Texas Motorcycle Safety Coalition Meeting

September 2, 2021 @ 10:00 am - 11:30 am CDT

Location

Webex Conference Call

Organizers

Texas A&M Transportation Institute Texas Department of Transportation

02 Sep 10:00 am

Coalition

Texas Motorcycle Safety Coalition Meeting

Webex Conference Call
10:00 am - 11:30 am

Texas Motorcycle Safety Coalition Meeting Minutes
Date: September 2, 2021
Time: 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. (CDT)
Location: Via WebEx

Opening Remarks & Introduction (Mike Manser)

Mike Manser welcomed everyone to the TMSC meeting. Mike reviewed the agenda and welcome our speakers today. To view the agenda, presentations, sand handouts from the meeting, please visit the September 2, 2021 meeting page here. Approximately 10 people attended by WebEx or phone. An attendee list (as shown on the WebEx participant list or in the WebEx chat) and a chat transcript of the meeting are attached to these minutes.

WebEx Refresher overview (M. Manser)

Mike demonstrated how to use the WebEx chat box to provide comments during the meeting and invited participants to contact TTI through the Contact Us page on LookLearnLive.org.

2021 TxDOT Grant Review (M. Manser)

Mike shared the 2021 TxDOT grant highlights:

Under review: Best Practices Document for Educating Motorcycle Safety Stakeholders and Riders. Once approved, this document will be posted and shared on the LookLearnLive website and through the Look Learn Live email list.
Great news for the Coalition, 28 new members this year
There were 4 presentations completed and 2 planned for Sept. 11th
The Texas Motorcycle Safety Forum was held on May 1st
Social Media continues to grow in reach
- 966 posts across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
- ~94,000 Impressions* through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
- 900+ YouTube views that equal over 30 hours of viewing

I Ride for Tomorrow Pledge (C. Brooks)

Cathy introduced the Look Learn Live Texas “I Ride for Tomorrow” Pledge.

This pledge was something the TMSC had developed some time back, around 2014, and we are bringing it back as a document for riders to sign. We ask for your help in sharing this pledge with your club, in your rider classes, or on your social media platforms. The pledge can be accessed multiple places on our website:

https://www.looklearnlive.org/event/texas-motorcycle-safety-coalition-meeting-september-2-2021/#handouts
https://www.looklearnlive.org/resources/social-media/
https://www.looklearnlive.org/2021/09/06/texas-i-ride-for-tomorrow-pledge/
https://www.looklearnlive.org/coalition/accomplishments/

As we launch this, we are planning to use #TxIRideForTomorrow for the motorcycle rider pledge. We’re also working to develop a pledge for passengers, family & friends, and other motorists to do their part to increase safety for motorcycles. We plan to use #TxMotorcycleSafetyPledge for the latter document in development.

Thank you to Jeff Alford for bringing this back!

Mike noted that there has been much research around the effectiveness of pledges. While these may seem a little corny, when someone signs their name, it seems to impact rider or driver behavior and has shown to have a positive impact on how riders and other road users behave on the road.

2022 Preview

Taking a look forward and a few project activities we want to share with you for the coming year. This is the year we put together the 5-year Strategic Motorcycle Safety Action Plan. This helps serve as a guiding document on actions we want to tackle in the coming five years. We look at the data and identify key issues. Then, we develop an action plan to help meet those goals identified and how to achieve those goals and objectives. Key objectives for the coming year are outlined below:

Motorcycle Safety Outreach and Education Key Tasks (Mike)

5 Year Strategic Motorcycle Safety Plan
Motorcycle Safety Forum (Late April)
Outreach and Education to motorists and motorcyclists
TMSC Quarterly Meetings (Dec. 2, Mar. 3, Jun. 9, Sept. 8)

Motorcycle Stakeholder Toolkit to prevent impaired riding crashes project (Laura Higgins)

We are going to be taking a look at events where alcohol is a major component. Address those places where riders might be drinking. This project will take a look at what others across Texas and the county are doing to help prevent impaired riders, particularly from special events or venues. The project will look at other programs that may help riders get a safe ride home, stay until they are no longer impaired, or even something along the lines of a safe-park bike program. The project will put together a toolkit of these ideas gathered to help reduce impaired riding. This project was proposed before the impaired riding task force was created and will be dovetailing these two projects, so they complement each other.

Training and Licensing Project (Cody Stewart)

This project is to encourage more riders to complete motorcycle safety training and continue promoting a culture of rider safety in Texas.

TMSC Task Force – Task One (Cathy Brooks)

Topic Focus: Rider Impairment

Next Steps:

Develop a survey to determine target behaviors and potential countermeasures
- The survey is nearly complete. The survey should be going out within the next month or so. Please keep a lookout for the survey in your email inbox.
Develop campaign strategies and materials
Implement pilot

Training and Licensing Project – Unlicensed to Ride (Cody Stewart and Marcie Perez)

This project is to encourage more riders to complete motorcycle safety training and continue promoting a culture of rider safety in Texas. In an effort to reach out to unlicensed riders, this project reviewed over 1 million records which resulted in cleaned over 330,000 DMV records to cross-link against 293,685 motorcycle registration records. The result was a mailing campaign to encourage unlicensed riders to find a training course near them. Over 70,000 postcards have been mailed this year. A copy of the presentation can be found under the meeting handouts section here. According to Mike, a similar project was completed in Michigan which resulted in a significant increase in licensed riders in that state. We’re looking forward to this project continuing in Texas, it’s an important factor in reducing fatal crashes.

A few highlights from the presentation:

There were 456 motorcycle operator fatalities in 2020
54% (245) of those were unlicensed at the time of the crash
- 96.3% of these fatal crashes were male
- 48% were not wearing a helmet
- 45.1% were impaired
- .163 g/dl was the average BAC of those who were impaired *this is double the legal limit
17% of drivers killed in all crashes in Texas were unlicensed in 2020

FY2021 Mailing Campaign, currently being finalized

Unmatched 70,468 records (down from 84,277 records in previous year)
4,997 had obtained their M license from the previous campaign
Represents about 5.9% increase in licensing
COVID issues

Michigan results

4% reduction in year 1, 24% reduction by year 4 *24% in 4 years is huge!

Thank you to the TTI project team and Mona Lisa Fischer, Motorcycle Safety Program Manager, TxDOT, and the Texas Motorcycle Safety Coalition.

Request: Please feel free to provide any feedback or comments to Cody. Also, if you have your class M license, but received one of these postcards, please reach out to Cody at [email protected] to let him know.

Roadside Barriers Vs. Motorcycles (Chiara Silvestri Dobrovolny)

Overview of types of roadside barriers and what happens when motorcyclists impact them. You can find a link to the presentation here.

Barriers are designed to:

Contain and redirect a vehicle
Maintain vehicle stability
Minimize occupant risk
Not pose a hazard to the impacting vehicles

So, What about Motorcycles?

Significant rise in use of motorcycles
Increase in fatalities related to motorcycle impacts into roadside safety barriers
Motorcyclists are more vulnerable than vehicle occupants
Fully exposed to injury risk during crash

Most of the time, designers are not asked to design for vulnerable users, which motorcycles are. Things are finally slightly changing and we’re being asked to design for vulnerable users.

Our Community’s Obligation

Understand injuries/fatalities caused by barriers
Identify problems and safety effects of barrier designs
Provide recommendations on testing criteria, procedures, and standards for better designs

Injuries Associated with Motorcyclists Impacts with Barriers

Severe injuries after rider impact due to ejection on the other side of the barrier
Potentially severe head injuries /lacerations, sliding through guardrail top, impacting posts before resting on either system side.
Sliding impact

Upright Impact – Solutions Developed

Barrier developed with covered edge to decrease “sliding impact” which could lead to sever lacerations, etc.

Links:
System EuskirchenPlus (Germany) https://nordicroads.com/less-sharp-guardrails-can-save-motorcyclists/ | Video: https://youtu.be/IN8o7fheEXU

Texas has developed one solution to contain upright impacts of concrete barrier.

Containment barrier system with the capability of:

Containing/redirecting errant upright motorcyclists
Reducing injury risk for the errant motorcycle rider

Link to resource: “DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF CONCRETE BARRIER CONTAINMENT OPTIONS FOR ERRANT MOTORCYCLE RIDERS” TxDOT Report 0-6968-R6 https://static.tti.tamu.edu/tti.tamu.edu/documents/0-6968-R6.pdf

What’s Next

Need for a motorcycle standard addressing motorcycle testing and impact configurations in the U.S. (and worldwide for upright condition)
What are the critical locations to implement the protection systems (e.g., black spots)?
Can we share best practices for management approaches for motorcycle-friendly barriers installation?

Other Announcements

Jude is giving two safety presentations on September 11, 2021. The morning presentation will be in Burnet, Texas, and the afternoon presentation will be at the YO Ranch in Kerrville.

TMSC Chat and Attendees 9-2-2021

from Jeff Alford to everyone: 9:53 AM
Hello All
from Cathy Brooks (internal) to everyone: 9:53 AM
Hi Jeff
from Laura Higgins (internal) to everyone: 9:54 AM
Hi, Jeff!
from Laura Higgins (internal) to everyone: 10:07 AM
[email protected]
from Cathy Brooks (internal) to everyone: 10:07 AM
[email protected]
from Cathy Brooks (internal) to everyone: 10:16 AM
[email protected]
from Michael Manser (internal) to everyone: 10:20 AM
What MC safety topics would you like to see addressed next year? What is important to you?
from Raine Devries to everyone: 10:23 AM
Suggestions for best practices of what to do at the scene of a rider that has been in a wreck.
from Michael Manser (internal) to everyone: 10:24 AM
Thank you Raine. This is a great idea!
from Cathy Brooks (internal) to everyone: 10:48 AM
[email protected]
from Cathy Brooks (internal) to everyone: 11:23 AM
[email protected]
from Raine Devries to everyone: 11:26 AM
Thank you!
from Laura Higgins (internal) to everyone: 11:27 AM
Thank you for coming!