Travis takes part in sport bike safety class test

  • Published
  • By Jennifer Brugman
  • 60th AMW Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Travis sports bike riders took part in a motorcycle safety class as part of an Air Mobility Command initiative to reduce accidents.

AMC evaluated sports bike safety courses and Travis volunteered to be a test site.

More than a dozen Travis sports bike riders spent the morning of March 22 going over basic safety principles such as braking, managing speed and turning.

In the afternoon, they received training on the situational awareness riders need to stay safe on the road.

Sports bike riders have the largest number of accidents in AMC. In fact, every motorcycle-related fatality last year was on a sports bike except for one, according to Chief Master Sgt. Earnest Singleton, AMC deputy chief of ground safety division, who came to Travis to assess the class.

Tech. Sgt. Sean O’Leary, flight supervisor and motorcycle safety representative for the 9th Air Refueling Squadron, took the class even though he’s been riding for more than 16 years.

“Knowing it was an experiment, I wanted to be there to give feedback,” Sergeant O’Leary said.

Sergeant O’Leary has also taken the basic riders course and the experienced rider’s course.

“I thought [this class] was much more practical [than the ERC],” he said. “It’s difficult to correlate what you learn in that parking lot to a real world life or death situation.”

Instead of practicing what they learned in the morning in a parking lot, participants were taken out to a nearby road to practice their skills.

“The off-road portion was good because it gave people experience in what they were actually going to be riding,” said Staff Sgt. Jennifer Trussell, 6th Air Refueling Squadron computer system manager. Sergeant Trussell has been riding for more than two years.

The class emphasized maintaining focus on the road as the key to safety.

“You have to ride for everyone else on the road — every other car,” Sergeant O’Leary said. “If you’re just wheeling along and not paying attention to any of that stuff, you’re going to get yourself killed.”

Sergeant O’Leary has been in one accident in his 16 years of riding.

“[That] accident wasn’t very serious,” he said. “It could have been serious. If you don’t have your gear on and you hit the pavement, your skin’s going to be hamburger. My gloves were shredded but never made it through to my hands.”

Sergeant Trussell has never been in an accident, something she credits to knowing her limits.

“Learn not to ride past your ability,” she said.