A public service announcement

Motorcycle, scooter and moped sales are up sharply this spring as drivers look for a way to ease the pain of ever-increasing gas prices.
While that's good news for the motorcycle industry, there is a downside.
It also means more untrained and unskilled riders on the streets and highways.
The best way to learn the skills and strategies of two-wheeled survival is to take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's rider courses. The MSF's RiderCourse for motorcyclists is available nationwide and more than 4.3 million riders have graduated from it. There is also a MSF ScooterSchool program, but it's only available in nine cities so far.
Some state-level MSF programs are already operating at capacity. Indiana's training sites have waiting lists. Other states, like Arkansas, lack adequate state funding.
It's clear that the need for rider education is barely being met and will become even more critical as more and more untrained riders flood the market.
And the sad fact is that an untrained rider is an accident waiting to happen.
If you - or someone you know - are thinking about two-wheeled alternatives to your gas-guzzling car, please go to http://www.msf-usa.org/ find the nearest RiderCourse training site and sign up. The MSF provides the training bikes. It helps if you have a helmet, but they have loaners, so all you have to do is show up.
If you're sticking to four wheels, go to http://www.forcardrivers.com/, the new MSF site with vital information for car drivers on how to look out for motorcyclists.

Arkansas motorcycle safety: welcome to the 1980s

We dropped by the Arkansas State University campus yesterday where Kent Gibson was teaching the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Basic RiderCourse.
Maria wrote a column about motorcycle safety that pointed riders to the course and we wanted to introduce ourselves to Kent and see how the course was working.
I was an MSF instructor with the ABATE of Indiana rider education program for 10 years back in the 1980s and '90s, so I have an appreciation for rider ed.
I was stunned to discover that Arkansas is more than 20 years behind Indiana in offering motorcycle rider education to its citizens. Only three states - Arkansas, Mississippi and Alaska - do not have legislated rider ed programs. Alaska, which has about a 10-minute riding season, can probably be excused for this oversight, but there is no excuse for Arkansas and Mississippi.
Indiana's legislators tacked on a modest increase in the motorcycle registration fee back in the 1980s and earmarked the funds for rider education. The program is conducted under the oversight of the Indiana Department of Education and the funds go to subsidize the cost of the Basic RiderCourse to students. Consequently, the course that costs Arkansans $175, is a much more affordable $50 to Hoosiers.
So on a weekend when Kent was conducting a course with only five students, rather than the 12/instructor allowed by the MSF, the classes at all 14 ABATE locations in Indiana were booked solid through June and a few had classes already filled into August. Typically, the ABATE of Indiana classes involve at least two instructors and 24 students.
Kent told us the Arkansas State Police have received some funding for motorcycle safety programs, but nothing has been done with it and there is a risk of losing the funding through bureaucratic inaction.
Arkansas requires helmets on riders under 21 and I am told a more comprehensive helmet law will be introduced in the next session of the Arkansas legislature.
But anyone who has spent any time in rider education knows that helmet laws are a Band-Aid approach to the problem of motorcycle safety. Yes, they will save lives. The Hurt Study, done more than 30 years ago by UCLA Prof. Harry Hurt established that a helmet substantially increases your chances of surviving a crash.
But the sad fact is that an untrained, unskilled rider is still a huge danger to himself and everyone else on the road whether he wears a helmet or not. The best remedy, in my opinion (and I happen to be right about this), is mandatory universal rider training. After all, we don't turn self-taught pilots loose with airplanes. Why do we do it with motorcycles? And, come to think of it, why do we do it with cars and trucks?