on the way to the first session for the rules of survival riding, I’d have said wear a helmet, use the front brake and don’t trust anybody else on the road. Had I been asked the same question after the last session, I’d have given the same answer.

The people who went to the conference are the best resource, best data bank, I saw.

MSF totalled up something like 400 delegates from 16 countries. I divided the delegates into four groups. There was the Establishment, by which I mean officials from various government agencies and private organizations, all of whom earn their living within the safety industry.

There were Educators, involved with rider training.

There were Engineers, public and private and plain freelance, whose jobs involve designing and testing motorcycles and their various components and behaviors.

And there were Enthusiasts, bike nuts who cared enough to come to a safety conference in hot, rainy, crowded Washington DC.

The enthusiasts comprised nearly one third of the delegates. I find that remarkable. Just about everybody else at the meeting was paid to be there. It’s their jobs. They could advance their careers by giving the right facts, showing their talent, meeting the powers above them, getting published, etc.. Even me, in that the company paid for my tickets, room and board.

The enthusiasts didn’t have it so good. They paid their own way, picked up their own dinner tabs, even camped outside the

city because you can’t afford Washington unless it’s company money.

They were an interesting mix. People from the BMW and Goldwing clubs, the Texas road riders, touring clubs, just plainfolks and a goodly number of guys from ABATE.

Right, ABATE. Used to be called A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments, formed during the days when helmets were first the topic of heated discussions. Now ABATE is a network of local chapters, with different names based on the same initials, and they are no longer protesters. They are activists, involved with voter registration, liaison between the touring clubs, government, outlaws, even political campaigns.

They are also not the sort of person who drinks tea with extended pinky.

The conference began with internal mixing, all the enthusiasts meeting each other. Honda guys and Harley guys, solos and sidecars, sports and touring. Here’s a lovely young woman, chic and well spoken, one of the few women who’s licensed to teach motorcycle riding. She rides a BMW. Here’s the young cafe type in battered Belstaff jacket, the ABATE delegate from New York and he also rides a Bimmer and before you know it all the enthusiasts are talking to each other.

No, let me rephrase that.

They are all listening to each other.

Human nature is funny. We all have ways of deciding who knows what he’s talking about, and who doesn’t. Call it credentials. When I want to learn something about, say, tires, I don’t ask my neighbor the airline pilot, I ask somebody who works in the technical department of a tire company.

For the safety establishment, credentials are what department you work for, what grade you are, how many people report to you. For engineers and educators, it’s what’s your degree, what have you^

published?

For enthusiasts, the credit check, so to speak, is what do you ride and how long, have you been riding?

So it happened at first that the groups were, well, groups. The engineers didn’t know that riding motorcycles is its own4 course in mechanical engineering, the enthusiasts had no time for people who seemed to teach motorcycles without riding them.

But. As time went on, the lecture on helmets was over and a lay member of the audience asked intelligent and reasoned, questions, involving other studies and experience. The Harley owners knew that the Harley engineers can talk panhead vs knucklehead and the engineers were able to argue front end geometry with the owners. Everybody there got a subtle lesson; these other folks do know, and care. „

My favorite example was when a woman member of the establishment (not Joan Claybrook. She didn’t attend.) was told some ABATE members wanted to meet her. She was distinctly nervous. All she could see across the room was two big guys who weren’t dressed for a yachting party.

But she didn’t attain high rank by shirking, so the introductions were performed and lo, not only did they have what diplomats call a frank exchange of views, it was a friendly exchange of views.

And then there was the speech by Rep. Walker, the guy who introduced that dimbulb resolution about creating a federal^ strike force to deal with, quote, “Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.”

He repeated the same drivel, about how these gangs make and/or distribute 95 percent of the drugs and how all other motorcycle fanciers should enlist in his efforts to deal with criminals.

Now. It’s never been clear to me why1 the dope elements are called motorcycle gangs. Even Walker says they don’t ride motorcycles. They use trucks and cars and boats and airplanes.

What is clear is that if various law enforcement agencies began looking for these gangs, they won’t see them. The* criminals are driving trucks. They’ll see ABATE; black leather jackets, motorcycles with sleeping bags lashed across the rear fenders, just like in the movies.

So I would not have been surprised if the ABATE delegates had booed and hissed and rushed up to the speaker’sstand to tell Walker he was full of what makes flowers bloom.

Instead, because all the delegates had gotten to know each other, and we’d all realized that safety is going to be the result of education, not legislation, Walker was booed by just about everybody in thej hall.