“Motorist Awareness Division”

By Mike and Lori Stiger

Due to the alarming increase of motorcycle accidents, Mike Wright, former President of GWRRA, saw the need to create an outreach program in our organization to become proactive in our communities in educating the public on “Motorcycle Awareness”. Mike stated this in his June 2003 article when announcing “A New Division in GWRRA.”

The main purpose is to have representatives from the Region, District and Chapter levels out there visiting community organizations like student drivers education classes, Elk, Kiwanis or Lion’s clubs. Possibly even retirement communities or your local church group. Through the distribution of literature and conducting short seminars they will demonstrate the vulnerable position motorcyclists are in when sharing the road with the typical motorist. The goal is to leave them with a new attitude and awareness of our fellow motorcyclist. This sounds like a great idea.

I still had this nagging question of “Isn’t this something that our Rider Education program could do?” so I called Bruce and Julia Malson, GWRRA Motorist Awareness Division Directors and posed the question to them. Bruce explained that National felt strongly that this is a much needed program and that having individuals in all levels of our organization focusing on promoting this program was essential for it to be affective. Rider Education already has a full plate and is doing an outstanding job in educating our fellow members. It wouldn’t be fair to put this extra burden of responsibility on our hard working Educators. The decision was therefore made to create this new division.

Being heavily involved in Rider Education, as a MSF instructor, I tend to agree with their reasoning. Our Michigan Rider Education program is one of the best-run programs in GWRRA. Our Chapter Educators do an outstanding job working with our members in the continuation of their Rider Education. There is only so much time our Educators can volunteer, so to add the “Motorist Awareness” program to their plate would only mean that it would not get the time priority it would require to become effective. Having individuals in all levels of GWRRA focusing on this makes sense.

Another added benefit I see is the opportunity for our organization to shed a positive light on motorcyclists in general. Any opportunity the organization has to promote GWRRA and the wonderful people that make up this organization is a definite plus. The general public tends to have reservations about motorcyclists given all the “Bad Boy” images they have been exposed to over their lifetime. Any opportunity to discredit that image and demonstrate what a fun and generous organization we are is always a positive thing. Also, there is a good chance that there will be a few motorcyclists in the crowd that are unfamiliar with GWRRA and may be compelled to join this organization of ours. This is always a definite plus.

Ok, I buy into the need and reasoning of this new program. However, I still have the question of “Who is going to pay for it?” I know from personal experience in helping to create our “bumper stickers” the District gives to the membership for Motorcycle Awareness Month, it is expensive. It cost the District around $1,200.00 to print 5000 bumper stickers. Chapters already are burdened with rising newsletter costs and other “doing business,” related expenses. So is there going to be additional cost to the Chapters for literature and other related items?

According to Bruce Malson the answer is “No”. The reason is because National has been able to acquire outside funding to pay for the literature cost. To start with, MSF (Motorcycle Safety Foundation) has given GWRRA a $6,000.00 dollar grant to help launch this program. In addition ANPAC, “The American National Family of Companies” has partnered with GWRRA to foot the bill of producing all of the literature for this program. In recognition of their support, their company logo will be displayed on the literature. This is something I don’t have a problem with when you consider the “Thousands of Dollars” it’s going to cost them to pay for the literature. According to Bruce, some of the literature and seminar material will be available by May in time for “Motorcycle Awareness Month”. You can find out more information on this and other related MAD information at “http://www.brucemalson.com/” or email Bruce and Julia at “bruce_a_m@msn.com”.

Randy and Lori Westcott, Michigan District Rider Educators, are actively supporting this program as it has been newly reassigned under their direction.  In November 2007, they appointed Former Sr. Chapter Directors Dan & Billye Dulyea as Assistant District Rider Educators to focus on restructuring this important program.  Dan & Billye bring new excitement and enthusiasm as well as creativity to this project and look forward to getting the first phase off the ground.

There are many ways that we can approach Motorist Awareness and we have spent the past several months deciding the best direction to take it for the first phase.  We finally decided to start by answering the question “What are the biggest problems facing motorcycle riders?” and working toward bringing this information to the public through Driver Education and Remedial Driver classes.  We want to teach these students to “see” us in traffic and to know the risks of an accident should they follow too close, pull out in front of us or fail to yield the right-of-way when it is appropriate, thereby making the roads safer for all users.

Should you have questions, comments or ideas, please feel free to contact Dan and Billye at (616) 893-5402 or (616) 893-5617 or e-mail at angelwing1@charter.net.