The News and Observer Newspaper
Motorcycle deaths surge
Armed forces work to reinforce safety measures as surviving families struggle with shock and grief
Since 9/11, more American troops have died in off-duty motorcycle accidents than fighting in Afghanistan.
Nearly 350 GIs have died on bikes since the 2001 terrorist attacks compared with 259 killed while serving in Afghanistan, according to safety records kept by each service. The number who die in crashes each year -- nearly all in the United States -- has more than doubled since 2001, hitting new levels in 2005. Nearly 1,000 more have been injured, draining power when the Pentagon needs every soldier.
A big part of the problem, say commanders at North Carolina bases, comes when soldiers return from war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan with months of tax-free salaries and extra pay for combat and overseas service. They buy high-powered motorcycles and hit the streets to burn off adrenaline, testosterone and boredom.
Dying on American roads after months or years of combat abroad seems to survivors like cruel irony.
"When the doctor told me that he was dead, I told him that wasn't acceptable, it just wasn't acceptable," said Andrea Strickland, 22, the widow of Marine Lance Cpl. Mark Strickland. "I said, 'He just got back from a war zone, and you're going to tell me that he died doing something he loved?' "
Strickland, 24, was one of five Camp Lejeune Marines involved in serious motorcycle crashes in October. Four had been home just a few weeks from combat in Anbar Province, the most dangerous part of Iraq. Three were killed; another lost a leg.
This month and next, 20,000 Marines and sailors will return to bases in the Carolinas, most to Lejeune.
"Our goal is not to see the same thing happen," said Lt. Gen. James F. Amos, commander of the II Marine Expeditionary Force, which has its headquarters at Lejeune.
After the October crashes, which Amos described as "a cold shot to the heart," he ordered a crackdown. The base ceased normal operations for a day in November to focus on safety, particularly for motorcyclists. It added safety programs and re-emphasized existing ones, such as mandatory safety classes and a mentor program Amos created that is being considered as a model for use corpswide.
The Army also has struggled with motorcycle deaths, suffering more than 40 in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. In December, the Army chief of staff issued a memo urging experienced riders to cut the accident rate by taking beginners under their wings.
The military needs healthy fighters more than ever. The long string of repeated deployments for the two wars is taxing the military so much that two reports released last month -- one commissioned by the Pentagon, the other by Congressional Democrats -- said it was close to breaking. On Jan. 26, the Army boosted its maximum enlistment age from 35 to 39 and doubled maximum enlistment bonuses to $40,000.
Seeking dealers' aid
In one sign of how seriously the Marines view the crash issue, Maj. Gen. Robert C. Dickerson Jr., who oversees most of the Corps' East Coast facilities, has visited area motorcycle dealers to seek their help. He has asked dealers to pass out Corps-funded $100 vouchers for the safety classes to Marine customers.
Dickerson is a Harley-Davidson man himself and empathizes with riders.
"I've owned three motorcycles, and they're a lot of fun, but you've got to be careful," he said. The Marines need risk-takers, he said, but it's crucial to draw a line between courage and recklessness.
"Riders who have been in accidents have told us that it's the legal crack cocaine," said J.T. Coleman, a civilian spokesman for the Army's Combat Readiness Center in Fort Rucker, Ala., which tracks accidents among soldiers. "They say it gives them the same adrenaline rush they get driving their tank through Baghdad or whatever."
All five Lejeune Marines involved in the October accidents had less than two years of road riding experience; only one had taken the Corps' mandatory safety course; and only one bike was registered on base -- another requirement for Marines. All the victims were riding high-performance sport bikes often favored by younger riders. Those bikes are capable of high, racelike speeds.
"You get a better feel for the road, and you feel more free," said Sgt. Matthew Toldness, 23, a Humvee mechanic at Camp Lejeune and an Iraq veteran who owns a 2002 Honda CBR 954 sport bike.
His machine is capable of 175 mph but he hasn't gotten close to that. "I'm a safe rider," he said. "I like my head attached to my body."
Toldness has taken the safety course and said the Marines' regulations aren't too burdensome, except maybe in the summer. If it's 95 degrees, most Marines riding off base ignore the orders to wear long-sleeve clothing.
Most riders who get into trouble, he said, are inexperienced and doing something they shouldn't, such as popping wheelies.
He said he rarely taps his machine's full power.
"It's just there if I need it," he said.
A thriving subculture
Cyclists such as Toldness are a growing military subculture. Younger troops favor shrieking, race-bred sport bikes while officers and senior noncommissioned officers often cruise on the more laid-back Harleys. Parking lots for special operations units sometimes look like someone issued an order allowing only motorcycles and pickups. In Kuwait and Iraq, off-duty talk often covers the opposite sex, beer and motorcycles, and not always in that order.
"Guys come back from Iraq after a year, and right away they need that big bike because their buddy's got one or their girlfriend wants them to," Toldness said.
One measure of the rising popularity of motorcycles is sales at overseas military exchanges, which offer two American makes, Harley-Davidson and Buell, at bargain prices. After the Afghanistan war started, sales jumped nearly 50 percent, to more than 4,000 a year, and have held steady, according to figures provided by the different services' exchanges. At exchanges in the two combat zones alone, troops bought more than 1,500 motorcycles in 2005.
The trend mirrors that in the civilian world. Motorcycle sales have increased for 13 straight years in the United States and have topped 1 million in each of the past three years, said Ty van Hooydonk of the Motorcycle Industry Council.
Don Thomas is a manager at New River Harley-Davidson in Jacksonville near Camp Lejeune. He said the dealership, which is about a year and a half old, started as a satellite of an established dealer in Wilmington. Demand was so high, he said, that it became a stand-alone dealer in just a year, a first among all Harley-Davidson franchises.
New River is more than doubling its normal inventory of 50 to 60 bikes in anticipation of the deployed Marines' return and is building a warehouse for off-base storage, a popular option for Marines who are deploying and need somewhere to keep their bikes.
Marine leaders say some cyclists have deliberately hidden their motorcycles from commanders by storing them at dealers or elsewhere off the base. That has allowed some to dodge the military's requirements for riders, which are more extensive than state regulations, and include the safety course and wearing long clothing, sturdy shoes or boots and a reflective safety vest.
The state requires a written test and a riding test before riders can get a motorcycle endorsement for their driver's license but doesn't require a safety course or protective clothing other than a helmet.
After the safety "stand down" in November, Marine leaders identified more than 800 riders who hadn't been registered with the base, bringing the total of known riders at Lejeune to 2,200.
Accidents almost always occur off base, so Lejeune has started working with local law officers. The civilian departments have agreed to turn over the names of Marines they stop on motorcycles even if the riders aren't ticketed, so base leaders can check the names against their list of riders.
Death at 35 mph
Strickland, the Marine killed Oct. 1, had just returned from Iraq and was riding a sport bike. In many ways, though, he didn't fit the profile of the problem riders, his widow said. He had years of experience riding on and and off the road, and he was killed while doing just 35 mph.
He was traveling on N.C. 24, headed for a Morehead City seafood festival, Andrea Strickland said. He was riding behind a pickup driven by a neighbor and ahead of a car driven by his best friend, Ronald Hogenmiller, also a Marine.
Strickland's motorcycle rear-ended the pickup after its driver and a car in front of him stopped abruptly. Strickland died from internal injuries, his widow said.
Strickland hadn't taken the safety course, but she said he had signed up three times. Each time he had to cancel because of work.
At Fort Bragg, the number of riders has increased steadily. But the number of fatalities has held level at two a year since 2001. Since the current fiscal year began Oct. 1, one soldier has died in a crash -- a paratrooper home from Afghanistan on a short leave.
Base commanders have emphasized motorcycle safety for years, said Kathleen Crawford, a civilian who is safety officer for Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne Corps.
But merely getting on a motorcycle and riding sedately is dangerous. For every mile traveled, motorcyclists are about 32 times as likely to be killed as someone in a car, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
And even the best safety program can't prevent a car from pulling out in front of a motorcyclist who has followed every law and every military regulation. Nor can stressing safety completely tame some of the nation's boldest men and women.
Sgt. Bobby Barker, 26, a handsome paratrooper whose shyness belied a daredevil approach to living, was home on leave from Afghanistan on Dec. 5 when he decided to take a ride on the Harley he had bought himself for his birthday. He was rounding a curve at Fort Bragg doing 90 mph or more when he drifted wide and a foot-peg snagged a traffic barrier. His widow, Deanna, 25, said she purposely hadn't sought much detail about what happened next.
She was left alone to raise their three young children.
In an interview last week, she recalled his deployment to Iraq -- where he was injured during a raid -- and then his volunteering for Afghanistan. He had sent back photos of himself checking caves for insurgents, photos that told her about some of the dangers he hadn't talked about.
"Being a soldier's wife, you know there is always the possibility ... ," she said, her voice trailing off. "But I always thought he was safe when he was here. That's the thing I'm having the hardest time with."
There's probably nothing that the Army or anyone else could have done that would have helped, she said.
"Honestly, I don't think anything could have prevented the accident," she said. "This wasn't the first time he had opened up the throttle. It was just him being himself."
Staff writer Jay Price can be reached at 829-4526 or
jprice@newsobserver.com.
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