Safety and Awareness
2024 Safety & Awareness Campaign
There are over 315,000 registered motorcyclists in Texas.
Per Motorcycle Safety Foundation over half of all fatal motorcycle crashes involve another vehicle. The majority of time the driver of the car or truck is at fault, not the motorcyclist. The leading cause of crashes is a vehicle turning left.
1 in 3 motorcycle fatalities happens at intersections according to TxDot. There’s over 8000 crashes in Texas annually involving motorcycles.
2021 there were 519 deaths and 2318 seriously injured on motorcycles.
Focusing on driver education is needed to teach the non riders to increase the safety on our roads. It’s up to us to empower the drivers with knowledge to make safe driving choices.
It’s time to end the excuse “I didn’t see the motorcycle”
The proclamation campaign has an emphasis on getting the talking points out and educating the public in order to help save lives.
It is a 2-part process. Proclamations are needed in order to provide credibility for newspaper articles. Proclamations show proof to the readers that their local mayor and city council members, along with the governor understand the importance of reducing crashes to its community.
The first step is to communicate with Spitfire and make sure the city you want to work with is available and so we can keep a list of whose doing what.
As far as the article goes, it can be as simple as including the talking points that we provide, or you can write up a personal story but please include the talking points. The goal is for the person reading the article that knows nothing about motorcycles to be able to learn how to safely share the roads with us.
If you need any assistance, please reach out to the Safety & Awareness Team. Let’s Educate the Public to Save Lives!
Blessings
REDD
Tx Council of Clubs & Independents Rg 1 Motorcycle Safety & Awareness Coordinator
512-581-8566
Educate To Save Lives!
Proclamation Talking Points
“EDUCATE TO SAVE LIVES”
- At stop lights, motorcycles will sometimes pull to the side of a car when traffic is stopped to avoid being hit from behind and to allow a way out quickly if needed.
- Motorcycles can DOWN SHIFT like “standard cars” as they are slowing down, so you may not see a brake light come on.
- Motorcyclist might use hand signals. Left and Right turn hand signals (show example of a HAND SIGNAL).
- Failure to yield the right of way while turning left – when turning left always look further down the road as motorcycles are smaller and look further away. Over THIRTY PERCENT of crashes occur this way. LOOK TWICE BEFORE TURNING LEFT.
- Motorcycles often ride in groups for their safety, so please DO NOT split up the riding group.
- Do not follow too closely. Allow motorcycles plenty of space for the rider to react to what might be happening ahead on the road. A motorcyclist’s riding patterns are different from a car (we may need to swerve to miss debris on the road or to navigate around the pothole). We need our whole lane to navigate, to what might be on the road ahead of us.
- Turn your head to look for motorcycles in your blind spots.
- Motorcycles are closer than they appear. LOOK TWICE FOR MOTORCYCLES! It’s hard to judge our speed and distance from you, as our motorcycles are smaller than your vehicles.
- Please don’t sweep your grass clippings on the streets this is a hazard to motorcycles.
- At traffic lights a motorcycle may not weigh enough to turn the light to green. You may see the motorcyclist motion for you to move up closer behind them so that the weight of your car will TRIGGER the light to turn.
- Please DON’T THROW items out of your car, even something small can feel like a rock to a motorcyclist.
- If you SEE a helmet on the ground PLEASE STOP, that means a biker needs help.
*The life you may be saving could be your child’s favorite teacher, your neighbor or even your pastor.
Bikers are in all professions, there is NO EXCUSE for
“I didn’t see the motorcycle!”
Ride Safe in Texas
TXDOT has phased them out and do not have the funding to replace the decals. They are no longer installing the flip signs. We may still see a few out and about but they will eventually replace all of them.
Texas Defenders & COIR attend and support proclamation meetings and Share the Road presentations help to support getting the word out about safety and awareness to Mayors, Council members and residents in each community. Additionally, the group meets to gain support from the Governor and many State Representatives and County Judges, to assist us in a larger knowledge base on bills and ordinances that the community hopes to influence.
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