Looking for straight facts about California motorcycle licenses

[Al Schmidt]

Here are the facts that I know (let me know if I err).
At the bottom are the facts that we don't know yet.

FACTS KNOWN TO DATE:
There are only 2 riding tests that will earn a CA M1 license:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/dl/checklists/mc.htm

These tests are the DMV "keyhole" & the "DL 389" (CMSP BRC):
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/dl655/mcycle_htm/requirements.htm

Based only on the data below, it appears that approximately
10% of California licensed motorcyclists take the DMV test;
the other 90% obtain a DL 389 at the CA CMSP BRC class.

Number of Class C licenses issued in California = 809,983
Calendar year 2012 via communication with Brock Wells
Forecasting Unit, Department of Motor Vehicles
ASD » Budget and Fiscal Analysis Branch, 916-657-8008

Number of M1's adjuncts (to existing CA licenses) = 208,951
Source = Brock Wells, as shown above, for 2012.

Number of M1-only licenses issued = 346
Source = Brock Wells, as shown above, for 2012
Note: These users do not have any other CA license.

Total number of existing M1-only licenses = 1,203
As of 12/31/2012, source = Brock Wells, for 2012

A total of 20,342 CA M{1,2} DMV drive tests were given:
For calendar year 2012, source = Brock Wells

To obtain the DL 389, you must pay for a class:
http://www.ca-msp.org

Class costs are no more than $150 under 21 & $250 over 21:
http://www.ca-msp.org/FAQ.aspx
Note: I paid $250 and all the schools I called were $250.

Number of registered motorcycles in California = 818,650
http://dmv.ca.gov/about/profile/official.pdf
Note: This is the total for the 2011 calendar year.

Motorcycle "safety fee" collected per year = $1,637,300
(See above PDF, this $2/vehicle is only paid by cyclists).

What's MISSING, are the following facts that I will try
to get (any help from intelligent people is appreciated).

KEY MISSING FACTS:
* Engine sizes & pass/fail stats for the 20,342 DMV tests.
* Pass/fail stats for the 188,609 CMSP BRC issued DL 389's.

Note: Without pass/fail statistics, the numbers below
can only be rough because we have no visibility (yet)
into multiple attempts.

Given that, we can only say that the 20,342 known
DMV tests represent roughly about 10% of the roughly
200,000 CMSP BRC classes taken (the number of BRC
classes has to be greater than 188,609 because not every
rider passes - but we don't know how much larger so the
figures are roughed out).

Note: 208,951 M licenses - 20,342 DMV tests = 188,609

QUESTION:
How can we obtain the key missing facts?
* Engine sizes & pass/fail stats for the 20,342 DMV tests.
* Pass/fail stats for the 188,609 CMSP BRC issued DL 389's.

[sleazy]

Al Schmidt <as...@notforspam.com> wrote:
> Here are the facts that I know (let me know if I err).
> At the bottom are the facts that we don't know yet.

<snip>

Who gIves a flying fuck?

--
sleazy

[Al Schmidt]

sleazy wrote on Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:26:21 +0000:

> Who gIves a flying fuck?

The answer lies in how the data will educate us.

By your own erudite exclamation, you clearly do not wish
to belong in the conversation (so why do you bother?).

[Mark Olson]

Because it's /slightly/ entertaining to watch as you continue to
pursue a futile effort to uncover something nefarious hidden in the
California motorcycle training program, that obviously is not there?

But by all means, I say keep going.

[Al Schmidt]

Al Schmidt wrote on Mon, 04 Mar 2013 05:18:51 +0000:

> Based only on the data below, it appears that approximately 10% of
> California licensed motorcyclists take the DMV test;
> the other 90% obtain a DL 389 at the CA CMSP BRC class.

Correction.

It's actually far fewer than the 9.7% we calculated
from the 20,342 attempts (includes failures and mopeds) and
the 209,297 M1 licenses granted in 2012.

It would only be 9.7% if every attempt resulted in a pass
(and if we ignored mopeds).

At the moment, we don't know the pass/fail statistics,
so, going out on a limb, if we assume an average of
2 attempts per DMV pass, we get a figure of 5% (1 out of 20)
California M1 licensees would be via the DMV keyhole.

That means about 95% (or 19 out of 20) riders is taking
and passing the CMSP BRC.

I don't have any granularity on the size of the bikes
so that's the next datapoint I will try to get from the DMV.

Note: All these are figures from the DMV which anyone is
welcome (and encouraged) to double check if I err.

[tomorrow]

So the obvious answer is to dispense with the DMV test entirely.
--
Posted from my iPhone using NewsTap via the University of Berlin

[CS]

"sleazy" wrote in message
news:1041652454384089135...@news.eternal-september.org...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Those same words rang through my head repeatedly as I scanned that post for
some sort of point.

CS

[CS]

"Al Schmidt" wrote in message news:kh2gle$ehd$3...@news.albasani.net...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It appears you've become obsessed with a bunch of numbers and statistics
which, in real life, are quite meaningless.

Is understanding all that mess going to somehow make folks better riders?

Will it help riders avoid accidents?

Will it uncover some evil plot to make folks take the class instead of the
riding test?

Will it get anybody laid?

I'd be more interested in stats relating to at-fault accidents, sport bike
vs. cruiser accidents, how bikes are equipped (passing lights, air horns,
etc.) when involved in accidents, and the like.

That would be quite interesting, and likely worthy of a good flamey
discussion.

CS

[Al Schmidt]

tomorrow wrote on Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:38:11 +0000:

> So the obvious answer is to dispense with the DMV test entirely.

Let's first see what the pass/fail statistics & bike sizes are,
before we jump to any conclusions.

[Al Schmidt]

tomorrow wrote on Mon, 04 Mar 2013 05:17:52 -0800:

tomorrow wrote on Mon, 04 Mar 2013 05:17:52 -0800:

> http://www.nmcti.org/docs/articles/outside/Billheimer_2001.pdf

Thanks for that report.

Like any statistical report, it was both a wealth of knowledge,
and, a confusing array of conflicting datapoints.

There was one dead wrong fact which showed their bias (or ignorance?)
but otherwise, it was a decent, if dated, analysis. I would LOVE to
see the analysis for recent years!

Here are my notes, jotted down as I encountered what they said.
Note: All the lines below are paraphrased accurately from the report itself,
both in tone and in content.
- CMSP was implemented in July 1987.
- CMSP trained 100K bikers by July 1997.
- 840 fatalities in 1986
- 263 fatalities in 1995 (same number roughly as in 2010 & 2011)
- Matched pair studies were performed (which is a good test)
- For novices, the safety effect dropped off after the 1st six months
- For experienced riders, there was no safety effect at all
- The CMSP was formed by Assembly Bill (AB) 412
- AB 55 raised the mandatory training age to include all riders under 21
- AB 229 (Jan 1, 1994) allowed the DL 389 to replace the DMV riding test
- The CHP develops and implements the Program
- CMSP is funded through a $2 per vehicle fee on motorcycle registration
- That fee collected 1.6 million dollars in 2012
- Out of 9 studies, only 2 concluded training reduces accidents
- The differences were not large even for those two studies
- Earlier studies showed that untrained riders had lower accident rates
- But those studies weren't normalized
- When normalized, the earlier studies could not conclude either way
- Some studies found fewer violations, others more, among the trained riders
- Trained riders use helmets and reflectorized jackets more often
- None of the studies is reliable because all suffer from 8 serious problems
- They are: (1) inconsistency (2) bias (3) lack of normalizing
(4) experienced riders are over represented
(5) sample sizes are not statistically valid
(6) no difference after the 1st year of riding
(7) trained novices ride more than untrained novices so they get hurt more
(8) weather, mountains, unlicensed riders, etc. screw up the data
- Accidents were compared from 1977-1986 and 1987-1995
- Up until 1969 fatalities were much greater when normalized against registration
- From 1970 to 1994, fatalities basically track registrations
- There was a dip with CMSP in 1987 and the helmet law in 1991
- Both these dips were statistically significant
- Motorcycle accident rates were dropping in the US before the CMSP started
- Also there was a 'precipitous decline' in motorcycle registrations
- Also 'baby boomers' were aging
- So it's hard to say really what is going on with accident rates
- If you compare California with the rest of the USA, the Californians
consistently have more accidents per 1000 registrations from 1978 to 1993.
- In 1994 Californians start to have the same number of accidents per
1000 registrations as everyone in the rest of the USA has
- Since California started higher and ended at the same point in 1993
(and even lower in 1994) than the rest of the USA, the accident rates
have actually declined faster than the rest of the USA
- California's overall motorcycle accident rate dropped 22% while the rest
of the U.S. dropped 17% (which made California about equal in 1993, and
slightly lower in 1994)
- The annual "safety" savings of $113 million is 80 times the cost of the
program (which is dead wrong because they didn't factor in the price of the
class which is over one hundred times the cost of the DMV registration fee).
- Riders were matched by age, sex, experience, miles, and purpose
- Those matched pairs were tested for 5 things
- Trained riders ride 5,500 miles in the 1st year
- Untrained riders ride 4,300 miles during the 1st year
- So accidents per year are skewed higher than accidents per mile
- Accidents were reduced for 6 months after the CMSP class
- This difference was marked for novices who rode less than 500 miles
- Accidents were actually higher for the experienced riders after the CMSP class
- This difference was for those who rode more than 500 miles in those 6 months
- But this wasn't statistically significant, so, those who rode more than
500 miles in the 1st six months after the class had essentially the same
number of accidents as people who never took the class
- The same trend reveals itself at the 1st year after the class
- Novices (<1,000 miles/year) have lower accident rates while experienced
(>1,000 miles/year) actually show higher accident rates than untrained people
- Again, it's not statistically significant, so the conclusion is that, after
1 year, the novice riders (<1,000miles/year) show lower rates while
experienced riders (>1,000 miles/year) show the same rate as untrained people
- Two years after training, there is no difference in any rider's accident rate
- All groups (trained or untrained) show high rates of accidents in the
first 500 miles.
- At the same time as the study, California instituted these safety programs
(1) Motorist awareness (2) Unlicensed riders (3) DUI riding
- After all the inconsistent measurements, the final sentence concludes (verbatim):
"By any measure, the CMSP is a cost-effective Program that pays for itself
many times over in saved lives and reduced accident rates."

I think this was a great study, and I learned a lot.
My key worries are:
a) It's old (it would be nice to have a newer report)
b) Typical of government, they understate the costs ($2) they receive
by over 100 times, because they ignore the true cost ($250) the user pays
c) They basically concluded both that the CMSP is effective and ineffective
in the same breath in that the accident rates are basically identical for
trained riders as for untrained riders, IF ... and this is important ...
IF the rider rides at the rate of more than 1,000 miles per year.

However, they did unambiguously conclude that a novice rider (defined as
one who rides less than 1,000 miles per year), had a lower accident rate
for the first year, and then everyone (trained or untrained) had the same
accident rate for the rest of their lives.

In summary, thank you for the wonderful report.
It's rare to see only one egregious error in any government report, so
I'd say this was a good one, as these reports go.

I just wish it wasn't a decade old so we could see the latest trends.

[Twibil]

On Mar 4, 11:58 pm, Al Schmidt <as...@notforspam.com> wrote:
>
>
> > So the obvious answer is to dispense with the DMV test entirely.
>
> Let's first see what the pass/fail statistics & bike sizes are,
> before we jump to any conclusions.

Irony: It's not just a word meaning "sort of like iron".

[Al Schmidt]

A courtesy update is that I called the CHP today (1.800.TELL.CHP) to
ask for more information so we can better understand what is going on.

An "Officer Williams" suggested I speak to "DMV Information Services":
916.657.8413 & 916.657.5583

At that number, I spoke with "Jessie", who said I had to send a signed
snail mail letter, but that I could fax a dup for a faster response:
Department of Motor Vehicles
Attention Policy & Information Privacy Section, Mail Station H225
25770 24th Street, Sacramento, CA 95818
Fax: 916.657.5907

That letter & fax were sent, asking simply for the pass/fail statistics
for calendar year 2012, specifically, how many motorcycle licenses
were earned at the DMV out of the 208,951 total licenses earned,
and, what bikes were used to earn those licenses.

I'll let you know what comes of this information request.

[Al Schmidt]

tomorrow wrote on Mon, 04 Mar 2013 05:17:52 -0800:

> Here are some facts about the efficacy of the California Motorcycle
> Safety Program and its effect on accidents and injuries among licensed
> California motorcyclists:
> http://www.nmcti.org/docs/articles/outside/Billheimer_2001.pdf
> I doubt that you will respond to these inconvenient facts!

As I've said, that PDF was a wealth of information.

In a separate message, I provided a lengthy summary; but the net
is that I did read the study and I did respond fully; but, having
done so, I'm having trouble understanding your assessment of the
"inconvenient facts".

Since the study clearly concluded (and stated so multiple times)
that "novice" riders (defined as those who rode fewer than 1,000
miles a year) had a statistically valid lower accident rate than
untrained riders for the first year after training (but not
thereafter), and, that "experienced riders" (defined as greater than
1,000 miles/year), had, statistically, the same accident rates as
untrained riders, for both the first year and thereafter, I fail
to see the "inconvenient facts" you're referring to.

Would you kindly list which "inconvenient facts" you're alluding to?

[Al Schmidt]

Chuck Rhode wrote on Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:27:15 -0600:
> I don't believe any really good studies have been done to prove or
> disprove the premise that accident rates are unaffected by training.

The study that "tomorrow" kindly sent looked at 9 prior studies:
( http://www.nmcti.org/docs/articles/outside/Billheimer_2001.pdf )

That study above specifically described the prior studies listed below,
but it concluded (verbatim) that "most have suffered from methodological
difficulties which made it impossible to reach any firm conclusions
regarding training effectiveness".

These "methodological difficulties" were described in detail as:
a) lack of consistency
b) self selection bias
c) lack of group comparability
d) oversampling of experienced riders
e) too small sample sizes

So, the study "tomorrow" provided was expressly designed to overcome
those methodological problems, specifically so that they 'could'
conclude whether or not training reduces the number of accidents.

And, they succeeded!

The clear conclusion of that study, as submitted to the MSF, was:
1. Training reduces accidents for "rank novices" for one year;
2. Training had no statistical effect on rank novices after one year;
3. Training had no statistical effect on accident rates for all others.
Note: "Rank novices" was defined in that report as those riders
with fewer than 500 miles of riding experience prior to training.


=========================================
NOTE: Here are the studies they analyzed:
=========================================
Satten, R.S. Analysis and Evaluation of the Motorcycle Rider Courses in
13 Northern Illinois Counties. Proceedings of the International
Motorcycle Safety Conference, Washington, D.C., 1980.
...
Mortimer, R. Evaluation of the Motorcycle Rider Course. Accident
Analysis and Prevention, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1984).
...
Jonah, B.; Davidson, N.; and Bragg, B. Are Formally Trained
Motorcyclists Safer? Accident Analysis and Prevention, Vol. 14, No. 4,
1982.
...
Leung, Ken S., and Reding, Vernon A. Evaluation of the Wisconsin
Motorcycle Rider Course. Planning Analysis and Data Section, Wisconsin
Department of Transportation, June 1987.
...
McKnight, A. James. Evaluation of the Pennsylvania Motorcycle Safety
Program, Final Report, prepared for the Indiana University of
Pennsylvania by the National Public Service Research Institute,
Landover,
MD, 1987.
...
Rothe, J.P.; and Cooper, P.J. Motorcyclists: Image and Reality,
Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, 1987.
...
McDavid, James C.; Lohrmann, Barbara A.; and Lohrmann, George. Does
Motorcycle Training Reduce Accidents? Evidence for a Longitudinal Quasi
Experimental Study. Journal of Safety Research, Vol. 20, pp. 61-72, 1989.

[tomorrow]

No, for reasons I've stated quite clearly elsewhere. I am not going
to continue this discussion with you. I do not find you to be
reasonable; despite your attempts to *appear* reasonable; again, for
reasons I have provided elsewhere.

And my name is not "tomorrow," that is merely my rec.motorcycles
posting "handle." My name is Tim Morrow, I live in Herndon,
Virginia, and I have been posting WITHOUT alias on usenet for
approximately 18~20 years.

You could do us the same courtesy, but you choose not to, which is
just one of the [many] reasons I have decided to drop out of your
little "debate."

[gpsman]

On Mar 7, 1:12 am, Al Schmidt <as...@notforspam.com> wrote:
>

> Since the study clearly concluded (and stated so multiple times)
> that "novice" riders (defined as those who rode fewer than 1,000
> miles a year) had a statistically valid lower accident rate than
> untrained riders for the first year after training (but not
> thereafter), and, that "experienced riders" (defined as greater than
> 1,000 miles/year), had, statistically, the same accident rates as
> untrained riders, for both the first year and thereafter, I fail
> to see the "inconvenient facts" you're referring to.
>
> Would you kindly list which "inconvenient facts" you're alluding to?

"Correlation does not imply causation".

Rookie truck drivers can, do, and are expected to bump into shit, but
it almost without exception takes a veteran to be involved in the
catastrophic crashes.

It's the 5th stage of competence; complacency often infests those
those who are otherwise presumably most competent.
-----

- gpsman

[Mark Olson]

In rec.motorcycles gpsman <gps...@driversmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 1:12 am, Al Schmidt <as...@notforspam.com> wrote:
>>
>> Since the study clearly concluded (and stated so multiple times)
>> that "novice" riders (defined as those who rode fewer than 1,000
>> miles a year) had a statistically valid lower accident rate than
>> untrained riders for the first year after training (but not
>> thereafter), and, that "experienced riders" (defined as greater than
>> 1,000 miles/year), had, statistically, the same accident rates as
>> untrained riders, for both the first year and thereafter, I fail
>> to see the "inconvenient facts" you're referring to.
>>
>> Would you kindly list which "inconvenient facts" you're alluding to?
>
> "Correlation does not imply causation".
>
> Rookie truck drivers can, do, and are expected to bump into shit, but
> it almost without exception takes a veteran to be involved in the
> catastrophic crashes.

So this case is strictly 'the exception that proves the rule'?

http://www.startribune.com/local/east/195537621.html?refer=y

I'd argue that being a recent immigrant from Somalia and so presumably
not having much experience driving *any* vehicle in blizzard-like
conditions, much less a big rig, his lack of experience was going to
do little to mitigate his chances of being in a catastrophic crash.

[Al Schmidt]

tomorrow wrote on Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:51:56 -0800:

>> Would you kindly list which "inconvenient facts" you're alluding to?
> No, for reasons I've stated quite clearly elsewhere.

OK. Well that at least solves the dilemma of what those
"inconvenient facts" were because the "convenient facts"
in that paper seemed pretty clear.

In summary, this study for the MSF tried to conclude whether or
not safety training reduces the accident rate of the students
at six months, one year, and more than one year after the training
class.

The study overcame the methodological problems of almost a dozen
prior studies, just so they 'could' conclude something about the
accident rates.

The study concluded that training does reduce the accident rate!

For "rank novice" riders only.

(Rank novice being defined as riders with fewer than 500 miles
of experience before taking the training.)

I'm not sure what about that was an 'inconvenient fact' to you,
but anyone can read the paper to see the conclusion for themselves
if they doubt what is written by me.

[Al Schmidt]

Mark Olson wrote on Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:09:07 +0000:

> Because it's /slightly/ entertaining to watch as you continue to pursue
> a futile effort to uncover something nefarious hidden in the California
> motorcycle training program, that obviously is not there?

Hi Mark,

I'm not sure that I can ever make that nefarious connection, but I
do appreciate your civility in explaining that the endeavor is futile.

What I have uncovered (which, to my knowledge, has never been revealed
on these newsgroups), is that no more than 1 out of 10 riders in CA
can possibly be obtaining their M1 endorsement using the DMV riding test
(in 2012).

It can't possibly be that high even, as that figure assumes
a 100% pass rate (which is highly unlikely) and it adds moped
tests as motorcycle tests.

If I halve that, it means that "roughly", 1 out of 20 riders is
actually obtaining their M1 endorsement via the California keyhole
(in 2012).

Note: There are those who vehemently argue with the 5% - even going
so far as to resort to name calling - so please use any percent
you want between 9.7% and 0% that you think is appropriate. No matter
what percentage you use, there's an order of magnitude involved.

To me, that one fact speaks volumes.

[gpsman]

Depends on what one considers a catastrophe, I guess.

A single-vehicle double-fatality crash that injured only the occupants
seems too common to fit that description.

From a motor vehicle safety point of view, this incident seems to me
to be much closer to the best thing that could have happened.
-----

- gpsman

[jgar the jorrible]

Same thing with private pilots; the stat I was told in the late '60s
(by my brother, who had been flying 10 years at that point) was a peak
around 1000 hours.

I think I've seen the same thing with motorcycle riders, but have no
proof or studies to back that up, of course. Personally, in
retrospect, I was most overconfident after about 5 years. But even
then, I was always pretty conservative on the street, somewhat
paranoid, even. That's a good thing when you are riding 240 blocks to
downtown LA, through various slums full of loaded Cadillac drivers at
8AM. Mall stairs, on the other hand...

jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
Buggy! http://fox5sandiego.com/2013/03/06/jay-walking-crack-down/#axzz2MsS8G67j

[gpsman]

On Mar 7, 12:47 pm, jgar the jorrible <joel-ga...@home.com> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 7:07 am, gpsman <gps...@driversmail.com> wrote:
>
> > It's the 5th stage of competence; complacency often infests those
> > those who are otherwise presumably most competent.
>