maanantai 28. tammikuuta 2008

Got a letter from my old scottish friend in Canada

Motorcycle Training in North America
stuart munro

I think Canadians can claim some small mention in the historic beginnings of rider training in North America. I trained Adam Johnson, MSF's first director of licensing, as a Chief Instructor (CI) in the Canadian National Motorcycle Training Program in January, 1974. That was in Ottawa, and when he left us—top student—I gave him carte blanche permission to use any of our instructional and instructor training materiel for the MSF, no strings.

I later worked with Adam on the initial MSF development of their rider training program and licensing tests in Linthicum, Md. I also recommended Peter Fassnacht, my lead CI on that first CI course, as an MSF intern. Peter went on to become an MSF VP, and, regrettably and unexpectedly, died recently. He was a superb rider, an excellent instructor, and I like to think that his experience with us had some influence on the development of MSF rider training and licensing.

Here is an abbreviated account of my involvement:

1966: I wrote our first syllabus in Ottawa, Canada, based on my experience as a military motorcycle instructor, and later as an instructor with the Royal Automobile Club/Auto Cycle Union motorcycle program in the UK. I gathered together about 30 motorcyclists, unpaid volunteers, and trained them as instructors. It was like herding cats, but that's the complete biker for you: individualists who march to their own drummers. The industry refused to help us, and I got a friend with CCM (then importing Suzukis) to give us three Suzuki 80's. I called them Faith, Hope and Charity.

1967: We held our first novice motorcycle course in Ottawa in January and our Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a Harley rider, presented graduation certificates. Good publicity.

1970: Al Fetter, one of our instructors, was posted to an RCAF base in Winnipeg, and tried valiantly to start another course there, but failed. Not his fault. The opposition to anything related to motorcycling in those days was unbelievable. I think they assumed we were teaching rape and pillage.

1972: I trained 25 instructors in Vancouver, BC, and that course has been very successful and is still in operation.

1973: I was employed at this time as a traffic safety adviser with Transport Canada, and my director, Dr. Gordon Campbell, approved substantial support to the program, to the tune of more than $2,000,000. This money was for seeding beginning courses; an excellent beginning rider manual written by Cycle Canada, who also produced posters graphically showing the difficulties of detecting motorcycles; and I produced a promotional film, Survival, which is so sadly out of date, I hesitate to mention it. This film is still available, internationally, from the Canadian National Film Board through any Canadian Embassy or Consulate.

1974: In January, we went completely national. Candidates for CI certification from every province in Canada were trained in Ottawa. Two of them couldn't ride and were sent home. Other candidates included two applicants from the Canadian Armed Forces in Germany, an Australian and, of course, Adam Johnson of MSF.

1970-1980: Some of the authorities I worked with over this period included Dr. Jim Newman, Biokinetics, Ottawa; Dr. Harry Hurt, UCLA; Adam Johnson, MSF; Drs. Jim McKnight and Ken McPherson, NPSRI; and Lew Buchanan, NHTSA. Their contributions to motorcycle training were substantial and included Harry Hurt’s monumental Motorcycle Accident Study, and NPSRI’s Motorcycle Task Analysis. As information from all these sources was received, findings were incorporated into both the American and Canadian courses; and without this research we’d still be thrashing around in the boondocks. Their efforts have never received the recognition they so richly deserve.

1976-1978: As raporteur to the Road Research Secretariat, Research Group S13, Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD), based in Paris, I contributed the details of our Canadian course to the findings of the group, all European members. One outstanding member of the Working Group, and possibly the only other motorcyclist in the group, was Matti Koivurova, a safety engineer with Finland’s traffic safety group, Liikenneturva.

Matti later visited my Office of Traffic Safety with Transport Canada, and demonstrated an innovative modification to vehicle windshields, intended to remove grime, grit and ice from windshield wiper blades. He also became actively involved in our National Motorcycle Training Program; was a participant in the Ottawa program; and was given all our related documentation on motorcycle training with full permission to use this in any manner to improve or modify his motorcycle course in Helsinki.

1990: I was employed as MSF's Director of Communications for a brief, unhappy period of six months. The job consisted of preparing, editing and producing all technical papers and documentation for the MSF's international conference in Orlando, Fl. What they wanted was a high-priced clerk, not a director of communications. As an example of MSF aims and priorities, the following was typical.

In 1990, Lew Buchanan of NHTSA told me about a substantial drop in motorcycle accidents, injuries and fatalities in 1989, two days before they issued a release. I prepared an MSF news release immediately and was told to scrap it, rudely, and in no uncertain terms. The reason given was that reporters might ask ‘awkward’ questions.

This statement—and the underlying attitude—from the chief executive officer of the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, charged with promoting safety for young men and women motorcyclists, is, to say the very least, disturbing. It approaches black comedy at its worst. I take no small comfort now in the fact that I was fired by MSF, but that's not the story they tell. Ironically, it was Peter Fassnacht who had to tell me they 'had to let me go', two or three weeks before the international conference. This may—or may not—have anything to do with the fact that my work had been completed.

stuart munro
Editor, lumens
Vancouver, BC, Canada

Amended January 18th, 2006


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More about motos and Stuart:
http://salmonmotoman.blogspot.fi/