TEAM OREGON is a statewide motorcycle rider training program that we have training sites
in 24 locations around the state, we employ 220 instructors that teach roughly 12,000
riders each year on safe and responsible motorcycle operation.
TEAM OREGON started May 1st, 1984, we’re about ready to celebrate our 30th anniversary
of TEAM OREGON, part of the Public Health and Human Sciences college, and we’ve been
here for those 30 years.
Motorcycle rider training in Oregon consists of four courses that we provide for the public,
we’ve got beginning rider training, intermediate, experienced and advanced rider training in
our civilian programs.
And we also offer two courses for our police motor officers, that’s an advanced course
and a high-speed course that we provide for them.
What it includes is classroom time where we spend time talking about what are the risks
involved in riding a motorcycle, where do the risks present themselves, what do you
need to know as a motorcycle rider to be safe on the streets.
And we spend 10 hours with them roughly on the range practicing basic riding skills,
how to get under way, how to turn, shift, stop the motorcycle.
And then we move into some of what we call street survival skills, advanced braking,
quick stops, swerving exercises and how to maneuver the motorcycle to respond to hazards
that are presented before you.
And that’s pretty much the way that it goes for all of our courses.
We’ll train 12,000 riders a year and the time that we’ve been at TEAM OREGON we’ve
trained 138,000 riders across the state.
Our goal is to improve the safety and the health of the riders that we impact and that’s
our mission.
Oregon was recognized, TEAM OREGON particular is the number 1 state in best practices in
motorcycle safety um and so based upon that and the work that we’ve done in research,
the work that we’ve done in curriculum development, based upon the research that we find in motorcycle
crashes has drawn quite a bit of national attention to TEAM OREGON and call for us to
come out and to work with their states, their communities to try to move them towards the
best practices as well.
The question often comes up, how do you know if you’re making a difference in motorcycle
safety and the research that we’ve done looking at motorcycle crashes and motorcycle
fatalities in particular, we point to motorcycle fatalities in Oregon are less than half the
national rate per 10,000 registered motorcycles.
We are proud of the work that we’ve been doing over the last 4 or 5 years to create
interactive simulations for motorcycle rider training, that’s not been done anywhere
else we can’t find any models that we can go from and so TEAM OREGON has been creating
an online interactive solution for motorcycle safety so riders can recognize what the risks
are in the environment and get a chance to interact with that.
So the new what we call e-rider is being tested right now with real riders in our beginning
and intermediate rider training program and they get a chance to interact with motorcycle
scenarios.
Our goal as an organization, a motorcycle safety organization has been to change the
culture of motorcycle riding which is to create an awareness of the risks, to create an awareness
of protective gear and safety precautions that you can make and to that end the e-rider
program is meeting that with the training that we provide.
So in addition to rider training, we have an extensive effort in community outreach.
We need to get to the groups and the organizations where they live and where they play and so
part of that culture change is to meet them at their rally’s to meet them at their events,
to meet them at dealer shows and various functions that the motorcycle community hosts and to
have booths displays and to engage the communities and to let them know that motorcycle safety
is a presence and it’s a daily event.
You need to be mindful of your safety at all times and so TEAM OREGON is going to stay
in the vision of the rider community and we’re going to continue in this regard into the
future and so I look forward for the next 30 years of TEAM OREGON of continuing to provide
high quality, effective motorcycle rider training and outreach and community awareness across
the state.