Passes & Canyons Blog

MOST Program annual report

The 2020 annual report of Colorado’s Motorcycle Operator Safety Training (MOST) program is out and more than anything it looks like last year’s report. In fact, the number of fatalities has remained steady at 103 for three years in a row now. This is down from an all-time high in 2016 of 125 fatalities. The 2020 report addresses crashes in 2019.

As would be expected, the counties with the highest number of fatalities are the counties with the highest populations. These include Adams County (10 in 2019, 53 in the last five years), Denver (15 and 63), El Paso (19 and 59), and Jefferson (13 and 63). The 10 fatalities in Adams County matches the previous year and the 13 in Jefferson County is one higher than 2018, but there were considerable increases in Denver (7 up to 15) and El Paso (12 up to 19).

The age groups of those who died were largely stable with the exception of the 40-49 age group, which has risen from 15 to 21 in the last three years, and the 50-59 age group, which has declined from 20 to 16.

Looking at overall statistics, in 2019 there were approximately 120,000 vehicle crashes statewide, of which 1,965 (1.6%) involved motorcycles. Those 1,965 included 115 riders who took MOST training in either 2018 or 2019.

OK, here’s a statistic I didn’t understand at first but think I do now: Of the 1,965 crashes involving a motorcycle, 1,361 crashes resulted in injury, and 96 crashes resulted in a fatality. I wondered how could it be 96 if there were 103 fatalities but then I realized that several of those crashes must have resulted in two or more motorcyclists killed.

Here’s another interesting statistic that does not reflect well on MOST: Of the 1,965 motorcycle crashes, 1,269 of the motorcycle operators were at fault in the crash (64.6%). Among the 115 motorcycle operators who were MOST students and had a crash in 2019, 76 were at fault in the crash (66.1%). So how effective is training, really? Despite that I still have to believe getting training is better than not getting training.

This next stat speaks better of MOST: In 2019, there were 154 crashes where alcohol or drugs were suspected among motorcycle operators at fault in a crash. 127 of the motorcycle operators were suspected of alcohol use only, 18 operators were suspected of drug use only, and 9 motorcycle operators were suspected of both alcohol and drug use. Only eight MOST students were suspected to be impaired by drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash.

Perhaps that implies that people who are responsible enough to get training are also more responsible about impaired driving in general.

There is more information to be mined from this report and I’ll continue with that in my next post.

Biker Quote for Today

We know you’re a poser if you never ride to work.

On an RMMRC ride.

I did a ride Saturday with the RMMRC and just before we were about to head out one last rider showed up. When I saw who it was I groaned to myself–not him!

Let me explain. I wrote about this previously, at the time, so I’ll just recap. This particular rider came along on most of the earliest rides I did with the RMMRC and he consistently rode much too close, right on the tail of whoever was in front of him. I mean, to the extent of having to hit his brakes and run off onto the shoulder when that person in front touched their brakes. Dangerous!

I want to make mention that a guy who read that earlier post put up a response saying perhaps this guy has poor eye-sight. He said the same thing had happened to him once and it turned out the guy was nearly legally blind. So in order to see where he was going he stuck right on the tail of the person in front of him. That sounded pretty plausible to me.

Well, this guy had not shown up for quite some time and that was fine with me. But then Saturday, there he was. I just wanted to make sure I was not the one in front of him. Fortunately (for me, not Bob), he pulled right in behind Bob, who was leading the ride. So I was several bikes behind him.

I watched with interest as we headed out. Surprisingly, this guy stayed pretty much staggered away from Bob and it didn’t look like he was crowding him at all. Maybe it was because the roads we were on were pretty much straight and it was easy to stick with the white line on the side of the road. Who knows.

Anyway, we got out to Kiowa, to Patty Ann’s, and had lunch. Leaving there we had one group of five who were inclined to go home via one route while the other group of five wanted to take a different route. So we split up. The question arose, who is going to lead the group I was going with. Someone said, “How about Ken?” Fine, I’m perfectly happy taking the lead but of course the person in question was also going with this group. I tried to figure how I could make sure he was not right behind me but he was the first out along the road and the others lined up behind him. He was going to be right behind me. Dang!

Well, I don’t know what the deal is. Maybe he had cataract surgery and sees a whole lot better now. Maybe it’s just the straight roads out east of the city. Whatever the explanation, he stayed all the way to the right as I stayed all the way to the left, and he even rode a good ways behind me, not just 10 feet back. What a relief.

So now maybe next time he shows up I won’t cringe quite so much. But I’m still going to cringe a little.

Biker Quote for Today

“TAT” (aka Technical Anti-talent) referring to any student that despite every possible analogy, teaching method, or other, could not master even the most fundamental motor coordination needed to ride a motorcycle. These guys and gals we kindly failed as not to harm themselves or others. They were few and far between….but certainly out there.

Curves are fun–until you see that gravel directly ahead.

Have you ever seen someone on a motorcycle go down? I only have once, and it was a minor get-off, but it’s an amazing thing to witness.

What’s amazing about it is how quickly it happens. My buddy John and I were up in Laramie, it was late at night, and we were headed back to our motel. We cruised down the main street till we reached the corner to go left to the motel, John in the lead. He started to turn but hit some gravel and he went DOWN! I mean, right NOW! Instantly. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

You might think when something like that happens that you’ll have a moment to react, either to try to keep the bike up or to at least think about getting your leg out of the way so the bike doesn’t come down on it. Forget it. This was literally blink-of-an-eye fast.

Now fortunately, John wasn’t hurt badly. He just had a little road rash on his butt and he broke the windshield on his bike. He was just as amazed as I was.

I was talking about this sort of thing awhile back with Zigy Kaluzny, whose world travels I’ve written about a couple times here. His experience has been the same. As he put it, “There’s no transition. I’ve been down twice. There’s no transition. It’s just astonishing. In Italy once I was cranked over, going around a turn, a nice turn, probably going 55, 60, I don’t know. And next thing I know I’m sliding down the road on my back and I’m watching the motorcycle slide along with me, with the footpegs sparking everywhere.”

Zigy, of course is very much an ATGATT (All The Gear All The Time) kind of guy and he was fine.

“The bike was fine. I got up and rode. It freaked me out for a long time.”

Freaked him out, huh? Well yes, I guess. I don’t know how you have the courage to get back on that thing and just ride off after something like that happens. Fortunately I’ve never had that experience.

And it can happen at slow speeds just as easily as when you’re going fast. Zigy also told me about one time when his wife at that time went down.

“We were coming up to a stop sign. She wanted to move over to my other side, and as she crossed a line of some sand or gravel in the middle, she crossed the gravel and touched the brake and of course she was down in a heartbeat. Luckily I had bought her a pair of armored Dainese pants in Italy. I heard that crack as her helmet hit the ground, and she was fine.”

There’s a saying among motorcyclists, at least those who don’t think of themselves as immortal, that “You dress for the crash, not the ride.” Once you see a rider go down you know exactly what that means.

Biker Quote for Today

Top 10 signs that a computer is owned by a Harley rider: 08. There’s an oil stain on the floor just below the computer.

Sure, the road is clear now. But what’s around that curve?

OK, it has been quite awhile since I have done an update on this perennial thread, flying objects or objects on the road. These come from a thread on the Adventure Rider forum.

• Eels. Some time ago in south east Australia, wriggling across the road. I missed them. Could have been a slippery collision. I thought the first one was just a snake, until I saw a few more. It was raining and apparently these ones live in freshwater but migrate to the Coral Sea to breed.
• I nearly hit a Red Kite that was swooping down onto a road kill. The bird was so focused on the kill, that it did not see me until the last moment, then it looked straight into my eyes, and scooped the dead rabbit up with one talon, all the time staring me in the eyes, as it started to gain height, I had to duck down to avoid the hit, as I passed just under it.
• Was following a light truck in the middle lane which I couldn’t see around and I like to be able to see beyond the car in front of me for safety. On the right of me was a fully loaded semi truck which we had both just passed. With just enough distance between the light truck in front of me and the semi in the right lane, I went to switch to the right lane in front of the semi. Unfortunately, there was a steel stool with the legs sticking up about 18″ right where the lane markers are which I baaaaarely missed.
• About 40 years ago, Kawasaki vertical twin, M4 in England on a sunny morning after a freezing night. About an inch-thick of ice lifted off the top of a container truck in front of me, 40 feet by 8 feet. I saw it lifting and braked onto the shoulder. Cars behind, not so lucky.
• 100 yards behind an 18 wheeler with empty flatbeds that had heavy plywood inserts in its trailers.
  I saw the wind pick up the edge of one of the inserts and as the wind caught it I watched flip up high into the air.
  In a split second I ducked as it flew over my helmet.
• A Christmas tree. It was standing in the middle of my driving lane.
• Whilst riding through some of the most beautiful New Zealand scenery early one winters morning just out of Queenstown a sheep fell from an 40-50 foot cliff and landed on my handle bars sending me and my new Suzuki GT750 down the road.
• Still when young and stupid — had to get out of a situation by riding through unfamiliar college campus at night on sidewalks at high speed. Hit a 3ft stone wall. That was the end of the KLR.
• Almost had a skunk strike me in the chest …… truck in front of me ran over the skunk and kicked it up, twirling and spraying headed right at me …… it veered off at the last second.
• A small tractor. I’m in slow lane, and keep seeing sparks from under the car in front of me; I’m back prolly 150 feet. Figured it was a chain from the trailer being towed in front of him, but could not quite see. Guy pulls out to pass the trailer – too close – maybe 2 car lengths between them. I see the chain dragging and bouncing from a trailer loaded with crap – furniture? Odd shaped stuff? Tarps flapping. And a black mass at the rear – can not really make it out. I punch it to go around the trailer, and as I get closer the chain starts sparking more. Get about 50 feet from it … and the black mass resolves itself as a small tractor, and it falls off. Sparks, sparks, one bounce dead behind the trailer, one bounce to the left, something flies off fast and passes IN FRONT of me at about waist height. I’m thinking crap. This is it. I’m still accelerating, zig hard left, the tractor takes the position where I was, I go to the shoulder edge, straighten it out, and I’m ALIVE! It was prolly only 2-3 seconds, but it seemed like 30.

Yeah, I’ll pass on trying to top that one. Ride safely out there.

Biker Quote for Today

Well, I figure I’ll buy me a motorcycle
Wrap her pretty little frame around a telephone pole
Ride her off a mountain like old Arlo
Figure I’ll buy me a motorcycle
— Colter Wall

Back in 2013 there was opposition to continuing the MOST program. Most supporters from those days now wish they had lost that battle.

Bureaucracies never die, you just wish they would. Take Colorado’s MOST program–please!

The Motorcycle Operator Safety Training (MOST) program is up for sunset review this year, as House Bill 20-1285, and although it is no longer doing anything close to what it was intended to do, it appears destined to continue to exist. HB20-1285 will be heard in the House Business Affairs & Labor Committee on March 3 if you want to go register your preferences.

It started out as a good thing. Colorado motorcyclists supported the creation of MOST, willingly agreeing to pay an extra $4 every time we renew our drivers licenses and an extra $2 for every motorcycle license plate renewal in order to fund the program. In return, money raised was used primarily to lower the cost for students taking motorcycle rider training courses. The legislation limited program administrators to using only up to 15% of the funds to cover the cost of administration.

Today the program brings in about $800,000 per year but not one penny goes to reducing the cost of training. And while the administrators say they keep their cost to under 15%, a good deal more than that is used to fund “contract administration,” which is to say, to pay for an outside vendor to run the program. Isn’t that what the state agency was supposed to do with the 15%? And just what exactly are they doing with the rest of the money? Putting up road signs warning drivers to watch out for motorcycles? That doesn’t seem a particularly good return on the investment of $800,000. Per year.

You might think there would now be a concerted effort to get rid of MOST but you would be wrong. I raised this question at my ABATE D-17 meeting last week and it seems the matter comes down to one consideration. All organizations and companies in Colorado that offer motorcycle rider training, if they operate under the MOST umbrella, can sign off a student on the riding portion of their motorcycle riders license presuming they pass the course successfully. Then all they need to do is take the written test and boom, they’re done.

The concern is that if MOST went away, so would this ability to certify the riders, and the impetus to take training would diminish. That would mean more untrained–and possibly unlicensed–riders out there and a lot less income for ABATE, T3RG, and other training organizations.

A number of years ago the MOST program was up for review and was facing harsh criticism. The Colorado Confederation of Clubs was actively campaigning to abolish it. ABATE of Colorado fought to keep it.

Now, from what I gather, everyone hates MOST but we have to keep it or else.

How about a different approach? How about we get rid of MOST but pass a bill allowing rider training vendors to certify trainees as long as they meet certain standards? We could cut the amount we riders contribute to maybe $1 on our plate renewals and that should completely cover the modest expense to monitor the training vendors.

Of course, passing the legislation is the sticker. That requires finding sympathetic legislators, crafting a bill, and building a constituency to get it passed. That’s not easy. It’s just so much easier to renew the program for another five years and move on to the next bill. Even if the program is not doing what it was created to do. This is why bureaucracies never die.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you pile boxes and laundry on your car, but your bike must have 6 feet or clearance in the garage.

Taking a break.

In all the previous articles about this data dump I have drawn from the tables, which had been extracted and sent to me. I went to look at the full report and found just a bit more info of interest. Then I promise I’m through with this discussion.

The first thing is location. Where in the state are bikers most at risk? A table on annual motorcycle fatalities from 2014 through 2018 shows a lot of interesting numbers. Adams County is always one of the high ones. Over that five-year span the count of fatalities has been 7, 7, 13, 13, 10. Alamosa County, on the other hand is usually very safe but 2015 was a terrible year: 0, 7, 0, 0, 0. What the heck happened in 2015?

Not surprisingly, the metro area counties–which have the greatest population–mostly have the highest fatality rates, although for some reason Douglas County usually trends a bit lower than the others.
Arapahoe County–3, 0, 11, 6, 9
Denver City/County–7, 14, 14, 13, 7
Douglas County–3, 5, 10, 5, 3
Jefferson County–11, 14, 15, 9, 12

Boulder County is also surprisingly low, considering how many people there are: 5, 5, 4, 5, 3.

El Paso, Gunnison, Larimer, Mesa, Pueblo, and Weld Counties are also higher, in conformity with their populations.

Of all Colorado counties, Baca, Bent, Cheyenne, Costilla, Crowley, Dolores, Hinsdale, Kiowa, Kit Carson, Lincoln, Otero, Phillips, and Sedgewick Counties report zero motorcycle fatalities in this five-year span. That’s pretty impressive.

By age, the most fatalities occur among those who are 20-29 or 50-59. The five year totals for each age group are under 20–14; 20-29–125; 30-39–86; 40-49–87; 50-59–119; 60-69–74; over 70–25.

OK, that’s enough. I just thought that all these numbers in this whole series of posts were interesting and could hopefully be helpful to people in understanding what the greatest risks are. I hope I haven’t bored you too much.

Biker Quote for Today

We know you’re a poser if you think that a kick-starter is a mocha latte.

There’s no good reason not to wear eye protection.

Old pictures of motorcyclists from, say, 50 years ago can be pretty amazing if you pay attention to the details. It’s not that most of the riders are not wearing helmets, though they’re not. It’s that in most cases they’re also not wearing eye protection. Of course, laws back then didn’t require either.

Here’s an example. Some time ago I got a copy of McQueen’s Machines: The Cars and Bikes of a Hollywood Icon. Flipping through it there are a variety of pictures of Steve McQueen on motorcycles and, in several of them he’s blasting along with no helmet or glasses. It is interesting to note, however, that in shots where he is racing he always wears goggles and a helmet. So it’s not like people back then didn’t understand the protection these things offered.

Nearly every state now has a motorcycle helmet law in one form or another, some requiring all riders to wear them, many only having restrictions on those under 18. These laws are a volatile topic year after year and are likely to remain so for a long time to come. At one extreme are non-riders who want to force all riders to wear helmets, and at the other end are riders who consider it insane to ride without a helmet but who adamantly oppose government mandates on the issue. And there’s a wide spectrum of positions in between the two.

What goes undebated, however, is the fact that requirements for riders and passengers on motorcycles to have some sort of eye protection are widely mandated now as well. Glasses or goggles, per se, are not specifically required; a number of states demand eye protection on your face only if you do not have a windshield. Alaska is more specific: your windshield must reach at least 15 inches above your handlebars. Alabama, California, and others don’t require anything. Indiana only requires eye protection for riders under 18.

It’s a non-issue. Why? Because people by and large are not stupid. I’ve been riding for more than 30 years and I’ve gone down on my bike once. I didn’t always wear a helmet, although now I always do. I was that day but it didn’t matter, my head never touched the ground or anything else.

On the other hand, I cannot count the number of bugs that have died on my visor or on the lenses of my glasses. And then there are the bits of grit and sand and tiny pebbles that my eye protection has deflected. I know that many years ago, just like Steve McQueen, I used to ride without glasses or any kind of eye protection. I find it hard to believe now.

What I also find kind of hard to believe is the number of states that have no requirements or only require a windshield. Both my bikes have windshields and trust me, they don’t block all the airborne debris. I don’t care what the law is, or what state I’m in, I’m not going riding without eye protection.

And I think that’s why it’s a non-issue. I know that in my experience, and I suspect in yours, too, if you go to a state that has no requirements for eye protection, you’ll nevertheless be hard put to spot anyone who doesn’t have it. It would just be stupid not to.

Wow, what a concept: People are not stupid.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you have ever had to borrow a helmet for your date.

A rider heading up Independence Pass.

I believe this will be the last post about this Colorado MOST 2018 report on motorcycle crashes. The only tables left that I haven’t discussed have to do with what parts of the road riders were on when they crashed and what the conditions were.

With 1,247 crashes counted, the number one location was essentially anywhere except at an intersection. The table lists it as “Non-intersection.” Were they going straight, was the road curvy? No way to know. But then number two was “At intersection,” with 688 crashes counted. The lesson here should be obvious: be extra careful when you’re approaching an intersection.

Number three is “Intersection related” but it’s not obvious what that implies. There were 278 of those.

“Driveway access related” is next, with 127. So yeah, be alert at driveways, too. Heck, be alert all the time. It’s your skin we’re talking about here.

The remaining tallies are “Ramp” with 85; “Roudabout” with 24; “Alley related” with 15; and “Unknown” with 6.

And then we come to road condition. Here the preponderance is overwhelming: “Dry” with 2,341 crashes tallied. “Wet” is in second place with just 83. So OK, it seems that road condition not anywhere near the factor I would have expected it to be. That’s why you study data.

Barely one crash in 100 involved “Foreign matter.” To be specific, 24. “Wet w/visible icy road treatment” tallied only 5.

The rest were “Icy” with 3; “Snowy” with 2; “Muddy” with 1; “Slushy” with 1; and “Unknown” with 10.

Not a lot of surprises there. Not too many of us get out on our bikes when the roads are icy, snowy, muddy, or slushy. If we did I’m sure those numbers would be a lot higher.

Just to wrap up, here are some overall stats that the report broke out.

Motorcyclist Fatalities
• 103 motorcyclists were killed in motorcycle crashes in 2018, 94 were male and nine were female. Ninety-nine were motorcycle operators and four were motorcycle passengers.
• Motorcyclist fatalities represented 16.3% of Colorado’s total traffic fatalities (103 of 632).
• The number of motorcyclist fatalities remained the same in 2018 compared to 2017.
• 77 motorcycle operators involved in fatal crashes were determined to be “at fault.”
• 39 of the fatal motorcycle crashes involved only the motorcycle and no other vehicle.
• In 2018, 54 motorcycle operators killed in a fatal crash tested positive for alcohol or drugs. Fourteen of the motorcycle operators tested positive alcohol (BAC >=0.08) only, 28 operators tested positive for drugs only, and 12 motorcycle operators tested positive for both alcohol and drugs.
• 54 motorcycle operators killed were not wearing a helmet.

If you’re reading this you weren’t one of these folks. Please don’t be one of them next year, either.

Biker Quote for Today

Sometimes the road you travel doesn’t lead to the destination you had hoped for. But if you can look back on it and still smile, then it was worth it.