LETTER: Share the road with motorcycles

There are almost 400,000 peo­ple who are licensed to drive motor­cy­cles in the State of New Jer­sey and 5.5 mil­lion peo­ple who can legally drive cars. Add those two num­bers together and you have the mak­ings for some very busy roadways.

And as the days get warmer, more motor­cy­cle rid­ers will no doubt be out on the road­ways. I know it is some­times dif­fi­cult for motorists to see motor­cy­clists, but sim­ple pre­cau­tions can be taken to avoid any mishaps. Before switch­ing lanes, remem­ber to dou­ble check your side and rearview mir­rors to ensure that every­thing is clear. And before mak­ing a turn at an inter­sec­tion, give an extra look to each side just to make sure noth­ing is com­ing your way.

There’s no deny­ing motor­cy­cle rid­ers are more vul­ner­a­ble in their vehi­cle of choice than those who drive cars or trucks. It’s sim­ply the design of the machin­ery. But that’s where the dif­fer­ence stops because peo­ple who ride motor­cy­cles are no dif­fer­ent than you and me. They are our fathers, our moth­ers, our sons and our daughters.

May is national Motor­cy­cle Safety Aware­ness Month and I would like to remind all motorists who travel our road­ways to be alert to the nearly 160,000 motor­cy­cles that are reg­is­tered in New Jer­sey. So this month, and every day, let’s all safely share the road with motorcycles.

For more infor­ma­tion about shar­ing the road with motor­cy­cles and about the NJ Motor Vehi­cle Commission’s Motor­cy­cle Safety Edu­ca­tion Pro­gram, please visit our web­site at njridesafe.org.

Ray­mond P. Mar­tinez, Chief Admin­is­tra­tor, New Jer­sey Motor Vehi­cle Commission