Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2003-Continued

SAFE, ACCOUNTABLE, FLEXIBLE, AND EFFICIENT TRANSPORTATION EQUITY ACT OF 2003-CONTINUED

MOTORCYCLE SAFETY

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics tells us that almost 5 million motorcycles are registered to operate on America's roadways, covering almost 17 million miles per year. Many more are used off-road, and some estimates put the actual number of riders at up to 20 million.

All these Americans choose to ride motorcycles either for recreation or for their primary means of transportation, and every year the number of Americans on motorcycles increases. As that number increases, so does the number of accidents, including fata accidents. Yet we are falling tragically behind in training these individuals to ride safely.

The single best way to avoid injuries, fatalities, high insurance costs, lawsuits, medical costs and all the other factors that come into play is by avoiding the accidents in the first place.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in its Motorcycle Safety Program issued in January 2003, said: "Crash prevention . . . offers the greatest potential safety benefit for motorcyclists."

And the single best way to avoid accidents is to provide safety training.

Training works.

Untrained riders have accidents, and trained riders do not. It is really as simple as that.

A study of the California Motorcyclist Safety Program designed by Dr. John Billheimer and completed in 1996 found that rider training dramatically reduces accidents, and thus eliminates injuries and fatalities. Specifically, the study stated, "Analyses of statewide accident trends show that total motorcycle accidents have dropped 67 percent since the introduction of the California Motorcyclist Safety Program, with a drop of 88 percent among the under-18 riders. . . . If accident trends in California had paralleled those in the rest of the U.S. over this period, the State would have experienced an additional 124 fatalities per year. By any measure, the California Motorcyclist Safety Program is a cost-effective program that pays for itself many times over in saved lives and reduced accident rates."

Even more recent statistics from the Commonwealth of Virginia are equally telling. Virginia has approximately 110,000 registered motorcycle. Since 1998, there have been 7,099 motorcycle crashes in Virginia and 222 of those crashes have been fatal. Yet out of all those accidents, the number involving riders with formal training is less than 4 percent of the total, and the number of fatal accidents involving trained riders is just 1.8 percent. The vast majority of all accidents-over' 96 percent-are riders without training.

The most far-reaching document yet completed on motorcyclist safety is the "National Agenda for Motorcycle Safety," a cooperative effort by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, the National Association of State Motorcycle Safety Administrators, and a host of others representing the insurance industry, law enforcement, riders, traffic safety experts and others.

The National Agenda identified a number of steps needed to reduce the tragic rate of motorcycle accidents. Uppermost among them is the need for better training.

Where does motorcyclist training come from? Who does it? How is it funded?

The truth is, training, and funding for training, is a mixed bag. And that, is exactly the problem. Most States provide at least moral support, but there is no uniform process for ensuring that training is provided, or that the facilities and funding is made available.

In most cases, training is funded almost entirely by the students themselves, who pay up to $300 per person for the privilege. Many States also collect money-often a nominal charge of $5.00 for a motorcycle operator's license. Both these efforts to raise funds are strongly supported by and promoted by the motorcycling community-but they want to ensure that the funds are actually used for things that enhance motorcyclist safety.

As for the curriculum itself, far and away the most frequent choice is the material created by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF), a group supported by the major motorcycle manufacturers.

The MSF course material for beginning motorcyclists is extremely comprehensive. It focuses on teaching the skills and knowledge needed for safe riding-beginning with the use of proper equipment such as gloves, boots and helmets, goes on to teach students how to predict and avoid hazardous situations, and graduates to teaching the physical skills needed for crash avoidance. This is precisely the course material that has produced such outstanding results in California, Virginia and many other States.

You may well ask, "If training is so successful, why do we still have so many accidents? The answer is as simple as can be: training availability lags far behind the demand.

Throughout the country, the waiting list to join a training class ranges from several weeks to several months.

In California, which has one of the oldest and strongest programs, it may take as long as 3 months.

In Wisconsin, one of the States where training dollars were totally eliminated, motorcyclist groups have stepped up to the plate to self-fund training, but the waiting list may be as large as 7,000 people.

Illinois trained 8,500 people in 2000, but had to turn away nearly 3,000 more for lack of space. Course capacity increased in 2001 and 2002, but the number of people turned away increased faster. In 2003, almost 11,000 students completed training, but almost 4,000 were told "Sorry, there's no room for you."

And that's the story in State after State.

Unfortunately, what that means is that untrained riders are increasing in number all the time. If you can pass your State's test, you can ride. And if you just spent thousands of dollars on a new motorcycle, the chances are you won't be letting that new motorcycle license go to waste. But a licensed rider isn't necessarily a trained rider, nor is he or she necessarily a safe rider. It takes training-or years of experience-to make a safe rider. The statistics from California and Virginia confirm that for all to see.

At the appropriate time, it is my intention to seek action to encourage the State to provide more and better support for these vital training efforts.

Now, let me turn to another concern of the motorcycling community. A large part of the training needed to produce safe riders consists of teaching them how to avoid road hazards that simply should not exist in the first place. In many cases, highway engineering practices focus on four wheels, not two.

The average driver cruises past such things as bridge expansion joints, loose manhole covers, the slick sealants used to fill cracks in asphalt pavement, rough asphalt patches, rumble strips and lane-dividing buttons that keep drivers awake, and the steel or steel cable barriers along the side of the road. Yet any or all of these things may be hazardous to a rider.

The motorcycling community has long sought ways to let engineers and designers know about those hazards, and work with them to design better systems. I have seriously contemplated offering an amendment that would address this issue, but I am happy to report that such an amendment may not be needed.

That concludes my statement for the movement, but at this time I would like to engage in a colloquy with the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee on this matter.

I have been working in several areas to address the issue of motorcyclist safety. As part of this effort, I have been working to establish an Advisory Council to assist the Secretary of Transportation in developing the appropriate safety specifications for highways and motorcycles. Fatalities among motorcyclists have gone up dramatically, rising from 2,112 in 1997 to 3,244 in 2002. Because motorcyclists have special needs and concerns, I have long been concerned that the Department of Transportation has not had adequate input from either riders or experts outside the Department itself. Thus, I proposed establishing a council of riders and experts to advise the Secretary on their unique safety needs.

Chairman INHOFE has been very helpful in trying to find the most appropriate way to get this accomplished. He suggested and I agreed to work with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials-AASHTO, which is the organization that actually develops guidelines for highway safety engineering.

I recently received from AASHTO a letter describing a task force it has developed to identify strategies that can be used to reduce motorcycle fatalities and injuries. I believe this task force may be able to accomplish my goal of elevating the unique safety needs of motorcyclists to greater attention by including both riders and outside experts in its deliberations. As a result, I have decided not to offer an amendment to establish an advisory council at this time.

I believe that Chairman INHOFE has had an opportunity to look over the AASHTO letter and I am wondering if he agrees with me that this will accomplish what we have been working towards.