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Ride Smart, Stay Alive: Motorcycle Helmets Reduce Risks for Injury or Death for Riders · Thinking Transportation: Engaging Conversations about Transportation Innovations

• 0:00
  Allan Rutter: Howdy, everyone.
• 0:15
  Allan Rutter: Welcome to Thinking Transportation, conversations about how we get ourselves and the stuff we need from one place to another.
• 0:21
  Allan Rutter: I'm Allan Rutter with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
• 0:26
  Allan Rutter: Popular culture would have you believe that motorcycle riders wear leather, ride together in gangs, and are involved in criminal activities.
• 0:35
  Allan Rutter: In the real world, motorcycle riders are normal people just trying to do their thing amidst lanes full of heavier, larger vehicles.
• 0:43
  Allan Rutter: A group of Texans concerned about the safety of motorcyclists gathered in Austin recently.
• 0:49
  Allan Rutter: Today, we're going to talk with two people at that meeting about how they are helping motorcycle riders make good choices about their safety.
• 0:56
  Allan Rutter: We're joined by Hong Zhang, the director of education for the Snell Foundation, and by Cathy Brooks, project specialist in the Road User Safety Program for the Texas A&M Transportation Institute's Center for Transportation Safety.
• 1:11
  Allan Rutter: Welcome to you
• 1:12
  Hong Zhang: Glad to be here.
• 1:13
  Cathy Brooks: Thank you for having me.
• 1:16
  Allan Rutter: So let's let our audience get to know you two a little bit better.
• 1:19
  Allan Rutter: How have each of you made the journey to motorcycle safety?
• 1:23
  Allan Rutter: Hong, let's start with you.
• 1:26
  Hong Zhang: I joined the Snell Memorial Foundation back in New York.
• 1:32
  Hong Zhang: I didn't know anything about riding a motorcycle or anything about helmets, but Snell Foundation's mission is exclusively on establishing the toughest helmet standard for autoracing motorcycling.
• 1:49
  Hong Zhang: So I took a basic riding class from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.
• 1:56
  Hong Zhang: That's how I first got engaged with motorcycling and motorcycle helmets.
• 2:05
  Allan Rutter: Okay.
• 2:05
  Allan Rutter: Cathy, what about you?
• 2:07
  Cathy Brooks: I come from a motorcycling family.
• 2:10
  Cathy Brooks: My parents both rode actively when I was a child.
• 2:14
  Cathy Brooks: I'm considered a tank survivor.
• 2:17
  Cathy Brooks: As soon as I was able to sit up and hold on, I was on the tank in front of my dad riding on his motorcycle with him.
• 2:24
  Cathy Brooks: He wanted to get into motorcycle safety training and And he was going to take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic course as part of preparing to become an instructor rider coach and invited me to go with them.
• 2:38
  Cathy Brooks: And so I did.
• 2:39
  Cathy Brooks: I did not have a motorcycle license at the time.
• 2:41
  Cathy Brooks: So I went to class with them and the instructors there, the rider coach there said, you should think about becoming an instructor with your dad.
• 2:49
  Cathy Brooks: So I finished the class successfully, bought a motorcycle and started riding with my dad, spent over a week traveling through 11 of the southern states, starting from Texas and back, traveling a lot of windy roads, including the Tail of the Dragon, for those that are familiar, multiple times on that trip.
• 3:12
  Cathy Brooks: And then decided, hey, this is really cool.
• 3:15
  Cathy Brooks: So I spent the next year going around the state of Texas with multiple safety writing schools, helping out and learning about the curriculum, learning about becoming a writer coach.
• 3:24
  Cathy Brooks: Fell in love, was in the next training class.
• 3:27
  Cathy Brooks: and been continuing and growing ever since.
• 3:33
  Allan Rutter: So I came to this subject by watching Hong talk to the Texas Motorcycle Safety Forum back in May in Austin.
• 3:40
  Allan Rutter: So first, Cathy, can you tell us a little more about what the Motorcycle Safety Forum is, how often it convenes, who helps organize it, who helps it sponsor it?
• 3:52
  Cathy Brooks: So the Motorcycle Safety Forum in Texas is unique from what I understand with my colleagues across the country.
• 3:59
  Cathy Brooks: And it was started many, many years ago through a statewide motorcycle safety grant to Texas A&M Transportation Institute, or TTI, funded by the Texas Department of Transportation.
• 4:12
  Cathy Brooks: There are many objectives within that grant each year, and one of them has been an annual forum.
• 4:19
  Cathy Brooks: They're very proud of that.
• 4:20
  Cathy Brooks: And there's also a Texas Motorcycle Safety Coalition.
• 4:24
  Cathy Brooks: A committee of that coalition would work with staff at TTI to plan and organize the annual forum.
• 4:32
  Cathy Brooks: Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic kind of changed the world, including the annual forum.
• 4:39
  Cathy Brooks: We ended up having one virtual forum and then tried to do hybrid and then in-person.
• 4:44
  Cathy Brooks: And so our numbers are not built back up to what they were pre-COVID, but we're working on it and we are looking for more engagement with the community, finding out what they want to learn more about.
• 4:54
  Cathy Brooks: So this year we brought Hong as one of our guest speakers from out of state, which has been greatly accepted within the forum this year.
• 5:03
  Allan Rutter: Yeah, it was really impressive.
• 5:04
  Allan Rutter: Here's one of the things I noticed about Hong's remarks at the forum.
• 5:08
  Allan Rutter: They seem to contrast with a more imperative tone to some safety messages.
• 5:13
  Allan Rutter: Of course, that just may be how I hear them as a guy.
• 5:16
  Allan Rutter: Use your seatbelt.
• 5:18
  Allan Rutter: Don't drive drunk.
• 5:19
  Allan Rutter: Obey the speed limits.
• 5:20
  Allan Rutter: Pay attention in work zones.
• 5:22
  Allan Rutter: The tenor of Hong's talk was a little gentler.
• 5:25
  Allan Rutter: Here's some information we should consider as a community of motorcycle riders.
• 5:30
  Allan Rutter: It was consistent with the call my wife and I tried to repeat to our daughters throughout their young lives: make good choices.
• 5:37
  Allan Rutter: That kind of messaging must be more effective with a community of independent, almost iconoclastic people who choose to ride a motorcycle.
• 5:46
  Allan Rutter: Cathy, am I reading too much into this, or is your safety messaging to motorcyclists a little more inclusive and collaborative?
• 5:55
  Cathy Brooks: I think it's a little bit of both.
• 5:56
  Cathy Brooks: We do have a lot of slow down, wear- your- gear kind of messaging.
• 6:02
  Cathy Brooks: So there is some of that.
• 6:03
  Cathy Brooks: But yes, we do call on the community to help us kind of pilot test some of our messaging before it goes out.
• 6:10
  Cathy Brooks: Motorcyclists in general are a bunch of freedom seekers.
• 6:14
  Cathy Brooks: They don't like being told what to do, but also it's just one big, huge community.
• 6:20
  Cathy Brooks: Riders are looking out for each other.
• 6:22
  Cathy Brooks: They wave to each other when they pass on the street.
• 6:25
  Cathy Brooks: There's bike nights and meetups and group rides, motorcycle clubs, groups; even those that go out if there's a fallen rider that they work together to support that rider and or their families in case of a tragedy.
• 6:41
  Cathy Brooks: And safety hasn't always been a part of motorcycling culture.
• 6:46
  Cathy Brooks: If you think back over the years, it wasn't cool to wear a helmet.
• 6:50
  Cathy Brooks: So there's part of that.
• 6:52
  Cathy Brooks: That's a culture change.
• 6:54
  Cathy Brooks: And the best way to change a culture is within the community itself, peer to peer.
• 6:58
  Cathy Brooks: And one final thought on that is in Texas, there is a motorcycle helmet law.
• 7:05
  Cathy Brooks: However, if you are 21 or older, you are not required to wear a helmet if you have enough approved medical coverage to cover injuries of a motorcycle crash, or you can prove completion of a motorcycle safety training course.
• 7:23
  Allan Rutter: So to get back to that collaborative culture, Hong, is that something that you try to do as part of your educational outreach throughout the country?
• 7:32
  Hong Zhang: Yeah, indeed, it has been.
• 7:35
  Hong Zhang: And I've been the education director for over 20 years.
• 7:40
  Hong Zhang: In this position, I get involved with all these safety-oriented people a lot, and a lot of them assume Snell Foundation's own mission is head injury prevention through helmet use.
• 7:55
  Hong Zhang: So when I go out and sometimes people say, hey, don't get out there too far, maybe you'll get egged by those people who are against helmet use.
• 8:07
  Hong Zhang: And I said, no, because we always take the position that our role is to encourage the manufacturing of the most protective headgear, create the best helmet out there for people who are inclined to wear them to have the best one on their head.
• 8:29
  Hong Zhang: And my job as the education director is to offer them information about how these protective helmets can really change an outcome in the scenario of a crash and let them make their educated decision.
• 8:47
  Hong Zhang: Living in California and New York before that, both state have mandatory helmet law, We still see quite a large percentage of the riders choose to use no helmet or non-protective helmet of their choice.
• 9:07
  Hong Zhang: We call it bogus helmets or beanie helmets.
• 9:10
  Hong Zhang: So we still believe the most effective way for riders to get best protection is to educate them with the facts.
• 9:21
  Hong Zhang: And so that even when they choose to buy a protective helmets, there's still the element of using those protective helmets in the correct fashion.
• 9:33
  Hong Zhang: And every time they ride, rather than leaving helmets in a garage, for instance, on a short run- - who said those short runs are safer, right?
• 9:45
  Allan Rutter: Well, I appreciate being able to learn some inside baseball terminology.
• 9:49
  Allan Rutter: I'm going to have to figure out where to use the word beanie helmet somewhere.
• 9:52
  Allan Rutter: So let's talk a little bit more about motorcycles in Texas.
• 9:56
  Allan Rutter: According to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, about 335,000 motorcycles were registered in Texas in 2021.
• 10:03
  Allan Rutter: And that number is about 22 percent lower than motorcycle registrations 10 years before.
• 10:10
  Allan Rutter: So we have fewer motorcycles on the road.
• 10:13
  Allan Rutter: Cathy, can you share any data on demographics of motorcycle riders in Texas?
• 10:20
  Cathy Brooks: Sure.
• 10:20
  Cathy Brooks: According to our 2021 Texas driver licensing data, there's over a million licensed motorcyclists in the state of Texas.
• 10:32
  Cathy Brooks: In 2021, about 88 percent were male and 12 percent were female.
• 10:38
  Cathy Brooks: As far as age goes, our biggest percentage in 2021 was the 51 to 65 year olds; 43 percent of the females fell within that range and 38 percent of the males fell within that age range for that year.
• 10:55
  Cathy Brooks: And I went back and kind of compared some of our crash data through our crash records information system from Department of Transportation.
• 11:05
  Cathy Brooks: And in 2021, There were over 7,800 motorcycle-involved crashes, and of those, 6 percent were female riders and 93 percent were male riders.
• 11:22
  Allan Rutter: So male riders are proportionally more of the motorcycle license holders, and they tend to also be overrepresented in crash statistics.
• 11:32
  Cathy Brooks: Correct.
• 11:34
  Allan Rutter: So, Cathy, can you tell our listeners a little bit about licensing of motorcycle operators in Texas?
• 11:39
  Allan Rutter: Are they required to have a special motorcycle license?
• 11:43
  Allan Rutter: And as an adult, what would I need to do to obtain a motorcycle license?
• 11:49
  Cathy Brooks: So, yes, a Class M or motorcycle license is required in the state of Texas, and that can be either a standalone Class M license, as a motorcycle only or in combination with any other class, such as the Class C for passenger vehicles or the commercial Class A or B.
• 12:07
  Cathy Brooks: Without a Class M when you're riding a motorcycle, you're unlicensed for that vehicle type.
• 12:13
  Cathy Brooks: The only way to get the license is by taking the course.
• 12:16
  Cathy Brooks: So what do you need to do?
• 12:18
  Cathy Brooks: In Texas, you're required to take an entry-level rider training course approved by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
• 12:27
  Cathy Brooks: They have beginner for someone with absolutely no experience, intermediate for those that currently have experience and may have got caught or may not have gotten caught yet, and also three-wheel entry-level or license waiver courses that qualify.
• 12:45
  Cathy Brooks: So find a course, get a completion certificate, or MSB- 8, contact your local Department of Public Safety licensing office.
• 12:55
  Cathy Brooks: Take your MSB-8 and anything else they ask you to bring, pay your fee, and you have your Class M license.
• 13:02
  Cathy Brooks: You're legal.
• 13:04
  Hong Zhang: Cathy, earlier you said the Texas law only require people under 21 to wear helmets.
• 13:14
  Hong Zhang: Anybody over 21 are waived as long as they have medical insurance or have passed your class.
• 13:24
  Hong Zhang: Does that mean that those people who get motorcycling licenses through your class automatically got the permission to ride a motorcycle not only legally, but also without a helmet, even though they are under 21?
• 13:41
  Cathy Brooks: You bring up a great point because since September 1 of 2009, it has been required to take a motorcycle safety course to get your license in Texas.
• 13:53
  Cathy Brooks: And at the same time, you can become exempt from wearing a helmet if you are 21 or older and have completed a motorcycle safety course.
• 14:02
  Cathy Brooks: If you are under 21, even if you have completed a motorcycle safety course and have your Class M license, you still must wear a helmet.
• 14:12
  Hong Zhang: I see.
• 14:14
  Hong Zhang: I see.
• 14:15
  Cathy Brooks: However, I will say this.
• 14:17
  Cathy Brooks: In the class, we strongly recommend and show the benefits of wearing a helmet.
• 14:25
  Cathy Brooks: We highly encourage choosing safety and lowering risk in riding.
• 14:32
  Cathy Brooks: And we even talk about the different types of motorcycle helmets and which ones can give you more protection versus less.
• 14:40
  Cathy Brooks: So by taking the course, we're educating on the importance of wearing one and wearing a good one.
• 14:48
  Cathy Brooks: It's worth the investment to protect your head and brain when riding.
• 14:53
  Cathy Brooks: A helmet is your best protection against serious injury and fatalities on a motorcycle.
• 15:00
  Allan Rutter: Speaking of license holders, let's talk a little bit more about motorcycle safety, the title subject of the forum just held in Austin.
• 15:08
  Allan Rutter: Cathy, are there more crashes that involve non-license holders than those that have a license?
• 15:17
  Cathy Brooks: Going back to that data that I looked at to compare our 2021 licensed motorcyclists, of all the crash injury types, 49 percent did not have a class M to almost half; 37 percent did not have a helmet.
• 15:35
  Cathy Brooks: And again, the men were higher percentages than the women in both of those categories.
• 15:41
  Cathy Brooks: Although in the no-helmet [category], they were getting kind of close.
• 15:45
  Allan Rutter: So it would seem to say something about the value of that motorcycle safety training that's required to have a license that not having one is about half of all crash types.
• 15:57
  Cathy Brooks: Correct.
• 15:57
  Cathy Brooks: In 2021, when we had over 7,800 crashes, over 2,500 of those resulted in a serious injury or fatality.
• 16:11
  Allan Rutter: One of the speakers at the forum had a set of slides about some of that crash data, and they had mentioned that 57 percent of riders in those serious crash types, fatal or serious, did not have a license at the time of the crash.
• 16:25
  Allan Rutter: Does that sound about right?
• 16:28
  Cathy Brooks: So looking just at the 2021 data that I looked up this morning of the suspected serious injury and fatalities, there were 42 percnet that did not have a Class M license just for that year.
• 16:41
  Cathy Brooks: If you look over the long term from 2016 through 2023, there's 49 percent that were not licensed, did not have a Class M.
• 16:51
  Cathy Brooks: There's another 6 percent that we don't know what kind of license type they have.
• 16:56
  Allan Rutter: One of the trends that you noted in your remarks was that while motorcycle registrations might be declining, motorcycle fatalities in Texas have been increasing.
• 17:08
  Allan Rutter: Other speakers at the forum noted that this upward trend included both fatalities and serious injuries.
• 17:13
  Allan Rutter: Is this Texas trend something you're seeing in other states with high numbers of motorcyclists like California and Florida?
• 17:20
  Allan Rutter: Are fatalities for motorcycles on the rise recently?
• 17:25
  Hong Zhang: I didn't compare them for this time period.
• 17:30
  Hong Zhang: Texas' number, the fatality number rising was right after COVID consistently for four years for the data that's available.
• 17:41
  Hong Zhang: For other states, depending on which state you're comparing to, yes, some are going up, some are holding flat.
• 17:49
  Hong Zhang: As far as I know, California seemed like the same trend in Texas.
• 17:54
  Hong Zhang: It's going up.
• 17:56
  Allan Rutter: So what might some of the factors be that are leading to growing numbers of fatalities among motorcycle riders?
• 18:05
  Hong Zhang: Ii don't have data to really talk about specific ones but generally I think the trending up has a lot to do with the number of people in these states.
• 18:20
  Hong Zhang: So if [in] Texas, the general population is on the rise too, so the general road traffic condition would be worse just by common sense.
• 18:31
  Hong Zhang: And the numbers that Cathy cited, close to half of these fatal accidents involve riders without a license.
• 18:41
  Hong Zhang: I would assume that has a lot to do with these fatalities and seriousness of crashes.
• 18:53
  Allan Rutter: So some of that's about exposure and some of that's about training or lack of it.
• 18:59
  Hong Zhang: Right.
• 18:59
  Hong Zhang: I think Cathy's point earlier is very well taken here.
• 19:04
  Hong Zhang: At Snell Foundation, we work with different groups of people and motorcyclists have this tendency of being the risk takers because by common sense, people would know motorcyclists are exposed to higher impact severity, right?
• 19:25
  Hong Zhang: But also this group, probably like a lot of other people, just from their own experience, assume motorcyclists especially on short ride, neighborhood ride might be safe compared with, say, GP racing or even auto racing.
• 19:46
  Hong Zhang: But the fact is, traffic condition is a lot worse for collision and serious impact for motorcyclists compared with high- speed F1 or NASCAR racing.
• 20:01
  Hong Zhang: because people are not thinking about the racing track actually was designed to increase safety.
• 20:10
  Hong Zhang: There's bump protection rules and skilled drivers and the vehicles that's padded up in every way to increase the level of protection in case of collision.
• 20:23
  Hong Zhang: Whereas motorcyclist was open for so many risk factors that are not involved in racing at all.
• 20:33
  Allan Rutter: So let's talk a little about something that we've mentioned in passing, motorcycle helmet use.
• 20:38
  Allan Rutter: And Hong, you were talking about the fact that the Snell Foundation's job is to make sure that people have choices of the most protective devices possible.
• 20:49
  Allan Rutter: But you also noted that nationally over a period from 2014 through 2023, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, motorcycle crash fatalities included about 49 percent with a helmet and 46.5 percent without one.
• 21:08
  Allan Rutter: What is your data telling about motorcycle crashes and helmet use in Texas?
• 21:14
  Hong Zhang: There isn't a lot of information for Texas, per se, except the data that Cathy already shared, which is about a third of the motorcyclists involved in fatal collisions had no helmet at all.
• 21:31
  Hong Zhang: So that is slightly higher than the national data.
• 21:37
  Hong Zhang: And also from the national data on helmet use, actually from 2020 and 2021 and up, the survey from NHTSA showed that there's almost a 9 percent increase of helmet usage, nationwide average.
• 21:58
  Hong Zhang: Whereas in Texas, we don't see that rate of increase among helmet users.
• 22:06
  Allan Rutter: So let's talk a little bit about more of some of the data that you shared at the forum that demonstrates the effectiveness of motorcycle helmet use.
• 22:14
  Allan Rutter: That's certainly one of the things to try to help people understand in your work at the Snell Foundation.
• 22:20
  Allan Rutter: How effective are helmets in mitigating the safety impacts after a crash?
• 22:27
  Hong Zhang: In the data collected nationally by NHTSA, motorcycle helmets are effective in preventing 37 percent of fatalities.
• 22:39
  Hong Zhang: In other words, if nobody were using helmets at all, nationwide fatalities related to motorcycling is going to increase by 37 percent.
• 22:50
  Hong Zhang: And for preventing brain injury, the number is effectiveness at 68 percent.
• 22:58
  Hong Zhang: So by that number, this is very beneficial; because you think about the exposure, motorcyclists are-- like I mentioned earlier-- the environment is very hostile for motorcyclists.
• 23:17
  Hong Zhang: And like Cathy just pointed out, [a] helmet is the number one safety device that you can use as a motorcyclist while you are out there, no matter how slow you're going.
• 23:32
  Hong Zhang: Even just standing still [you] hit your head on a concrete floor could be fatal.
• 23:38
  Hong Zhang: So imagine the traveling velocity that a moving vehicle is involving your whole body into.
• 23:46
  Hong Zhang: So going bareheaded is really, really risky for anybody, no matter how skillful their riding level is.
• 24:00
  Allan Rutter: Well, it's certainly one of the reasons why when I'm even biking on my bicycle around our neighborhood or on our trails or on our local streets, I've always got a helmet.
• 24:07
  Allan Rutter: So you've talked a little bit about how the Snell Foundation has been engaged in helmet design or at least helmet certification.
• 24:15
  Allan Rutter: Tell us a little more about the origins of the foundation and what you do in setting helmet standards and certifying helmets that meet those standards.
• 24:26
  Hong Zhang: Snell Memorial Foundation was the name for the Snell Foundation when it was established to memorialize a auto racer.
• 24:37
  Hong Zhang: His name is Pete Snell.
• 24:39
  Hong Zhang: He died in an auto racing accident hosted by the Sports Car Club of America in 1956.
• 24:46
  Hong Zhang: So there was a lot of sadness and memorial funds were raised.
• 24:53
  Hong Zhang: And one of the board member for Sports Car Club of America, Dr.
• 24:59
  Hong Zhang: George Slively, started this idea of setting up a nonprofit organization with the sole purpose of research on how to set higher performance standard for crash helmet to protect the racers better.
• 25:17
  Hong Zhang: A year later, after Pete Snell died, the foundation was set up in San Francisco and the research was done in two years.
• 25:29
  Hong Zhang: And for the first standard in 1959, when the Snell standard was published, only two helmets were qualified and recommended to racers.
• 25:42
  Hong Zhang: Basically, Dr.
• 25:45
  Hong Zhang: George Snively had a very pragmatic approach.
• 25:48
  Hong Zhang: As a physician, he understood what [the] human head needs in crash scenarios.
• 25:55
  Hong Zhang: Then when all the racing events only allow Snell-certified helmets to participate in these events, all the manufacturers of the helmets at the time start to build better helmets, because otherwise nobody would purchase their helmet.
• 26:16
  Hong Zhang: So the foundation's goal is always to point out to the helmet industry where the bar is in terms of head- injury prevention and helmet testing criteria.
• 26:30
  Hong Zhang: And the foundation only qualifies the most protective headgear, and the reputation remains today.
• 26:38
  Hong Zhang: People look for the snail name inside a helmet or on the boxes, and they use it as a way to choose the most protective gear.
• 26:51
  Hong Zhang: So the NASCAR racers all wear Snell- certified helmets, for instance.
• 26:57
  Allan Rutter: So it sounds like that research has been leading toward both in terms of the racing helmet and the motorcycle helmet, trying to protect from brain injury in those events of vehicles in motion.
• 27:08
  Allan Rutter: I think it can be contrasted with helmet design for football players.
• 27:13
  Allan Rutter: That's more lower impact, repetitive head injuries.
• 27:18
  Allan Rutter: These are higher speed, higher impact.
• 27:20
  Allan Rutter: And once you've been in an accident, don't you usually recommend somebody to go get a new helmet?
• 27:27
  Hong Zhang: Yes, definitely.
• 27:29
  Hong Zhang: Snell standards are all applying to vehicular activity or high speed, one-time crash scenario.
• 27:38
  Hong Zhang: it's not for sports activities such as baseball, football; and because the material used for the crash helmets has the capability of really managing very high level of impact, the downside is, once it's used to absorb these high- level impact, they are not useful anymore; they're only good for one blow.
• 28:03
  Hong Zhang: And so that helmet is no longer going to provide any adequate level of protection.
• 28:12
  Hong Zhang: So it should be replaced.
• 28:15
  Allan Rutter: Similarly, something else that our TTI colleagues do a lot is test guardrails.
• 28:19
  Allan Rutter: If somebody drives a vehicle into a guardrail, it needs to be replaced because it's done its job, but it's not going to be able to do that job again.
• 28:28
  Hong Zhang: Exactly, because the structure inside the helmet that takes the blow is a foam that does not have memory.
• 28:37
  Hong Zhang: Once it's collapsed in the process of this crash, it won't bounce back to take another blow.
• 28:44
  Hong Zhang: So we say here, use your helmet like a tissue paper-- blow it once and throw it away.
• 28:51
  Allan Rutter: It's something that's easy to remember.
• 28:53
  Hong Zhang: Right.
• 28:54
  Allan Rutter: Well, I can tell from our conversation today that both of you have plenty of passion for motorcycle safety.
• 29:00
  Allan Rutter: What are some of the reasons that motivate you to show up for work every day?
• 29:04
  Allan Rutter: Cathy, we'll start with you.
• 29:06
  Cathy Brooks: Motorcycling has had a huge impact in my life, both in the positive and the negative.
• 29:13
  Cathy Brooks: And anything that I can do to help other riders find the joy of riding while considering the risks and choosing to reduce their risks--get trained, get licensed, wear good gear, a good helmet, and make good choices while riding- -it's worth getting up and reaching out to those folks.
• 29:35
  Allan Rutter: Hong, how about you?
• 29:37
  Hong Zhang: Well, my parents were both retired physicians.
• 29:40
  Hong Zhang: So when I was going to college, their expectation was I'm going to the medical school.
• 29:47
  Hong Zhang: And so when I decided I didn't want to be a doctor, this is still in my head that my parents wanted me to be in a service of saving people and doing work that's worthwhile.
• 30:04
  Hong Zhang: So I felt very, very rewarding when I work in this field for so many years now, more than 30 years.
• 30:12
  Hong Zhang: And I can always proudly tell my parents that I have saved more lives than the two of them combined.
• 30:22
  Allan Rutter: That's a great line.
• 30:23
  Allan Rutter: I like that a lot.
• 30:24
  Allan Rutter: Well, listen, I really appreciate the two of you spending time with us today and helping our listeners understand more about motorcycle riding and how to do so safely.
• 30:35
  Allan Rutter: It's been a real pleasure.
• 30:36
  Allan Rutter: I've learned a lot and I really appreciate it.
• 30:38
  Allan Rutter: Thanks to both of you.
• 30:40
  Hong Zhang: Thank you for having me.
• 30:41
  Hong Zhang: Anybody has questions, always feel free to call me or email me at the Snell Foundation.
• 30:49
  Speaker 01: Thank you, Allan.
• 30:50
  Speaker 01: It has been a pleasure.
• 30:51
  Speaker 01: I appreciate the invitation.
• 30:55
  Allan Rutter: Hong and Cathy identified two things motorcycle riders can do to stay safe on Texas roads.
• 31:00
  Allan Rutter: First, learn how to ride at a motorcycle safety course so that you can get the Class M license required by law.
• 31:08
  Allan Rutter: Second, wear a certified helmet whenever you ride to improve your odds in surviving a crash.
• 31:15
  Allan Rutter: In these ways, motorcycle riders can do their part in driving like a Texan, the phrase our TxDOT partners use to encourage us all to drive with kindness and courtesy to make every mile a safe one.
• 31:28
  Allan Rutter: Thanks for listening.
• 31:30
  Allan Rutter: If you liked what you heard or learned something, please take just a minute to give us a review, subscribe, and share this episode.
• 31:38
  Allan Rutter: I invite you to join us next time for another conversation about getting ourselves and the stuff we need from point A to point B.
• 31:46
  Allan Rutter: Thinking Transportation is a production of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, a member of The Texas A&M University System.
• 31:54
  Allan Rutter: The show is edited and produced by Chris Pourteau.
• 31:58
  Allan Rutter: I'm your host, Allan Rutter.
• 32:00
  Allan Rutter: Thanks again for joining us.
• 32:02
  Allan Rutter: We'll see you next time.