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Published: Sunday, October 7, 2007

Baby boomers have been in the midst of a motorcycle buying binge.

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Baby boomers have been in the midst of a motorcycle buying binge.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

The ideal fall weather is giving motorcyclists more time to ride and revel along Mahoning Valley's roads.

But the number of bike fatalities this summer has curtailed some enthusiasts' riding habits, and Deneane Tanner, 52, of Howland is one of them.

She took up riding two years ago at the urging of her husband, Jack, 67 — a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast and mechanic.

He was called Curly because of his shaved head.

"It sounds corny, but he was my best friend. ... It took a long time to find him," she said.

The Tanners married six years ago, after both had been married to other people and reared families.

Deneane didn't have much interest in motorcycles when she met him. But after a few years of riding on the back with Jack, she got her license and her own bike.

Her bike has sat in the garage since June 16.

That day was a Saturday afternoon.

Jack left work at Yahama of Warren and was heading south on Mahoning Avenue in Champion.

Julia M. Youngs, 91, of Reeves Road, Warren, was driving her car north. She turned left into a store parking lot, never seeing Jack, she told police.

They collided head-on, and he flew over the car and into the store's front yard.

He died in minutes from internal injuries.

There were no skid marks on the pavement for either the motorcycle or the car, indicating neither driver had time to react. Youngs told investigators she never saw the motorcycle.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol found Youngs at fault. She was convicted of misdemeanor vehicular homicide and sentenced to a $200 fine and suspended six-month jail term. Her license was taken away indefinitely, and she was placed on probation for two years.

Deneane said she isn't bitter toward Youngs.

"I know it was an accident. There's nothing I can do to this poor woman that she hasn't already done to herself," she said.

Deneane, a nurse at Horizon Village nursing home in Howland, said she has begun to cope with the loss.

"It's hard. I don't sit at home every weekend and cry [anymore]." The more practical reality of losing a husband confronts her now: how to keep the grass cut and the house working.

Ken Vassis, an owner of Yamaha of Warren, said the type of accident Tanner had is one of the most dangerous — when someone makes a left turn into a motorcycle — usually because the automobile driver doesn't see the bike.

"A left turn in front of you is the most fatal. What do you do?" he said. "It's a sad fact that you lose customers and lose mechanics when they ride motorcycles. You have to be careful."

Also not riding much these days is Dana Srbinovich of Warren.

Srbinovich, a 31-year-old auto mechanic, has owned motorcycles since he was 18, but he is making plans to put his spare time into automobiles these days.

Srbinovich says he's engaged to marry a woman with children, which will make him a family man soon. That's one of the reasons he's selling the Suzuki GSX-R sports bike he's had for about five years.

Though he has enjoyed riding fast motorcycles for years and sometimes engages in risky behaviors with them — like doing wheelies and taking off on short bursts at 125 mph on back roads — he's giving it up for now.

One reason is that he knows riding really fast motorcycles is dangerous. He was reminded of that when he heard about Tanner's death this summer and the deaths of two other Trumbull County riders in two days in August.

Srbinovich said he believes the biggest danger to motorcycle riders is inexperience, and that's why he's reluctant to sell his Suzuki to any of the high-school-age guys who have inquired about it.

"I'd like to know he won't kill himself," Srbinovich said of prospective buyers. "A lot of kids have it a week and flip it over backwards. They don't know how to handle the power. If you're an idiot, it will catch up with you," he said.

Lt. Joe Dragovich, commander of the Warren post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which investigated Tanner's death, said three motorcycle deaths in his jurisdiction in one summer is a higher than usual number of motorcycle fatalities. A more common number is one or two, he said.

He attributes the rise to the higher number of motorcycles on the road. Statistics seem to back that up.

The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles reports that the number of Ohio motorcycle riders has increased 19 percent between 1998 and 2006 — from 552,000 to 658,000. And the number of fatal crashes in Ohio increased 70 percent during that same period — from 98 in 1998 to 166 in 2006.

There were 7,455 motorcycles registered with the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles as of Aug. 31 in Mahoning County, 8,452 in Trumbull County and 4,768 in Columbiana County.

The other factor, Dragovich said, is the adage "Speed kills."

One of the three fatalities involved a young rider going too fast.

A Cortland man died on state Route 11 just south of state Route 82 about 2:20 a.m. Aug. 15. A witness said the rider passed him at more than 100 mph on his Yamaha R-6 sport motorcycle.

A short distance later, the rider hit the back of a Geo Tracker, was thrown from the motorcycle and died from head injuries, Dragovich said.

The other Trumbull County fatality involved a 32-year-old Youngstown man. He was hit by a pickup truck pulling into his path onto state Route 82 from a stop sign at Collar-Price Road in Brookfield. The pickup truck driver in the Aug. 16 accident has never been located.

In Youngstown this year, out of 10 traffic fatalities, four involved motorcyclists, and all of them were young men on fast bikes, said Sgt. Patricia Garcar of the Youngstown Police Department's traffic division. The four fatalities is an increase over the number recorded in the city in 2005 and 2006 — one and two, respectively.

National statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that the number of motorcycle fatalities nearly doubled between 1998 and 2004 — from 2,227 to 4,008, in part because of the increasing number of motorcycles on the road. There were 214,000 on-road motorcycles sold in 1995, compared with 662,000 in 2003.

Ohio statistics show the same thing.

Ohio does not require riders to wear a helmet. Dragovich and others say Tanner's death and others demonstrate one of the biggest reasons motorcyclists die when they collide with automobiles and why a motorcycle training course can be a life-saver: visibility.

"Sometimes what happens is people are in a hurry. [Car drivers] are looking for a car, not a motorcycle, and we don't see the motorcycle," Dragovich said.

Wendal Shaw of Howland, who has taught the state-sponsored motorcycle safety course at Kent State University Trumbull Campus in Champion since 1992, said the course helps students learn how to avoid being killed or injured.

The course, taught by Motorcycle Ohio, does reflect the higher number of baby boomers on motorcycles, Shaw said.

Most students are in the boomer age group, Shaw said, and more are women. In 1992, Shaw's 12-student classes usually consisted of one or two women. A recent class had seven.

State law does not require a person to take the hands-on Motorcycle Ohio class. Only a written test is required to acquire a one-year permit. When people pass Shaw's class, they get a motorcycle endorsement on their driver's license. It also lowers the cost of motorcycle insurance for most people, Shaw said.

Many motorcycle-riding boomers have joined organizations that emphasize safety.

Amy Newell of Kinsman, 47, editor of the newsletter for I-2 Chapter of the International Goldwing Road Riders Association, said the organization encourages riders to address visibility problems by making their vehicles as conspicuous as possible.

Her group consists of older riders with Honda touring bikes. Despite the dangers, Newell said there's something addictive about riding a motorcycle, not to mention the savings in gas over driving a car.

"Once you ride, you're hooked," she said.

runyan@vindy.com

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Baby boomers have been in the midst of a motorcycle buying binge.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

The ideal fall weather is giving motorcyclists more time to ride and revel along Mahoning Valley's roads.

But the number of bike fatalities this summer has curtailed some enthusiasts' riding habits, and Deneane Tanner, 52, of Howland is one of them.

She took up riding two years ago at the urging of her husband, Jack, 67 — a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast and mechanic.

He was called Curly because of his shaved head.

"It sounds corny, but he was my best friend. ... It took a long time to find him," she said.

The Tanners married six years ago, after both had been married to other people and reared families.

Deneane didn't have much interest in motorcycles when she met him. But after a few years of riding on the back with Jack, she got her license and her own bike.

Her bike has sat in the garage since June 16.

That day was a Saturday afternoon.

Jack left work at Yahama of Warren and was heading south on Mahoning Avenue in Champion.

Julia M. Youngs, 91, of Reeves Road, Warren, was driving her car north. She turned left into a store parking lot, never seeing Jack, she told police.

They collided head-on, and he flew over the car and into the store's front yard.

He died in minutes from internal injuries.

There were no skid marks on the pavement for either the motorcycle or the car, indicating neither driver had time to react. Youngs told investigators she never saw the motorcycle.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol found Youngs at fault. She was convicted of misdemeanor vehicular homicide and sentenced to a $200 fine and suspended six-month jail term. Her license was taken away indefinitely, and she was placed on probation for two years.

Deneane said she isn't bitter toward Youngs.

"I know it was an accident. There's nothing I can do to this poor woman that she hasn't already done to herself," she said.

Deneane, a nurse at Horizon Village nursing home in Howland, said she has begun to cope with the loss.

"It's hard. I don't sit at home every weekend and cry [anymore]." The more practical reality of losing a husband confronts her now: how to keep the grass cut and the house working.

Ken Vassis, an owner of Yamaha of Warren, said the type of accident Tanner had is one of the most dangerous — when someone makes a left turn into a motorcycle — usually because the automobile driver doesn't see the bike.

"A left turn in front of you is the most fatal. What do you do?" he said. "It's a sad fact that you lose customers and lose mechanics when they ride motorcycles. You have to be careful."

Also not riding much these days is Dana Srbinovich of Warren.

Srbinovich, a 31-year-old auto mechanic, has owned motorcycles since he was 18, but he is making plans to put his spare time into automobiles these days.

Srbinovich says he's engaged to marry a woman with children, which will make him a family man soon. That's one of the reasons he's selling the Suzuki GSX-R sports bike he's had for about five years.

Though he has enjoyed riding fast motorcycles for years and sometimes engages in risky behaviors with them — like doing wheelies and taking off on short bursts at 125 mph on back roads — he's giving it up for now.

One reason is that he knows riding really fast motorcycles is dangerous. He was reminded of that when he heard about Tanner's death this summer and the deaths of two other Trumbull County riders in two days in August.

Srbinovich said he believes the biggest danger to motorcycle riders is inexperience, and that's why he's reluctant to sell his Suzuki to any of the high-school-age guys who have inquired about it.

"I'd like to know he won't kill himself," Srbinovich said of prospective buyers. "A lot of kids have it a week and flip it over backwards. They don't know how to handle the power. If you're an idiot, it will catch up with you," he said.

Lt. Joe Dragovich, commander of the Warren post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which investigated Tanner's death, said three motorcycle deaths in his jurisdiction in one summer is a higher than usual number of motorcycle fatalities. A more common number is one or two, he said.

He attributes the rise to the higher number of motorcycles on the road. Statistics seem to back that up.

The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles reports that the number of Ohio motorcycle riders has increased 19 percent between 1998 and 2006 — from 552,000 to 658,000. And the number of fatal crashes in Ohio increased 70 percent during that same period — from 98 in 1998 to 166 in 2006.

There were 7,455 motorcycles registered with the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles as of Aug. 31 in Mahoning County, 8,452 in Trumbull County and 4,768 in Columbiana County.

The other factor, Dragovich said, is the adage "Speed kills."

One of the three fatalities involved a young rider going too fast.

A Cortland man died on state Route 11 just south of state Route 82 about 2:20 a.m. Aug. 15. A witness said the rider passed him at more than 100 mph on his Yamaha R-6 sport motorcycle.

A short distance later, the rider hit the back of a Geo Tracker, was thrown from the motorcycle and died from head injuries, Dragovich said.

The other Trumbull County fatality involved a 32-year-old Youngstown man. He was hit by a pickup truck pulling into his path onto state Route 82 from a stop sign at Collar-Price Road in Brookfield. The pickup truck driver in the Aug. 16 accident has never been located.

In Youngstown this year, out of 10 traffic fatalities, four involved motorcyclists, and all of them were young men on fast bikes, said Sgt. Patricia Garcar of the Youngstown Police Department's traffic division. The four fatalities is an increase over the number recorded in the city in 2005 and 2006 — one and two, respectively.

National statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that the number of motorcycle fatalities nearly doubled between 1998 and 2004 — from 2,227 to 4,008, in part because of the increasing number of motorcycles on the road. There were 214,000 on-road motorcycles sold in 1995, compared with 662,000 in 2003.

Ohio statistics show the same thing.

Ohio does not require riders to wear a helmet. Dragovich and others say Tanner's death and others demonstrate one of the biggest reasons motorcyclists die when they collide with automobiles and why a motorcycle training course can be a life-saver: visibility.

"Sometimes what happens is people are in a hurry. [Car drivers] are looking for a car, not a motorcycle, and we don't see the motorcycle," Dragovich said.

Wendal Shaw of Howland, who has taught the state-sponsored motorcycle safety course at Kent State University Trumbull Campus in Champion since 1992, said the course helps students learn how to avoid being killed or injured.

The course, taught by Motorcycle Ohio, does reflect the higher number of baby boomers on motorcycles, Shaw said.

Most students are in the boomer age group, Shaw said, and more are women. In 1992, Shaw's 12-student classes usually consisted of one or two women. A recent class had seven.

State law does not require a person to take the hands-on Motorcycle Ohio class. Only a written test is required to acquire a one-year permit. When people pass Shaw's class, they get a motorcycle endorsement on their driver's license. It also lowers the cost of motorcycle insurance for most people, Shaw said.

Many motorcycle-riding boomers have joined organizations that emphasize safety.

Amy Newell of Kinsman, 47, editor of the newsletter for I-2 Chapter of the International Goldwing Road Riders Association, said the organization encourages riders to address visibility problems by making their vehicles as conspicuous as possible.

Her group consists of older riders with Honda touring bikes. Despite the dangers, Newell said there's something addictive about riding a motorcycle, not to mention the savings in gas over driving a car.

"Once you ride, you're hooked," she said.

runyan@vindy.com

Sunday, October 7, 2007
a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast and mechanic. He was called Curly because of his shaved head. "It sounds corny, but...

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