Take Your Baby (i.e. Motorcycle) to Work Day
Are motorcycles dangerous playthings for the rich and reckless, or are they the undiscovered solution to traffic congestion and other world ills? The answer depends on whom you ask: Do you ride motorcycles, or do you just watch them buzz by as you idle in your car on the 405?
It’s true that motorcyclists race through streets, dart between cars and perform wheelies in vacant lots. It’s also true they can help relieve traffic congestion, reduce parking shortages and ease wear and tear on stressed roadways.
It’s the also-true part that Andy Goldfine likes to think about. Today is Ride to Work Day, a national consciousness-raising event that he created 10 years ago “to advocate and support the increased use of motorcycles for transportation.”
Goldfine, 48, faces an uphill battle getting attention for his day--even among motorcyclists. He does set an example, though, riding his Honda XR 650L to get to and from Aerostitch Riderwear, the Duluth, Minn., motorcycle apparel company he founded.
Transportation motorcycling hasn’t gotten a lot of ink in the 10 years that Ride to Work Day has existed. Even Goldfine knows the idea of commuter biking isn’t as attention-getting as extreme motocross or the Hells Angels or Jessica Alba in “Dark Angel.”
But commuter motorcycling may be an idea whose time is coming, he says. While emissions issues are of concern, the increased use of motorcycles has enormous potential to ease traffic congestion, particularly in Southern California.
In Los Angeles County, average freeway speeds are about 30 mph and are expected to drop to 20 mph by 2025. In 1997, it took an average of 32 minutes for L.A. County drivers to get from their homes to work. By 2025, the same commute will take 46 minutes, according to the Southern California Assn. of Governments.
In California, where state law allows motorcyclists to not only ride in carpool lanes but to share lanes--or go between the cars--motorcycles if more widely used have the potential to reduce traffic delays for everyone, not just individual riders.
Still, motorcycles account for a tiny fraction of the overall traffic mix. In Los Angeles County, there are nearly 5 million registered cars, but just 80,000 registered motorcycles.
Nationwide, there are 6 million registered motorcycles, but, according to Goldfine, only 15% to 20% of those are used for daily transportation.
“It should be four out of five,” says Goldfine, who has been motorcycling since his 16th birthday and has owned 10 bikes over the years.
Since Ride to Work was formed in 1991, motorcycle ownership has increased by 250%, but many of those have been recreational buyers. All of which leaves Goldfine to ponder: “Why aren’t more riders taking their motorbikes to work?”
A Concern for Safety
He figures it’s a combination of things but usually boils down to safety concerns and inconveniences, things like most employers not wanting workers reporting for duty in motorcycle gear and, in some parts of the country, the weather.
Goldfine says that while the overall accident statistics for motorcyclists are worse than for drivers of automobiles, alcohol plays a big role in the increased risk. And, he says, that risk is much lower during commuting hours when all drivers are much less likely to have been drinking.
In 45% of motorcyclist deaths, the rider had been drinking, according to the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.
The motorcycle injury and fatality rates per 100 million vehicle miles traveled are 472 and 23.4, respectively. For cars, the injury and fatality rates are substantially lower--136 and 1.3, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Two key causes of motorcycle accidents are cars turning left in front of a motorcycle, and motorcyclists going wide in turns and running off the road. While motorcyclists can decrease risk by improving defensive riding techniques, there is no way to reduce the danger to zero.
“I wouldn’t want to take an SUV or sports car away from one driver,” Goldfine said, “but part of the reason people are buying SUVs right now is because they feel safer. There’s nothing I can do about that other than to say I have more fun riding my motorcycle than I do driving an SUV, and I’m going to work hard to manage the risks to allow me to do that.”
Safety Classes for Riders
California law requires all riders to wear a helmet. Safety classes also advocate protective clothing--heavy-gauge pants, and jackets and boots made from leather. While wearing chaps to the job may work for a mechanic, it doesn’t fly for an investment banker.
“If you’re carrying a helmet and have all this gear, people kind of look at you a little weird,” said Amy Holland, 37.
Holland is a member of the Ride to Work organization’s board of directors and the publisher of Friction Zone, a monthly California motorcycle magazine that has been running public service advertisements on Ride to Work Day for the last six months.
Friction Zone is one of several motorcycle publications and organizations endorsing Ride to Work Day.
“It’s a positive way to demonstrate the contribution motorcycles can make not only to congestion in our cities but also to raising visibility of motorcycles in the traffic mix,” said Robert Rasor, president of the American Motorcyclist Assn., based in Pickerington, Ohio. The 77-year-old motorcycle rights group has 270,000 members.
The Problem of Pollution
While motorcycles get great mileage--from about 30 miles per gallon in town to 50 miles per gallon on the freeway--they have one very environmentally unfriendly quality: They pollute the air.
Even though they are significantly smaller than cars, motorcycles can produce up to 15 times the emissions per mile as the average new car or light-duty truck, according to the California Air Resources Board.
“Motorcycles are not built with the amount of air pollution control in mind that car manufacturers have to adhere to,” said Jerry Martin, spokesman for the resources board. “The regulations are not as strict; the technology is not as advanced.”
The board recently adopted new emissions standards for motorcycles that will apply to 280cc and larger motorcycles, beginning with 2004 models, with further required reductions for 2008 models.
Still, their smog-forming carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions won’t be as low as that of cars. Because the number of motorcycles on the road is a small percentage of overall traffic, it’s been lower on regulators’ radar screen.
Motorcycles and scooters are already a widely used alternative form of transportation in Western Europe and Asia. In the United States, San Francisco is the only city that comes close to a motorcyclist’s version of utopia, although Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis and Boston also have healthy motorcyclist commuter communities.
It is nearly impossible to gauge how many riders are participating in today’s Ride to Work Day, but Rasor of the American Motorcyclist Assn. estimates it is in the tens of thousands nationwide.
By comparison, tens of thousands of bicyclists participate in national Bike to Work Day in L.A.
Clearly, the motorcycle has a long way to go as a mode of daily transportation for the masses, but Goldfine remains true to his message.
“I like motorcycle riding because it addresses a lot of things we’re trying to address in society: road rage, mass transit, congestion, excessive energy consumption,” said Goldfine.
“When people see motorcyclists, they should cheer them, not jeer them,” said Goldfine. “They should say, ‘That guy is wearing the roads down less, saving parking spaces, saving energy, arriving at work more happy.”’
