Zen and the art of motorcycle mentoring

As an airman first class stationed in the Midwest in 1985, I remember waking up one warm spring day with the irresistible urge to rapidly propel myself across Nebraska's vast, cornfield-sewn landscape at break-neck speed. I soon found myself at a local motorcycle shop drooling over a jet black, shaft-driven Honda CX650 custom cruiser.

There's no doubt in my mind that if I'd been carrying enough cash, I would've driven the bike off the show room floor and straight into the street where I would've killed myself before ever reaching the front gate of Offutt Air Force Base.

Instead, as a 21-year-old having no established credit, I was forced to wait eight paychecks before I could gather the funds to pay the balance on the bike. During those next four months, I had the incredible fortune of meeting and forming a friendship with an older noncommissioned officer who was not only a seasoned motorcyclist but also a coach and mentor.

Doing more than just recommending a good full-faced helmet, this guy insisted that I ride backseat on his BMW touring bike to experience, first-hand, what it's like to drive in a world dominated by four-wheeled motorists. Later he enrolled me in the base's beginner riding course and remained a regular riding partner throughout what eventually became 18 months of accident-free riding during my Nebraska tour.

Now, two decades later, the good news is that growing numbers of Air Force motorcyclists needn't look any farther than the front door of their own squadron for such help.

Responding to recent statistics of staggeringly high Air Force motorcycle fatalities--20 in fiscal 2002 and 24 in fiscal 2003, nearly triple the number of fatalities for the two previous years--Air Force leaders have begun a crusade to bring motorcycle safety awareness into sharp focus at the lowest organizational level. The name of this crusade: The Motorcycle Mentorship Program.

The concept is simple. Each squadron identifies its most capable and mature riders, based not on age but rather motorcycle operating experience and demonstrated proficiency. This exclusive group, officially labeled as "motorcycle mentors," is charged with keeping its finger on the pulse of the squadron's riding community and must provide a regularly scheduled forum to share information, camaraderie and practical riding experience. With these organized networks of skilled riders in place, it's widely believed that a smarter, more safety conscious riding community will evolve and fewer lives will be lost.

While some commands are still trying to wrap their arms around this concept, Air Education and Training Command has a firm grasp, the result of a sustained, top-to-bottom directed effort that spans nearly two years in the making.

In an August 2002 memorandum that acknowledged a "three-fold increase" in motorcycle fatalities within his command, Gen. Donald Cook directed his commanders to establish, among other things, local base motorcycle mentoring programs. The suspense: 30 days.

After receiving that directive through the 37th Training Wing, Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, Master Sgt. Bill lames, a four-year-veteran motorcycle safety foundation course instructor, went to work creating the 345th Training Squadron's program.

"The squadron riders first got together to establish a list of mentors and identify our new and inexperienced riders," he said.

Within weeks, squadron bikers were holding regular meetings. By the end of 2002, following their first successful group ride, the 37th Training Wing commander was praising the progress.

As the command mentoring program matured in 2003, stricter criteria better defined the "inexperienced" or "high-risk" riders. Using a questionnaire that's now given to in-processing squadron members, Sergeant James identifies and intercepts "high-risk" riders.

"Anyone owning or expressing an interest in riding a bike who's under 26, has less than a year's riding experience or possesses a high-performance sport bike is getting face time with the squadron commander. No exceptions."

"Everyone knows that if you're going to have a cultural change, it's got to come from the senior leaders," said Lt. Col. Gregory Hinton, commander of the 345th that trains more than 14,000 students annually.

He described a quarterly fatality briefing where commanders stand before the major command's vice commander via teleconference to explain details of each month's mishaps. "You hear every scenario from the young kid on a sport bike who was drinking, mentally distraught, driving recklessly and lost control, to the older, squared-away noncommissioned officer who was doing all the right things and wearing the right protective equipment when an unsuspecting motorist pulled out in front of him," he said. "The only thing those two scenarios have in common is that there are two dead motorcycle riders.

"We preside over a very large, very young, transient population, who, regrettably, represent a large percentage of the motorcycle fatalities that occur each year. I tell these young motorcyclists that if they don't think what they're doing is inherently dangerous then they need to wake up and smell the coffee. The only way to maintain a high level of motorcycle safety awareness with this group is to stay on message repetitively."