State of the Association

State of the Association, August 2009
Presented during the August 2009 Business Meeting in Madison, Wisconsin

This has been a remarkable year for the association.  SMSA continues to strive forward on a national level.

Your Executive Committee is one of the best, as each committee member is tireless in their commitment to this organization.  They strive to move SMSA to new professional heights  .Even our voting members have stepped up to the plate to assist with projects and meetings.  This organization and its members are a dedicated group of people that I am proud to be associated with.

As you already know the EC meets face to face three times a year and has been teleconferencing the other months.  This has helped to keep the EC up to date on important matters of this organizationand reduced our face to face meetings by one day.  We have tried to communicate with our members through the quarterly Chair Chats.  Our past Communications Chair, Michele Turville, and the current committee members, Pat Hahn and Tim Becker, have been very busy this past year.  The Government & Industry Affairs Chair, Ron Thompson, has worked tirelessly in adding partners to our organization.  He may be retired but we keep him very busy.

We have belonged to FHWA’s Motorcycle Advisory Council for three years.  This council discusses roadway design, maintenance, and other related issues.  The Council has ten members and approximately twenty two interested parties attending.  This Council was supposed to be in existence for one year but with all the recommendations and participation Secretary Peters approved a 2-year extension of the Council.  Some key achievements of the council are:

·Encourage AASHTO to address motorcyclist safety issues during design, construction, maintenance, and operations activities.

·Raise awareness of infrastructure issues as they relate to motorcycle safety, developed and printed the Roadway Safety for Motorcycles brochure

·Motorcycle safety issues are being incorporated into national conference sessions at the Transportation Research Board, Institute of Transportation Engineers, and the American Traffic Safety Services Association.

·Work zones are of particular concern for motorcyclists, and incorporate motorcycle safety issues into the courses developed under the work zone training grant program.

·The Council will respond with written comments to the recently released Notice of Proposed Amendment to the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices regarding motorcycle-related signage.

·The Council has been involved with the Motorcycle Vehicle Miles of Travel symposium; this is part of FHWA efforts to improve exposure data on motorcycle use, in cooperation with NHTSA.

·The Council released a national on line survey, thanks to AMA, that asked questions regarding road infrastructure.  The survey has over 10,000 responses already.

As you can see this Council is very active with motorcycle issues.

We continue to participate with NHTSA during their quarterly motorcycle network meeting. The NHTSA Networking meetings are quarterly events scheduled by NHTSA to meet with motorcycle stakeholders such as AMA, MRF, state motorcycle safety personnel, NTSB, SMSA, MSF, MIC, etc.  The meetings are generally conducted inthree parts. The first part allows the stakeholders to review what they are doing for motorcycle safety, the second part is where NHTSA and other US DOT offices discuss their current motorcycle safety projects and activities and the final part is an open discussion of what should be done to improve motorcycle safety. The meetings generally last about 3 hours and on occasion can go as long as five hours. The hot issues recently have been the NHTSA field test of the motorcycle causation studying protocols and the delay in the start of the Causation Study.

SMSA has also been involved with AAMVA.  We sat at the table with different organizations and assisted in the development of two documents which are the Motorcycle Operator’s License System and Integrating licensing and rider education. The final draft is at NHTSA for approval.

The SMSA Memorial Fund was created to give motorcycle safety professionals and others interested in motorcycle safety the opportunity to recognize a passing friend and/or colleague.Memorial funds can be used for motorcycle safety efforts including sponsoring breaks or events at the annual SMSA National Conference.Events sponsored will be recognized with appropriate signage or recognition in our membership communications.  Check out our website for more information on how to support this fund and to see who is already remembered.

Our current NHTSA grant allowed us to prepare 2 Professional Development Workshops.  This year the PDWs were pilot tested here in Madison this past March.  The PDWs this year are Your Comprehensive State Motorcycle Safety Program presented by Andy Krajewski and Terry Butler and Media Training by Dan Cohen.  These PDWs will be presented here this afternoon.  This is the last year we have the NHTSA grant for these workshops.  Your Executive Committee plans to continue with these workshops after the grant period.

Our Project Manager Diane Devivo was able to attend a NHTSA Region 1 & 2 meeting.  She presented on a panel along with Bill Paultler of New York and Ray Gaulin of Connecticut.  She also was able research for some grant opportunities but did not find anything that would benefit SMSA.  Diane was retired from the US Department of State but has taken on a lot of other part-time jobs and was not able to commit as much time as she wanted to our cause.  Since Ron Thompson has retired we have contracted with him to fulfill some of the duties that Diane was unable to complete.  Ron is currently working on providing our member states with the latest motorcycle safety reference and research materials and assist states in determining the value, effectiveness and success of your initiatives and strategies for their motorcycle safety efforts based on the NHTSA Highway Safety Program Guideline No. 3 – Motorcycle Safety.

The motorcycle industry continues to grow and I have learned so much in the short time I have been your Chair.  I enjoy this position and look forward to another very interesting year.

Thank you.

Carol Thurn, SMSA Chair