Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 6, 1993 TAG: 9305060026
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Brian Jarvis was wheeling along the Blue Ridge Parkway with buddies last year, comfortable on his 1,000-cc motorcycle.
As Jarvis rounded a curve, he lost control of the cycle. He smashed into a guardrail, reducing the bike to rubble.
Jarvis was in a coma for three weeks.
Two Saturdays ago, Jarvis was wheeling along a course at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke on a low-power training motorcycle. It was a humbling test for the 21-year-old Roanoker, who while recovering from brain surgery after his accident had shelved his desire for motorcycling.
Riding in front of Jarvis was Brian Hall, a 23-year-old Salem resident. Hall totalled his cycle several years ago. He was lucky that he wasn't hurt, he said.
Getting back on a motorcycle did not come easy, Hall said.
Accidents have a way of drawing people to a class called, simply, Motorcycle Safety, said Ron Coleman, director of continuing education at Virginia Western.
"A lot of these folks have had accidents," Coleman said. "It's one of the motivators that get people into this program."
For others it is the desire to learn how to ride, and how to ride safely. For some, it is to brush up on rusty skills. For a few, it is the promise of a top-of-the-line vehicle.
Developed by the Department of Motor Vehicles, the course is offered at 13 community colleges around the state, including Virginia Western.
And it is popular. The course is backlogged with waiting lists at all 13 sites. In Roanoke, the list is 100-deep. Statewide, the number is nearly five times that.
"As far as popularity, let's say it's out of control," said Bruce Biondo, motorcycle program manager for the DMV's Rider Training Program. "We don't have enough money to train all of the people who want to be trained."
Evidence is in the numbers. In its first year, 350 people received training. Last year, that figure was 2,400, Biondo said. In total, 11,636 riders have completed the course.
The program started in 1985. A legislative bill passed a year earlier funneled $3 from each license plate sold into a motorcycle-rider training fund. The Department of Motor Vehicles was designated to administer a rider-training program - one for inexperienced riders and one for the experienced, Biondo said.
At Virginia Western, three-day, one-credit-hour courses for inexperienced riders are offered April through October, beginning on a Friday with two hours of classroom instruction and continuing all day Saturday and Sunday. A course for experienced riders may begin this summer, Coleman said.
Biondo attributes a statewide drop in motorcycle fatalities - 94 in 1984 compared to 39 in 1992 - to the course.
"I don't have a positive study but it indicates that the program is doing something," he said.
Brett Irby waves his hands in a fluid, ballet-like motion.
"Ease it out. Ease it out," the instructor shouts above the sputter of three Honda training cycles, donated with helmets, by dealers.
Three student cyclists - Jarvis, Hall and Kevin Long - maneuver around an oval marked by orange cones. Each leans into turns with halting, choppy movements. Several tries later, their movements become smoother.
Irby answers a reporter's questions as the cycles whiz by.
"We've had folks as old as 65, and 17-year-olds who had to have parental consent," said Irby, one of seven who teach the course in Roanoke, at Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg or both. "They come away at the end of the weekend with more practical experience than years of trying to learn to ride on their own."
Instruction is based on a rider-safety program developed by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation in California, Irby said. At the program's core is a study of motorcycle accidents and the riders involved in them.
The study "found that 70 percent of motorcycle accidents were single vehicle - rider error," Irby said. "Ninety percent of the people were self-taught or taught by friends. Many did not have the ability to move in their motorcycles."
The emphasis is on braking, shifting, straight-line riding and turning, Irby said.
"We progress one step at a time; let them get used to the lean of the motorcycle," he said. "We demonstrate each exercise, then coach students on their own techniques."
A completion card is awarded at the end of the course to students who pass a skills and knowledge test. Successful course completion exempts the student from the road portion of the DMV's motorcycle license test.
Irby remembers one of his students - a woman whose husband promised her a new motorcycle if she successfully completed the course. She was beaming as Irby handed her a completion card on a Sunday afternoon, he recalled.
Then the woman spotted her husband on the parking lot. With him was her new $14,000 bike.
Gov. Douglas Wilder has declared May as Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Month, in an effort to reduce the number of motorcycle injuries and fatalities on Virginia's roads.
The observance will focus on increasing public awareness of motorcycles and the need to share the road with them.
For more information about motorcycle safety awareness in Virginia, contact Bruce Biondo with the state Department of Motor Vehicles at (804) 367-1813.
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