Forewarned is Forearmed

Gordon Graham here and hello again. I sincerely hope that all is going well for you and your family – and thanks for the kind emails regarding my monthly contribution to this little corner of the Credit Union site. Here are a couple of stories that caught my eye lately – and while seemingly unrelated, I hope to make a point here that might be of some value to you.

Out of Oregon comes the story about a topic near and dear to my heart – motorcycle safety. According to this story that appeared last week in USA today, men over fifty are over represented in motorcycle collisions.

Out of Oakland, we have the ongoing story of the BART cop who got his pistol mixed up with his TASER and killed a young kid which ended up in all sorts of problems for all sorts of people.

Out of Southern Colorado is the story about the fire truck (and you are right, I have no clue about your nomenclature) leaving the station “too quickly” and ripping the door on the fire station right off the rollers and causing a couple of thousand dollars worth of damage.

Out of Ohio (as we approach time for the World Series) we have the old story of the great catcher Thurman Munson dying in a plane crash.

Out of Los Angeles we have the story of a CHP motorcycle officer having a “close call” on his Kawasaki as he left his office for a day of routine patrol on the freeways of Los Angeles City.

What do all of these events have in common? The “person” in the story was playing in the arena of “high-risk/low-frequency” – and there were tragic consequences.

This bears repeating – as the tragedies continue to repeat over and over again – and we are not learning from “mistakes” of the past – and we just keep on making the same mistakes – different stories on differing events – but the same mistake.

Starting with the motorcycle story in paragraph two – I have no doubt that “older” riders are involved in traffic collisions more frequently than younger riders. It is common knowledge that vision, reflex, muscle tone, reaction time and a myriad of other physical abilities deteriorate as we get older.

I could not locate the entire study that was referenced by USA Today – but I wonder if they factored in “total riding time” into the equation. My guess is (and this is almost a certainty) that they did not. Having some familiarity with police traffic collision investigations – there is no question asked during the motorcycle collision investigation “how long have you been riding a motorcycle?” My guess is (and again, almost a certainty) is that they pulled data from Motor Vehicle records which were taken from traffic collision investigations and the “age” of the rider is on the form – but how much riding experience the rider had prior to the event is not on the form.

Not to bore you, but I was a contributor to the “Hurt Report” when I was doing some graduate studies at USC – the single greatest document ever prepared on motorcycle safety compiled by the great Professor Harry Hurt – and when we investigated fatal collisions in the mid to late seventies – many of the questions we posed dealt with riding experience prior to the collision.

So a 51 year old male who started to ride at age 50 (one year experience on bikes) will look the same on paper as a 51 year old guy who has been riding since age 18 – and the Hurt report was pretty clear on the value of riding experience.

Regarding the poor BART cop who got his gun mixed up with his TASER – this is not the first time that this has happened. The question that I have whenever I read one of these tragedies is “how long had the cop been carrying the TASER?” In the law enforcement world, there was a massive transition from “wheel guns” to semi-autos over in the 80’s and 90’s – and during the transition process, many agencies realized an increase in the AD (accidental discharge – and I disagree with the word accidental here but that is another story). So it is not the age of the cop or how many years experience – but rather how long had the cop been carrying the new tool.

The fire story out of Southern Colorado was an interesting one. A Chief took me into the area in the station where they park the fire apparatus – and he pointed out a piece of tape on the wall about eight feet off the ground running parallel to the floor for about twenty feet. He explained that they had experienced a couple of “door incidents” where the top of the rig hit the door on the way out to a call. Vision was impeded by the design of the roofline of that particular rig – so the driver could not see the level of the door without some yoga type moves – so they put a piece of tape on the wall that the driver could easily see while looking out the driver door window – and when the door reached the level of the tape – then they knew they could leave the station safely.

I told him I thought that was a good idea – and he responded it was a great idea…. until they got a new piece of apparatus that was slightly taller and on the first run… so now the tape is just a bit higher on the wall.

Re Thurman Munson – he had limited experience as a pilot – and got a new contract with the Yankees – and took his money and bought a jet. On his second landing attempt he managed to kill himself.

And regarding the poor CHP guy who traded in his 700 pound Harley with 50 horses for a 500 Kawi with 90 horses – it is the same story again. The officer was used to grabbing two handfuls of throttle and popping the clutch to get the bike moving – and when he did so with 00000.3 miles on the odo on the Kawi – well the rest is history and that was an embarrassing moment for the involved rider. I know him very well. Heck of a nice guy who now writes articles for the LA Firemen’s Credit Union website and that is all I am saying.

I bring this issue to your attention again – because the news is just filled with stories about tragedies involving this type of event. So if you are the 50 year old guy who has just retired and is thinking about a motorcycle for the first time in your life – well good for you – but please recognize that you have no clue what you are doing so read the Hurt Report – and take a class on motorcycle safety – and practice a lot before you wander out to the freeways for a spin.

Or if your choice is to dump the Prius and get a Viper – the same holds true. Or if you are thinking about skydiving for the first time in your life at age 55 – think it through again. The insurance companies know all about this – and that is why your 16-year-old kid costs a fortune to insure.

Anyhow, just a couple of thoughts. Many of you are retired and you have worked very hard to get where you are – and too often I hear about people ending up in a really bad way because they did not quite think through the new toy, tool, experience that they got involved in. Forewarned is Forearmed and Predictable is Preventable.

Thanks for reading this – and thank for all you have done or are doing to make America safer.

Gordon Graham

Co-President, Lexipol