Texas Motorcycle Safety Coalition Meeting

Name: Texas Motorcycle Safety Coalition Meeting
Start: 2022-11-10T10:00:00-06:00
End: 2022-11-10T11:30:00-06:00
Location: Microsoft Teams

November 10, 2022 @ 10:00 am - 11:30 am CST

Location

Microsoft Teams

Organizers

Texas A&M Transportation Institute Texas Department of Transportation No cost to attend

Texas Motorcycle Safety Coalition Meeting Minutes
Date: November 10, 2022
Time: 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. (CST)
Location: Microsoft Teams (virtual)

Opening Remarks & Introductions (Maurice M.)

Maurice Maness welcomed everyone to the meeting including three new attendees.

Refresher on how to use Teams (Cathy B.)

Cathy Brooks went over a refresher of how to use Teams.

TMSC vision FY23 (Maurice M.)

This part of the agenda took up the bulk of the meeting and a summary of suggestions for each question is below.

Why do you attend these meetings? What are you expecting?
- Attend to keep a finger on the pulse of what we’re working on from a statewide perspective and hopes to bring value as someone in advertising and marketing.
- Network with industry professionals
- Important to motorcycle safety as a rider
- Help improve rider safety and miles on the road. Help improve messaging on social media. Look for opportunities where to learn and possibly contribute.
- Working behind the scenes. Working with independent sport bike riders. The frustration level is high as the young riders on sports bikes are hard to get through to.
- Looking for knowledge for female rider groups
- Promote more Accident Scene Management classes
- New research project for motorcycles riding through work zones. Motorcycle riders are overlooked by the design manual put out by The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).
What are the top 3 motorcycle safety concerns?
- Young sport bike riders – anyone can buy a motorcycle without an M license. At least one rider a week going down, losing them to fatal crashes. Promote going to do a track day at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) instead of 90 on the highway. When you are riding in the community, you’re impacting everyone then, all riders are bad. Just trying to make a difference, one rider at a time.
- When it comes to safety, education is a concern. Too many times, you see riders duck-walking in parking lots because they need more confidence on their bike. lane position. My safety is my responsibility. Curves – rider education, advanced rider education. Hunt county, Greenville, there’s a massive surge in highway construction and fatalities. DOT leaves gravel behind on corners — not complete chip seal, loose gravel, with no signage. Distracted drivers!! His only close calls have involved distracted drivers.
- Situational awareness — or driving for six. Hang out during water breaks, mentoring, training, and ensuring new riders can perform figure 8s without feet on the ground.
- Drivers rely on muscle memory, and they don’t see motorcycles in that muscle memory — there has been some gain in drivers ed with educating drivers about riders. situational awareness.
- Gather knowledge and information for female riders and female rider groups
- Top Concerns: Lack of education and safety issues, both by riders and drivers. We need to IMPROVE AWARENESS. Part is repetition, part is branding, part is signage, part is requiring/encouraging training, and part is reality-checking. Peer encouragement: club buy-in.
- Would love to see enforcement of MC endorsement on licenses and encouraging ALL riders to be properly trained!
- Wish law required dealers to require MC endorsements before sales are completed.
- Distracted driving is getting worse! All the studies support that.
What do you do in your area? What will you do this year?
- We put MC safety blogs on our law firm website.
- Do insurers promote discounts for riders with more training? Do they require an MC endorsement before providing coverage?
- TCOC&I gets Motorcycle Safety Proclamations from every city.
TMSC participation and growth (Who do you know?)
- We’re looking to grow our TMSC. Who do you know who might join? Please share our “join us” link to where we’re updating contact information to help us identify our membership to better understand where our gaps are in membership: https://tti.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cwNCckKNtOR29ue

Stakeholders areas to increase:

Law enforcement
EMS/Fire & Rescue
Medical (Trauma/ER)
Judiciary
Driving Schools
Insurance companies
Female rider clubs

Task Force update (Cathy B.)

As mentioned above, Cathy reviewed the need to identify gaps in our membership by area. We’ve asked everyone to update their contact information and include their zip code to help us track where we need to add membership and to report to TxDOT communications with local communities identified as overrepresented or increasing number of motorcycle fatalities.

FY2023 working with TxDOT Traffic Safety Specialists to identify 10 Safety Initiatives to identify for future initiatives. The information will be shared with the coalition and posted on the website.

We’re looking for new members of the Task Force. Jude will start working on that initiative soon. Email Cathy Brooks if you’re interested in working on a more focused area of motorcycle safety with the Task Force. Cathy Brooks: [email protected].

Jude and Spitfire with TCOC&I work with the legislature and will report back once the session is underway in January 2023.

FY23 Expectations & Planning (Cathy B.)

Our events for the year are:

Lone Star Rally, Nov. 3-6
The Ranch, Harley Davidson, Dec. 3
Central Texas Toy Run, Temple, Dec. 4
Houston RV Show, Feb. 8-11
EarthX2023, Dallas, April 19-23.

Forum

We’re working to plan the annual Texas Motorcycle Safety Forum (TMSF). So far, the most popular location is around Central Texas near Austin. The tentative date is the first Saturday of April.

Please submit your thoughts on where we host the TMSF here: https://tti.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_009mtaQL1P5Zipo

Update contact information

Again, please provide your updated contact information so we can understand what part of Texas you’re in and where we’re reaching people: https://tti.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cwNCckKNtOR29ue

TMSC meeting dates and agenda topics (Maurice M.)

It was requested that we consider hosting at least one in-person/hybrid meeting this year. TTI will explore and host the meeting. More information to follow.

Mark your calendar for this year’s TMSC meeting schedule:

January 12, 2023
With the Forum
August 17, 2023

Adjourn (Maurice M.)

The meeting adjourned at 11:39 AM.