Gainesville —
The importance of motorcycle caution is the emphasis of today’s safety showcase at Texas Travel Information Center, 4936 N. Interstate 35 in Gainesville.
From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., center staff will provide safety-related information, and the showcase is set to include both a demonstration of a “Rollover Convincer” wreck simulator and an “appearance” by Vince and Larry, the famed vehicle crash test-dummies.
Ben Coker of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) said the proceedings are intended as a kickoff for the 21st annual “International Motorcycle and Scooter Ride to Work Day,” and added that travel centers statewide are hosting similar showcases this week as part of June’s National Safety Month.
The intention locally and elsewhere, Coker said, is to help the public be aware of the extra motorcyclists who will take to the road Monday — and to urge those same bikers to wear helmets and ride as carefully as they can.
He provided some statistics related to motorcycle travel. The Department of Public Safety issued the numbers that 95 percent of motorcycle-related accidents result in direct injury to the driver, and 45 percent of them result in injuries that are severe or life-threatening. More statistics from TxDOT itself indicated that in 2010, there were 8,543 motorcycle-related crashes in the state of Texas alone. Of those, 5,276 of the accidents resulted in serious injuries, and 2,173 of them involved drivers not using a helmet while riding. The TxDOT information added that many of those serious injuries would have been minimized had the driver simply wore a helmet.
And out of the 429 motorcycle fatalities during that sample year of 2010, 240 of the drivers were driving bare-headed.
“For obvious reasons, motorcyclists are harder to see out on the roads, and there are a lot more of them on the roads,” Coker said Tuesday. “And everyone needs to do their part to be more cautious of them out there, including the motorcyclists themselves.”
For more information, call the center at (940) 665-2301 or visit www.txdot.gov.
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Safety showcase today at Texas Travel Center
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