Motorcycle-safety group plans ride in northeast Arkansas

JONESBORO -- The president of a statewide motorcycle organization aimed at reducing fatalities rode his cycle up on an accident that killed a man in Jonesboro earlier this month.

A 27-year-old Corning man had just bought a motorcycle and rode to a friend's house to get a helmet. He died April 4 while on his way home with the helmet, after a car turned in front of him on East Johnson Avenue near Arkansas State University.

Eric Turman, president of Arkansas Bikers Aiming Towards Education, was stopped in traffic as paramedics tended to the man.

"It upset the hell out of me," said Turman of Jonesboro, who saw the victim. "I thought, 'Not another one.'"

Talk among motorcyclists tends to include discussing friends who were killed in accidents.

"I was at a funeral [for a motorcyclist] when all of a sudden I realized I kept running into people at funeral homes," said Tom Barnes, a member of the northeast Arkansas district of Arkansas Bikers Aiming Towards Education. "I said, 'We've got to quit meeting at this place.'

"It was that many."

Turman, who is also president of the northeast Arkansas district, Barnes and others of the Jonesboro district will hold a motorcycle "run" from Paragould to Jonesboro on April 29 to highlight the organization's attempts to make motorists more aware of motorcyclists on the road.

The event coincides with Gov. Asa Hutchinson's proclamation of May as being motorcycle safety awareness month. The group will attend an April 26 ceremony at the state Capitol.

Turman expects at least 500 motorcycle riders will leave a shopping center parking lot in Paragould at noon April 29 and head down U.S. 49 about 25 miles to Jonesboro. When they arrive, gathering at a parking lot at Caraway Road and Highland Avenue, district members will read a poem called "You Didn't See Me," about unseen motorcyclists.

A video of the poem on YouTube features members of the northeast Arkansas motorcycle district reading lines.

"You complain about how loud and noisy our bikes can be. But you didn't see me when you were changing the CD and drifted into my lane," reads one verse. "I saw you go home to your family. But you didn't see me. Because I died that day you cut me off."

Group members also will read a list of those killed in accidents.

Turman said he hopes the event will make motorists more aware of motorcycles on the road.

"If we are fortunate enough to make an impact on even one person and a motorist doesn't kill someone on a motorcycle, we've done a good job," he said.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 4,976 people were killed in motorcycle accidents in the United States in 2015, the last year statistics were available. In 2014, 4,586 died in crashes.

Of those fatal accidents, the administration reported, 54 percent of those who died were 40 years or older. Twenty-seven percent of the accidents were alcohol-related, and 33 percent were caused by motorists or cyclists who were speeding. The most frequent time of day for fatal accidents, the administration reported, was between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.

The Arkansas Bikers Aiming Towards Education formed in 1984 and has 12 districts around the state. Turman has been the state president for six years and the District 2 leader in Jonesboro for the past 11 years.

The organization hosts motorcycle "runs," or rides, for charity, and chapters in Little Rock and Jonesboro offer motorcycle driving safety courses.

It was an April 19, 2006, fatal accident that inspired Turman and his group to focus on motorcycle safety programs. Michael "Bear" Sartain died on Red Wolf Boulevard in Jonesboro when his motorcycle was struck by a car that pulled onto the road from a parking lot. The motorist didn't see Sartain, Turman said.

The group collected donations and put up hundreds of signs that read "Look Twice, Save a Life" around Jonesboro's roadways. The signs originally included a diagram of a small bear in Sartain's honor.

Since then, the road signs have gone up in several northeast Arkansas towns and the campaign is featured on billboards.

"People are going to be distracted by their radios, texting, changing CDs, putting on makeup," Turman said. "We've got to educate them.

"We want this [April 29] parade for the 'wow' factor," he said. "We need people to say, "I need to pay attention.'"

State Desk on 04/17/2017

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