One of the things I always encourage people who buy bikes from me to do, is to take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course. it is offered in just about all metro areas in the US, and most states have courses they offer too. They can teach you more in these courses than you can ever learn on your own and sometimes the only way to learn is the hard way if you don’t take the course. The AP has a good article outlining the problem with more bikes, older riders and more congested roads.
Riders are getting older, riding more miles on rural roads and drinking more. And the rising number of riders is also making it harder to get into training programs, they say.
Motorcycle sales were up 11 percent in the first six months of this year and interest continues because of high gas prices, the Motorcycle Industry Council said. In 2004, the most recent year data are available, the industry posted $7.6 billion in sales of 725,000 on-highway bikes, up from nearly $4.7 billion in 2000 with 471,000 bikes sold.
“A big part of what you need to look at it is the simple fact that there are lot more motorcycles on the road,” said Bob Klein, spokesman for Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson. It sold 154,041 motorcycles in the first half of the year, up about 7 percent from the previous year.
Motorcycles accounted for 2 percent of all registered vehicles in 2004 but made up 9.4 percent of all highway deaths, up from 5 percent in 1997, according to government statistics.
Good links at the end of the article too. Get trained and be safe! The MSF web site is here. Check it out.
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