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Resolution Commemorating May as Motorcycle Awareness Month article here

AWARENESS TEAM? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Author: Marlene Krauss-Region 7 “Awareness Team”

The Definition of being aware: Conscious, informed, alert, vigilant, watchful.  How do we make motorists aware of motorcycles?

    Before the 1^st of May, newspaper articles are sent urging motorists to start seeing motorcycles with info on safe driving tips.  Also included is info on our AWARENESS PROGRAM.  This year we have sent articles to 12 newspapers in our region’s 3 counties

    We urge all our members to purchase awareness yard signs and have them available at monthly meetings.  This year we purchased 10 large awareness banners for Region 7 and have them posted on the main highways throughout Huron, Sanilac and Tuscola counties.  This is more cost affective for us in a rural area.  They can easily be moved and reused for many years and stay up for the entire riding season, reminding motorists to “LOOK TWICE”

    Private lighted signs at businesses have put the message out for us “LOOK TWICE, SAVE A LIFE MOTORCYCLES ARE EVERYWHERE”, usually short term in the month of May.

     In addition to teaching motorcycle awareness to drivers education students, we have spoke in front of senior citizen groups, and the general public at fairs and festivals.  At the homecare agency I work for we have a mandatory safe driving in-service yearly.  I’ve included motorcycle awareness in this in-service since this type of work requires many miles on the road and many possible distractions when driving.

     The posters “SHARE THE ROAD” and yellow flyers “START SEEING MOTORCYCLES” are free from OSHP of Michigan and have been distributed to gas stations, auto parts stores, tire stores, libraries etc… for the general public to see and make them aware.

     We need to find more avenues to get the word out about motorcycle awareness.  Only about 20% of schools offer drivers ed today, down from 90% in the 1980’s. Not all privatized drivers ed companies are receptive to our FREE awareness program.  The message for parents: spell out the dangers of inattention while driving to their kids and encourage them to consciously be alert, vigilant and to watch for motorcycles.

Karen Sheridan, Region 7

These two are the winners of the awareness article challenge.  I had hoped for more, but was glad to get 3 responses.  These two hit the nail on the head as to what I was looking for as far as the awareness program goes.  I would like to thank Marlene and Karen for all the work they do in Region 7.  I would also like to give an honorable mention to Terrible Ted in Region 4 for his suggestions which I will use in a future article.  He had some good suggestions for us motorcyclists out there. 

Now I just have to figure out how to divide up a decal between these two.  Perhaps I will cut it horizontally and one will get the “look twice, save a life” and the other will get “motorcycles are everywhere”.  Maybe vertically and one will get “look twice Motorcycles” and the other will get “save a life Are everywhere” You know you will have to park next to each other for the saying to make sense. Better yet I will bite the bullet and buy 2 decals and you can each have the complete saying on your vehicle.

July

Well here it is July already.  The second month of my challenge to anyone in ABATE that would submit an awareness article (the writer of the best article would receive one of the Look Twice window decal which have now gone up to $17), and I have not received a single entry.  I am disappointed but hopefully by the August deadline I will have received at least one entry.  There must be someone out there who has an idea, suggestion, something, anything, to contribute.  Where are the awareness coordinators or instructors, you must have something you want to share?  Guess I will have to come up with another idea to get the ABATE members more involved in AWARENESS!

     Right now I have no ideas for this month’s article.  I have been busy with the garden, the dog who wants to play endlessly, and teaching awareness classes, and doing a little riding when I can.  Have our schedule down to where we only have to tie up 2 Wednesdays each month instead of all 4 (I have Wednesdays off so that is when I schedule the classes, great way to spend a day off in the middle of the week, right?) so I can do a few other things too.  Here it is 10:00 pm on Wednesday July 9^th and I have been trying to come up with an article for this month.  I really have nothing this time around, who knows, maybe at 4 am a thought will hit me and I will have something for September (or perhaps just one person out there reading last months article will send me something, anything to use for my challenge, but I am not counting on it).

     July 5^th we rode over to the Gibraltar Trade center in Mt. Clemens.  Caught up with Craig who is managing the place (hence the biker events there), you see we met Craig at Brighton HD, he used to be manager there too.  He did wonders for the public relations with the dealership and those in the area, hasn’t quite been the same since he left.  Was pleased to see Region 11’s display at Shardans leathers (his daughter was in one of our awareness classes) inside the trade center, spoke to a few people about the awareness program (see that secret thing I wrote about last month comes back, people just don’t know what we do in ABATE)

     I am starting to really not enjoy the July 4^th holiday, you see 2 friends of mine were hit by an inconsiderate car driver and badly injured.  Two years later I got to spend the holiday weekend picking up my husband in Florida after another inconsiderate driver hit him on his motorcycle.  Then I check the local online site for the local paper and read about a man from Redford who was sideswiped in Brighton July 4th.  His leg was ripped off and the driver of the car left the scene.   While I don’t know who this victim is yet, nor do I know if it is anyone I do know.  What upsets me is that this happened just down the street from where I work,  just blocks from my favorite places to get one of the best bar burgers in Livingston County (the Cozy) and to think that just by luck I wasn’t the one heading east on Grand River at that time. We will be keeping an eye on this case.  Yes they caught the driver of the car and she was arrested.  They are still investigating the accident (no drugs or alcohol appear to have been involved and yes the motorcyclist was wearing a helmet) and we are waiting to see what they actually charge her with.  Last report was that the motorcyclist was no longer critical and it looks like he will be OK, whatever that is.  Hope the rest of you had a safe July 4^th holiday as this guy I am sure will remember this one.  Perhaps if that woman had been in an awareness class at some time, would it have made a difference, we will never know (there were no classes being taught in this area if she took drivers ed here at the time she would have taken it).

   Oh well I am done rambling, hope to have some ideas for next month.  In the mean time I hope all of you out there have a safe riding season and try to get involved with the awareness program.

Kathy

Motorcycle Awareness Decals