Freedom Riding Academy

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Hey guys, how you doing? It’s Chris Johnson, a traffic bulldog, and I’m here today believe it or not, Arizona Ful Park in obviously Arizona. I did not plan on being here today, <laugh>. I just got a problem down this way actually with my beautiful wife and I’m supposed to be furniture shopping, to be honest, but we bumped a guy who invited us out to a track day and, you know, we’re writers, guys, and what we gonna do, Thank goodness my wife understands what he is, what we do, and why we do it. So we’re gonna do our recording the best we can. We got on the line here, Major Mark. All right, our oh four United States Marine Corps retired major. Good morning, Mark. Good morning, Major. Hey

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Chris, how are you?

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Excellent. Thanks for joining us. And then we’ve got a wonderful guest here today, guys. Got a super, super talented, super, super passionate guy about what we do. We’ve got Steve Johnson ex special forces from the uk like minded. Love that. And Steven just started a club and club. That’s what we’re gonna talk about today. So Steven, you want introducing yourself and let our listeners and our viewers know what it is you do, why you’re doing it, and how they can get involved.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah, so I appreciate it. Thanks for having both me and Mark on. We’ve actually been me and Mark kind of organizing track days for military and veteran folks, primarily a Jennings GP in Florida, North Florida. And over the last two years we’ve made a big effort to actually petition the federal government to create a, a non-for-profit 5 0 1 C three, which we received designation this summer. And so working with Nick Eye Nuts and the, and the Champ School team we built a one day program of instruction, a curriculum very similar to when they used to do a single champ day. So it’s very similar to a Champ day. It’s called Freedom Writing Academy Skills Camps. And the whole focus of that is to impart a lot of the champions habits from Nick and the team on veterans and active service members, both active duty and, and reservists to try to, you know, minimize in injuries as well as hopefully prevent deaths.

 Last year alone, the Department of Defense had over 60 60 service members die. So our first event dedicated to just service members and veterans is gonna actually be next month Veterans Day the 11th, Friday, the 11th of November. And our goal is to get 20 service member and veterans here to Jennings and they’ll get a, a full day skills camp here at the track with Mark and myself. Mark, of course, being a Y C R S instructor, and I’m a certified coach with the Champ School team. And then I got seven, seven former military guys veterans that are in that pipeline with the Champ School right now to to get their certification. So pretty strong team of guys all dedicated to helping those novice and intermediate service members become better riders.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Love that. Well, listen, first off, thank you so much for taking the time to acknowledge the challenge that we’ve had. Me, Mark and I major and I are very passionate about this. We all our guys you know, we’re all connected US free. You know, we’re, we’re all involved with the, with the Champ school and, you know, the best core practices and cetera, cetera. But, you know, I, I, Steve, I share is with you a major Mark already knows this. You know, I read an call in the New York Times, I’m not kidding. Just about 16 years ago talking about, No, hang on, lemme, Yeah, about 16 years ago, I started the small, 15 years ago, the endorsement still, and I remember reading an article about that we’re losing more active service men and women on motorcycles than we do active serving. And I’m just insanely frustrated that it’s been this long and, you know, we haven’t turned the dial direction.

So this is great news. I’m very excited to hear that. And my question is this really to our listeners and our views, what can they do to get involved? How can they help? Because I mean, this is, this is an injustice to our, our own forces and not, not just the people actually serving, but actually the families as well. I mean, like, it’s just an injustice that we don’t set ’em up for success correctly. Cuz you know, these guys are at a boards in the middle of the sea jumping out planes doing, know what else, and don’t come back on what they wanna do. They, they wanna, they wanna have some steam, and Microsoft is a natural vessel for that. So what can people do to support our calls as we move forward now and start providing more training the right training and intermediate and advance training? I’m so glad that you said that. Intermediate advance training. What, what could we do?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Well, the biggest thing for us, So, you know, we, we because of covid and, and other things that delayed the process, we didn’t get our designation until late July. And then of course, you know, trying to keep everything in line, our approval to solicit through the state of Florida, not until late last month. Yeah, late last month in September. So we’re gonna do this November event, use that as a catalyst to get the word out and, and really try to let folks know what we’re doing. Our goal, you know, is to try to run one a month at Jennings. Jennings is only open nine months a year, summer, It just gets kind of too hot down here at Jennings. Oh yeah. And potentially move up to the mid-Atlantic area in the summer talking to, to Keith Culvers and, and Nick and the team about using NC Bike maybe up in that area.

But the, the biggest thing for us right now, of course, being a nonprofit is, is trying to generate enough revenue to be able to support the events, right? We’re trying to do 20 riders and you know, we gotta rent the track. We have you know, insurance. We got a lot of things that, that yeah, right now is all coming from the goodness of people’s hearts. So yeah, we’re looking for support and we’re, we’re trying not to take money from the industry that, that, you know, is already pretty well tapped. So we’re, we’re trying to look for businesses and, and, and folks that would really like to support the effort moving forward.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I like that. So we’re looking for companies, right? Manufacturers, dealerships, right? Maybe insurance companies, You know, there’s lots of other companies. When I think about scope of who we speak to as a most sport, there’s a culture. There’s a huge platform there for us. I mean, everybody knows that, you know, motor sport history has always provided a fantastic sponsoring. I mean, look at Motor gp, look at Formula One. Look at your local race track. You know, there’s lots of sponsors all the time, and I couldn’t think a better reason to wanna put your time and your money be like something we talk about people, ladies and gentlemen that go out there and protect us. You know, they, they literally do their job so we can sleep. You know, I have two boys, Max and Sam, 15 and 12, and a beautiful wife. You know, we sleep well because of these ladies and these guys doing what they’re doing.

So we really do need these companies to understand exactly where it is that their dollar’s gonna go. Because when you think about it, there really isn’t anything to sell with other than just goodness. I mean, you literally selling the opportunity of a soldier and active serviceman, sailor going home after going for a right. I mean, really that’s the facts of what we’re looking at right now. I mean, we all know that rate the skill will certainly change direction of our writing. So let’s think about this for a second. Major, you obviously did a query in depth study in 2030 in the Marine Corps. If we can create more events by getting good sponsorship, good networking, what are some of the causations that we are still seeing that you saw back in 2013 that we can change? How do we change the direction?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

It’s all still going the same direction. It really is still all going the same direction. So most rider in this country, most writers in the military are undertrained. When I say most, I’m, I’m thinking 93% do not have adequate training to avoid the, the, you know, the two most common causes of crashes and, and fatalities. The, you know, the courses that they’re being taught aren’t at real world speeds. You know, another way to think of it is, you know, it, it’s a basic training to go through the, you know, the basic writer’s course, but the rider are going out and, and they’re riding advanced roads, and they’re getting into advanced situations, ie. When a vehicle pulls out in front of ’em or when they’re at highway speeds and they’re trying to negotiate a corner, and, and the writers just aren’t prepared for that.

 So it’s just kind of coming to the realization that that’s there’s a big gap in, in the the, the skills that are provided right now with the industry. So, you know, what could be great about the course that Steve’s footing together is that if this takes off, you know, if the word gets out, if we get enough military members to, to come to our course and, and take this and improve their writing, take the word back to their command, maybe eventually the industry can, can approach D O D and say, Listen, you’re, you’re spending your money in the wrong place. You shouldn’t be spending it in the basic rider scores. If you wanna prevent accidents, you should be spending it on the level two and the level three writing, which is what we’re providing here.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, or at least provide the right techniques and best practices at the, at the, the degree of application that you can for a new writer. I mean, think about that for a second. That’s, that’s one of the projects that I’ve worked on that in Washington state. I now have my own two world curriculum where I’m using exactly the same techniques as the best in the world that they’re in. It’s having the same techniques that we use at Y Cs, Right? But it’s just a different degree of application. And so, you know, we

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. We’re

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Doing, there’s, there’s two, there’s two attacks that is to change that number, right? One is lay the foundation, you know, we’re not laying the foundation down correctly. If we were to actually lay the foundation down correctly for our entry level writers, not just for, not just our force, it’s like the whole, the public, our writing country, our sport, if we lay that foundation down correctly to exactly what the data says, what the proven best,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Oh yeah, Chris, I totally agree with you. So, so if we if the entire country did what you did, and that’s to overhaul the basic writer’s course, I, I think we get there. The, the other way to get get to it is to, is to sort of go past what’s being done right now and provide that level too. And that’s what we attempted to do in the Marine Corps, was to, you know, to let the BRC go, go the way it was going, and then we would get the rider within two days after the brc, and we provide the essential skills. But what you’re doing gets to the exact same problem. You’ve overhauled it. So either of these solutions, I think, work.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Right, Exactly. And you know, when you say you’ve over it, like really all we did, we just literally spoke to just a couple of things that were not being addressed. I mean, it’s not like we’re like, we reinvented the wheel here. You know, I mean, it’s like, hey, there’s, we still gotta learn how that clutch works and that break works. You know, we’ve still gotta figure out those basic motorcycle writing still fundamentals. But Mark, you know a lot more about this than most people do. Right? Talk, talk to the two things that were not being taught Right. Which, you know, are now being addressed correctly in, in my curriculum.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah. If, if we’re to look at it that, you know, the two places writers are dying are in the corners and in the intersection. So if we think about it with this, what, what’s the, what’s the one thing we can get to the, the quickest? And that’s, that’s the cornering. So the, the way I was taught to take a motorcycle around the corner when I first took BRC back in 2003, this was on base camp was June. It was do your breaking in a straight line, give up all your breaking tip the motorcycle, or turn the motorcycle into the corner and then steadily throttle out. W we know that that’s completely wrong. There are no expert rides, ride rides in this, in this way.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I would, I would never make it round. I wouldn’t make a lap like that. I won’t make one.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

No, You could make a lap

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Like that. I wouldn’t make a canyon road ride at, you know what I would, when I was a courier rider in London, I wouldn’t have made it to the next delivery like that. Not in a million years. No way. It’s just no one rides

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

On a track like that.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

You can’t ride that way. We don’t, My kids don’t even ride their man bikes like that. I mean, figure about it. Yeah, that’s right. They, they stay on the brakes until they’re not nervous, you know? Yeah. I mean, seriously. So why are we tending people to not do what is natural? And what is natural is to reduce speed when you’re scared. You what? I mean, t the break when you got off anything straight up and down.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

That’s the thing. We,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

It’s gonna go, I gotta do ca, do k g six r r one, go past <laugh>. You gotta love that. Here’s a question. How many of these writers are here today are gonna do the best practice? How many match? Who

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Do we have?

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

We got we got 17. I limit my events pretty much to 15 riders per group, and we focus on the novice and intermediate group. So over the, the past five years that we’ve been running events, I would say that we’ve seen some drastic improvements for most of our riders. And even from yesterday focus that were here for their first exposure. I think today you see Mark market market improvement, wouldn’t you say, Mark? Oh, yeah, yeah. Nine days.

See Steve, I love that, that you just acknowledge the timeline in such improvement. I mean, really, I mean, think about that. That’s, that’s the beauty of what we do, right? Is that if we actually give someone the opportunity with best practice, good communication, clear, concise expectations of what to do with repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. We see that bell curve, a skill of knowledge just ramp up so quickly as soon as we allow someone to actually discover what’s best for themselves. So I love it. I mean, I just can’t believe what you just said. I mean, thinking about that, we, how many hours does it take to learn how to put retractable landing gear down on the airplane? I know 10 hours, that’s an additional module of 10 hours just to put the wheels down. And here we are saying that you’re gonna spend 16 hours in a parking lot with not the best practices. And then you’ve gotta go out there and do well, actually major, What was it that you heard recently at that safety conference that the instructor said about when we set, we set our customers, our students out from the parking lot. Do you remember what, what we learned?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah, that was pretty interesting at the conference. You know a lot of the the coaches at the brc they’re sort of skeptical that the, that the student can, can learn these skills. But, but we I mean we’ve proved it, we’ve proved it at Y C Rs, we’ve approved it with all the beta tests that we did with the rider’s essential skills training in the Marine Corps. It, it’s really not that difficult. I, I think we’re underestimating the basic ability of, of most riders. This is a skill that can be taught in a very short time period.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Yeah.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

I think to that point we have a young lady here this weekend. It’s her she’s done champ you and she’s on a Ninja 400, I think. And, and I’ll tell you, just seeing her improvement from yesterday, today, her confidence, her ability to trail break and execute and, and she’s only owned the bike a few months is, is pretty impressive. We also have a 14 year old here today son of a, of a rider that just in his first two sessions this morning, his third session, I mean, market improvement. Once you give folks what the expectations are, they can usually execute.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I love that. I mean, seriously guys, just let’s just escape out of the education part for a certain, isn’t it just amazing that we live in this amazing country and we get to ride these amazing facilities and then we get to meet all these amazing people and then we see them just grow. You know, we, we, we’ve give them just a little bit of what we got and it just makes ’em grow that much. You know what I mean? Like, I just, I just love what you just, everything you just said to me, for me, that is the, the, the gift that I get to do, you know, wake up at 4 45 every day and then try to figure out how to bring people like yourself to more people that are passionate and become people like us. All right. Which, which is amazing. So I’ll just wait to take a moment to celebrate that, cuz I got a little goosebump thinking about someone figuring out trail breaking cuz you know, it’s gonna happen now and they’re gonna go out and ride the road and they’re gonna be coming to that canyon and it’s gonna get a little tire or there’ll be some grab on the road and she’s not gonna freak down there.

Is she? She’s not gonna panic. She’s not.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

No, that’s right. I mean, it’s like any after action. If you, if you pr or or, or immediate action, if you practice the immediate action once the situation presents, you’re not gonna freak out. But if you’ve had absolutely no training, you are going to freak out.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Yeah. That’s just it. I mean, what, what I say this again and again, again, I don’t, I don’t mind if I say every podcast, right? We’ve, what do we call people that jump out vehicles with flashing ice an accident? What do we call them? Do we call ’em first reactors? No, we call ’em first responders. They’re training completely kicks in. You know, a police officer doesn’t jump out and starts flapping like a fish outta water and tells you to stop running or is gonna shoot you. Right? A paramedic doesn’t run up to a seriously injured individual in the lane on the road and go, Oh my God, all the blood, that’s disgusting. What am I supposed to do with that? You know, a firefighter doesn’t look at a fire and go, Well I guess I, should I spray at a bomb at a fire? Or do I spray at the top of the fire? Like, I don’t do that. They literally respond, We will serve the free of us have served. Right. Were you really thinking about anything other than just doing what you were trained to do when things got hot and heavy?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah, that’s right Chris. I mean, we all react the way way we’re trained and that’s, that’s, that’s part of the gap that I’m talking about. We’ve got riders that don’t understand that they, they should use the brakes for three things. We know they know they use the brakes to slow the motorcycle, but they don’t understand that they use the brakes to control the traction and they don’t understand that they use the brakes to steer with. So, so they’re missing really two huge components and, and they’re trying to navigate their, their, their way through really advanced situations. And and then we’re seeing, we’re seeing them fail and we know why, right?

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

So they, you know, let, let’s go about your program here and what it focus is. Alright, so we are actually trying to take already licensed rider from the armed forces and give them an opportunity of what we call and just, you know, so our listeners and our viewers know what we call level two and level three training. Would you mind expanding on exactly what level two and level three training actually is?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Well, it’s, it’s again, we’re, we’re using a curriculum that, that worked out with Nick I notch and the team you know, it’s, it’s doing many of the same drills. So we’re focusing on breaking trail break. We’re focusing on body position and more, more than anything we’re, we’re getting their eyes correct. So the whole curriculum for us is based off of Eyes Breaks Body, which of course is also the champions habits. And we, we try to give them about as many of the drills that you would get at, you know, a two day Champ school. But we’re, we’re focusing it on the primary things that are gonna get them to that next level, make ’em a safer rider. So it comes out to about three and a half or more hours on the track with, you know, classroom instruction and many of the, the similar drills that, that the Champ School does. And we keep it at a, at a, you know, a price point that, you know, a junior enlisted an NCO with a family that, that don’t make a lot of money, but like you said, come back from overseas by the, the prettiest bike they can find. But really aren’t, they’ve

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Six months, six, seven. Well, what’s the typical deployment now? Six months? Yeah, nine. Yeah,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

You can range.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Yeah. So six months not spending a lot of money. Everything’s going in the bank and all I’ve been doing is going on the internet and looking at what bike I’m gonna buy when I get back. I mean, basically that’s it, you know, I mean, and then they come back, They’ve got a nice little ethic. No one’s ever taken them the time to educate them about how to manage their money correctly. All right. That’s just, you know, I know we try to teach people in the forces outta learn and their money, but you know, if parents haven’t set ’em up for success, they have no idea. And they go and they buy that shiny bike and then what do they do? What they doing next? What happens exactly after they buy that bike? Why don’t you guys share, you’ve done the, these guys give us an example of a real case example of somebody tuning just that or come back the border, what happened next?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Well, you just don’t know. And then they’ll get in with some of the crowd and, and try to keep up peer pressure, you know, whatever it is with riders that they themselves might not know and just doing things that they probably should, they know they shouldn’t be doing, but do it anyway to get that rush, get whatever it is that they need. And at a minimum we need to, we owe it to ’em to teach ’em the ride the right way. And what the controls of the bike can do to help ’em get and ensure they have, you know, proper direction, be able to exit a corner. Enter a corner. The whole goal this right, is to get, you know, especially riders to understand how to use their brakes correctly so that when they do go up in the mountains, you know, they’re gonna go up detail of the dragon or, or whatever with their buddies. They look at a

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Corner with

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah, they, they, they look at a corner with anticipation, not apprehension. You don’t buy a motorcycle to be scared of it.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Well, I like that anticipation or apprehension. That’s really cool. That’s, that’s, I like that. Yeah. That’s the Chris we’re getting ready to go hot here at the track. Love. I, you know, if, if you’re talking to folks anybody that might wanna reach out to you know, find out more about what we’re doing and how they can help info i n freedom writing academy.org is an easy way to get ahold of me. And we definitely could use whatever support. And it’s not, not a big ask, I’ll tell you we’re we’re trying to keep this at a budget level with a lot of volunteer support, mainly veterans and service members, right? But as, as you pointed out in the beginning here, me and Mark are getting ready to go. We’re running an event today and I’ll leave Mark here with you and I really appreciate the time, but we’re about to go hot here in about five minutes, buddy. I gotta

So, so, so about a rider, Steve, sort of been a writer. You take care of your writers and thank you so much for joining us today and we’re, I look forward to speaking again in the near future.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Thank you, Chris. I’ll turn it over to Mark.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

So major, I’m thinking about go ahead. Previous, I’m thinking about your previous employment and the study that you did. Would you mind speaking to a real case that you had to study when it exact scenario happened when a young person came back home, bought that motorcycle and then expired because didn’t know what they were playing with? Would you mind sharing at least one? Cause I know you’ve got

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah, there’s, there’s a couple, there’s a couple of cases about this. And so we’re, we’re concentrating on where most of the accidents happen. So that’s corners and that’s straight line breaking when a vehicle pulls out in front of you. So there was one case that’s, it’s really sort of a good example for most of the fail braking the Marine on a motorcycle staff nco a vehicle pulled out in front of him. If we look at the hurt report, the hurt report says that when this happens, you’ll have less than two seconds to react. So let’s say you’re doing 60 miles an hour, you know, you’re traveling 88 feet per second. I mean, this is a very small threshold to get your motorcycle stopped in this case. Yeah, pretty small. So in this case, the staff nco, rather than using the front break, where on most of our machines we’ve got 90, 90% of our stopping power, he attempted to use the back break, mostly the back break. And so that the eight day report, Yeah, that’s the, that’s where the fatality report.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Do you remember what type of motorcycle he was on?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

He was on a cruiser. Yeah, he was on a cruiser. I’m light cruiser.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I mean, he had about the best chance he possibly had as far as a rear break then. Really. I mean, we all

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Know. I think so, right? With your cruisers, you it’s a little bit more balanced. So we do have a little more stopping

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Power on rear tire. You know, it’s, it’s pretty, The rear break isn’t too bad, actually, you know, I mean, I’ve written my road.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

No, it’s not too bad used in conjunction, but but he clearly overused the back brake. And, and so the the police report afterwards showed that he had slid the back brake like 140 feet. So whoa. What it looked like is so once he saw that he was going to impact with the vehicle, he stayed with that back brake. But yet, but yes, yes. And, and

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

It’s like almost half a football field

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

And, and get this, so get this, his, his estimated speed, which these reconstructionists are, are really accurate with getting the speeds. The estimated speed was he was doing 54 miles an hour.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Whoa. That’s not a long speed,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

That’s not a lot of speed, but, but guess what? If you impact a vehicle, I mean, think about the cyclist that that gets killed that are doing 20, 30 miles an hour. So I mean, this is a big impact. He wasn’t able to. Yes. So, so here’s, here’s a ride who’s not feeding, who’s not intoxicated. There were no other factors other than he just failed to slow his motorcycle in the appropriate time and distance. And so he, he went to the wrong break.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Yeah,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Used the wrong break over applied it slid. And then once he saw he was going to impact, he tried to add a steering input, which we know what happens if you’re just dragging the back brake and you, you counter steer, you’re just, you’re done. You’re gonna go down. So he, so he hit the road. He and the motorcycle was a low side. It was a low side, but then he and the motorcycle both impacted the vehicle and, and it was a blunt force trauma to kill them. So, so this was a stop that had, you know, had he had a little bit more training he would’ve known to predominantly use the front break. And, and I’m quite confident he could have got it stopped because we, we, we’ve taken writers that we, we’ve taken so many rider that and, and, and tested them on the before with the current skills. A lot of them, a lot of ’em are going to the wrong, wrong break, you know, just over trying to overuse the back. And then after after 45 minutes of training, we, we see that, you know, every rider that we’ve trained can stop a motorcycle from say 60 miles to like 120 to 125 feet stop. Which is what you should be able,

We can take a rider. Can you say that again? Miles an hour? You

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Say, sorry, major, I’ll gotta back you up for a second. Did you say 45 minutes?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

About 45 minutes of training on the, in the stopping 45 minutes. I mean, and this is, this is the difference in life and death. 45 minutes of your time. And

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

You know, the other thing is Major Martin, I think about this really, how would it have been so different if he had known not just outta break the motorcycle, but outta steer the motorcycle on breaks? Cause he could, if he’d actually still looked up and looked around and passed that vehicle and looked for that time and space, you know, we teach the target dictations back. It is bad if you look at the wrong thing. If you’re looking at time and space and you’re only target saying on that, it might be a good thing, you know? So he literally could have, my vision is he could have picked the brakes up, loaded that tire, and then actually gone around the, that travel. So it, it’s not just the skill, it’s the mindset, right? I mean it’s

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Oh, that’s right. It’s a combination of a lot of things. If, if, if the first time you’ve ever tried this is when your life depends, depends on it, you’re probably not going to do well. So that’s why we want to get the rider in training. We, we wanna train like we fight. So, so we wanna get that rider used to a threshold breaking exercise. So do you at real world speeds.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Let me ask you, so this, this particular individual, right? Do you remember age, roughly?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Age was below, below below 25.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

And how long have this guy been an active service?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Roughly since about 19.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Say that again, noisy. Say again?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

About six years. So, so six to seven years of active duty.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

So he given us six years of his active duty life. Right. And we didn’t give him 45 minutes of breaking technique,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Right? That’s right. No, that, that could not be more correct. He was,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

That’s,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

That’s

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

To let’s gimme another case. So, so this is, this is about

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah, that, so this is the other one. So, so rider’s die two places for the most part. And that’s an intersections when a vehicle pulls out in front of the rider and then in, in corners just basically failing to negotiate the corner. Nothing else gets in your way. It’s a single vehicle accident, meaning you’re a vehicle. So there was a marine captain. Yeah, no, no, yeah, no, no, that’s right. No one else involved. Just simply can’t get it through the corner safely. Just did

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

You just say, you said a captain?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah, this guy was a marine captain. He was a harri pilot.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Wow. Hart do you how complicated har risk to fly, you know that, right?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

That’s right. So, so it’s an highly skilled occupation.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

This

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Is highly,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

So where I’m from East London, this is not a Mickey, this is what we call, this guy knows what it’s doing. He,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

So this guy’s yeah, he’s an oh three in the Marine Corps. He’s a Harrier pilot and he’s riding downhill on a sports bike. So coming back down through the canyons loses control in the exit low side and then slides into a guardrail and then dies a blunt force trauma. He free not a factor

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

O free captain flew harriers. This guy is clearly trainable, right? Clearly trainable because he’s flying Harrier jump tickets going out loud, right? I mean, we’re talking about, you know, aircraft to go up and then go along, you know, like that’s insane. I mean, verbal or ho was on takeoff. It’s just ah, and then he dies because he just, what he just, he just, he didn’t know how to get direction with the brakes. He didn’t know that he could actually load that tire and get that thing rotated round and the central fugal force and the contact patch would’ve been, could stayed on that got round, carried on.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

That’s right. Chris, when I looked at his training record, when I looked at his training record, I found that he had level one and level two and both of those teach the, the same cornering method. And that’s to try to estimate your speed, try to get it right, do all your breaking in a straight line, give up your brakes, tip it in, and then, then, then slowly roll on the throttle. It was that formula, it was that training that led to his death. Not only was it a lack

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Of training, we we didn’t give the captain the right information. We didn’t give him the opportunity to save himself up for success.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

No. He, he was following his instructions, but, but guess what? It was the wrong set of instructions.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I got question for you major. I got a question for you. Would we have said to this pilot, this amazing down at your pilot here’s your fuel load, here’s your estimated range and off your pot, and then be completely off, completely off. We’re 200, 300 miles short and you can’t make it back to the, to the aircraft carrier. Would we have done that?

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

No, no. It said ironic. We wouldn’t have done that. Never.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

But we literally sent him out there on a complicated, equally as complicated if not more complicated environment of interaction of traffic and road surface and curves and undulations and canvas and off campus. All these things that you need to think about as a writer. And we, you know

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

What, you know, Chris, and think about like this too. I mean, you’re, you’re, you’re spot on. And a lot of people who, who hear about military training and motorcycles, they’ll ask me, they’ll say, Is this on duty or off duty? I don’t understand. I’ll tell No, it’s, it’s off duty. And you know, they, they kind of get to the question of, well, why, why do we care? Why should we be spending, you know, taxpayer money on training people how to ride motorcycles in their off time? And I I say it’s because a couple of reasons. One the basic rider course doesn’t give you the civilian or the military rider enough training to be safe. And, and two, you the taxpayer, when when a military member gets injured, that that causes an injury that they carry on for the rest of their life, that, that gets paid for by the taxpayer.

That person becomes, you know, 30, 40, 50, 100% disabled for the rest, some of them for the rest of their life. And then you lose the service member. Guess what? That cost, that cost the taxpayer 7 million per member. So, so we, I mean the taxpayer has a vested interest in, in the people in the military don’t hurt themselves and don’t get killed while they’re on the taxpayer’s dime. And then for me, while I was on active duty, I, I felt like that we had an ethical obligation provide the best training available to our service members. Yes. I’m telling you right now, that is not happening.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

No, it’s not. Clearly it’s not. I mean, if it was happening then, you know, Steve and yourself wouldn’t be trying to mobilize yourselves. I mean,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

And

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

That’s right. Something That’s right Chris, there’s, you’re

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Doing No, if it was working like you should be working, we wouldn’t have to be doing this right now. But there’s a huge gap, there’s a huge gap in the gaps in misinformation and missing information. And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to get this started. We’re trying to, we’re trying to get the message out there.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

So I like that the message is there. But another thing, I’m not kidding, you know, I’m at Arizona Municipal Park, never seen the track before. When I go down the track in a minute, you know, even though I’m, you know, a experienced writer, I know what you call me, you an ex racer experience, EENs owner store ring curriculums, whatever you wanna say, right? I’m still gonna go on that track and follow and experience guy in this track. There’s no way I’m gonna jump on this track and just go, alright, no way. I’ve actually approached the guy already. I asked, I found the most experienced one that I could, and I asked him nicely, My wife is here. This wasn’t a planned event today for me and my boys are back in Washington state waiting for us. Would you be willing to take me around because I wanna make sure we’re going, Do you know what each response to me was?

It was amazing. He said, Hey, that’s why I’m here for man. We gotta keep you safe. And I love that, that he just responded in such a simple term, you know, Hey, we gotta keep you safe. And another thing is, I’m talking to you, I just see a gentleman, right? Mark, literally, and I think, I think he was in KTM 400, right? Think he was and he’s covered the mark. Like he’s obviously late. He’s he’s gone off the track, right? He’s got yourself his day, he’s riding all this fond, he’s got his head down. You’ve seen this plenty of times, right? But what’s interesting is this, I asked myself two things when I see that right? One, why did it happen? What, what, what, what went wrong? He’s on, he’s on a track with plenty of, of consistent curves again and again. Again, how did he come off the track today? I, I wanna ask him, learn from him what he did. The second thing that I think about is this. Thank goodness he did it here. Thank good he did it right here on a race track. Because look, what’s the worst thing that’s happened to me today? He got dirty.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah, correct. So there’s so much there. I mean, we could do a couple of sessions on, on two things you brought up. You know, it’s and one being the track, the track itself, you know, we’re all going in the same direction. We’ve got medical people on hand. We’re using some of the world’s best gear. It’s just so much safer to, to take it to the track.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

And so, you know, it expand a little more on the program that you and Steve doing as in, you know, talk a little bit more about the technique that you’ll be teaching of. Steve mentioned it a little bit before you had to go hot just about you and I are standing here, took around now at least fine around a racetrack, taking care of people. I think that’s amazing. But talk about the skill that you’ll be put in play for level two and level three training for our arm force guys.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

You know, a a lot of it comes down to we start with the knowledge and then we move on from that with a practical application. But, you know, we, we get riders in here and they think their breaks are just for one thing that’s slowing the motorcycle. And when they leave, they understand that they’re managing their traction with their brakes and they’re also staring with their brakes. So that, that’s quite an epiphany for most of our riders. And, and then we get ’em out there and, and, and we show them how to do it and, and then we supervise them as doing it. And, and you just see the light bulbs come on. They’re like, Oh, why haven’t I been taught this already? All I gotta do when I is just go to my brakes when I’m nervous and then stay with the brakes until I’m happy with my speed and direction.

I e trail breaking or as we call it brake assisted steering. That’s like, God, this is, this is unbelievably easy. Not only am I not struggling to keep it in a lane, but I can put it on a line. I can put the motorcycle exactly where I want it. Yeah. And then, then we get that skill down, then we start thinking about getting, you know, we get the motorcycle where we want, where, where do we want it? Well, we want to get direction. I mean, entire purpose of everything that goes into a corner is to get us into the possess position to be able to accelerate out of. So, so we, we get ’em to respect the apex and, and, and we get ’em to, to find, you know, find direction, get to direction before they accelerate. You know, we talk about the reasons rider crash.

You know, we say lack of focus of being abrupt. So we, we work really hard on, on getting our, our riders to treat every control as a trigger like you would on a rifle. I mean, if you go the rifle range, you know, the, the coaches behind you, the marshman marksmanship instructor, they can look at the pattern and say, I see what you’re doing. You’re, you’re jerking the trigger. You know, you’re all over the place. So you have to learn to, you know, as a, as a entry level marking, you have to learn to squeeze the trigger. This is really easy for our service people to understand. So we just say, just like that, you have to treat every control on your motorcycle like a trigger. You know, we think, you know, to go quick, we gotta be aggressive. It’s just the opposite. We have to be really smooth, you know?

So we, we put our rider through a lot of different drills on smoothing out all those controls, especially the braking. So, so that’s one of the, the critical skills. We, we work on vision. We work on where we should be looking. We say look up sooner, look up sooner than scan back and look up sooner. It’s just not, not up, it just rise. We say, you look up, you gotta get a positive goal. I mean, a lot of our riders will see the apex and they’ll target, fix fixate on it until they almost run over it. And then they try to look up. Well, by that point they’ve overs slowed it. So, so we’ll say, you gotta look up sooner, you gotta find the exit. You really can’t get going until you get comfortable with where you’re driving into, right? So we work on eyes and we say that that, that’s just so important. So Steve says, eyes, breaks, body we talk about focus, we talk about understanding how the radius is is influenced by our mile miles per hour. We talk about we talk about direction and then we talk about traction.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I like it. I like it. And when you see about out, so what it does here is it, it lays down a, a core foundation, right? I mean, like, you can build the most amazing house, right? You can build the most amazing hotel, whatever, whatever it is you wanna build. But if you don’t have the right foundations, then you are done. I mean, it’s just, at some point it’s gonna fall down at some point it’s gonna, it’s gonna crumble. And what you’re doing here

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Is, That’s right. You know? Right.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

The challenge really is you actually have a larger challenge than you think. And, and here’s why I wanna share that with you because, you know, obviously I play in our world, you know, x racing teaching level two, level three riders all the time, right? Which is super fun. But, you know, 15 years ago I decided to step into a parking lot and start helping people at entry level. And what I found was, you know, using the old curriculums I used to use, instead of using my own one, I could do. Now, when I took them to that level two, when I invited a writer to come to the track and ride with me, when I, my instructors, I have one ear right now, I can let you see him right now. He’s going around on my 2003 R six that we call Rooster, right?

Beautiful Red Rooster. And he is on the track for maybe the second or third time, and he’s out there today. He pulled back in here a minute ago, Mark, and he had, I’ll tell you major, had the biggest screen on his face, is he pulled up, right? My wife snaps a picture of him. I saw that energy and that knowledge. But here’s the wonderful thing is I don’t have to undo any bad average with him. Now. He is been taught at entry level the best core practices and why? Because he’s only been riding a year and he’s already teaching for me, and he’s already out there taking care of our customers entry level. And he’s out here today improving himself. And that’s a trickle down there. Take that back to the parking lot. And now when he goes back, he hasn’t got undo anything or teach anything that’s not correct. He can now go back with our new curriculum and go, I was at the track last week, I did this, this, this and this. Right? This more breaks, this my vision, this my body guys, you can do the same thing at a different degree of application. So what you are actually trying to do, and Steve is you’re trying to undo bad practice

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Before. Yeah, that’s right. I mean, yes, yes. There’s the writers that have bad habits and, and to be honest, a lot of the bad habits they’ve picked up have been provided by the basic writing writers course. They’ve been given,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Said they didn’t know, you know, we speak about this, you were there. There’s, you say there’s no knowns unknown. You say, Cause you know better than me, you was there when Donald rings from city, Right? What is the phrase? Yeah,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah. I mean, I mean that’s, that’s, you know, a lot of us are, Oh, well, we all fall into this. You know, there’s, there’s the known knowns, known unknown things that, that we know we don’t know. And then there’s the biggest, the biggest gap is the unknown, unknowns the unknown. And, you know,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

These guys don’t know.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yeah. And, and, and so, so part of the problem, you know, that, that we have is a lot of us think that, that the basic writers course is, is all we need. And so this big gap exists of the unknown unknowns. Guess what I’m here to tell you? I’m here to tell you that, that that what, what’s being taught in the basic writers course, most of the states, not yours, think of, and most of the states, it’s antithetical to how the best riders in the world are riding and controlling their motorcycle.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and you know, when I think about this, we are given the opportunity every time somebody says, I would like to take training every time. I mean, if that person, that individual chooses to come into a park, chooses to come into a track, they chooses to listen to our podcast and watch our videos, right? If they choose to do that, then they’re only gonna gain education. They’re only gonna get the right message. But if they’re choosing to take that training and they’re being given the wrong information, then ly it would’ve

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Been taken. And you know what, Chris,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

It would’ve been better if they take no training at all.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Absolutely. There actually studies out there that show that the writer who has absolutely no training, there’s just as well, or not, if not better, then the rider that’s had BRC training. And one of the theories is that its thought that, that maybe the rider that’s taken the brc develops a, you know, a sense of overcompetence. And then for sure part of it is because they’re given the wrong cornering method that they’re told to, you know, is that give up on their traction, and they’re told to throttle through the corner. What does that do? That opens up the radius. So, so you’re giving your motorcycle an input to open its radius. Well, while you’re having that apply more lean angle without that traction being on the front, just it, it’s actually a formula for crashing at the exit. And that, and that’s what we saw that marine captain do to, to bring it back to that. So he was following, he was following his instructions, and it got him killed,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Got killed. I know what he was doing was trying to have a little downtime, a little frill.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

I, I’m, I’m, I’m telling you Chris, that, that there, there continue to be, because we’re not getting this message out there. Continue to be every year, you know, I have a focus on the Marine Corps because that’s the part I worked with there. Continue to be that marine that die every year in, in ways that are preventable

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

And know it. That’s just horrible and every level. I mean, that’s the one thing I, and I wanna make clear to our, our listeners and our viewers right now, the major and I are not yet a bash on people. I, I applauded people like BRCs and BRCs and I, you know, all these other ins, the California program, all of them have got fantastic, amazing education opportunities in everyone of them, right? Have got amazing, you know the brc, you know, they got a special writing conditions, you know, and it’s, it’s really good information, right? It’s really good. I, when you do this, when you’re on slippery stuff, when you got a passenger, when you do this, all very important pieces of information, if you’re gonna become a competent and lifelong writer, but entry level, we should be just stick into entry level things, right? The internet is there now, you know, the, the, the, the University of YouTube is what I call it now, this kind of vessels right now, I can go research what’s do with loading gear on a bike. I can go research on what the benefit of riding gear could be, you know, once I get the basics right, actually starting what different levels of of gear can be right? And so and so forth. But coming back to what you are doing is that there’s so many myths out there, right? I mean, there’s so many myths on the internet, you know, winning doubt, fraud out, you know, and those kinds of statements and just killing people. But,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

And Chris, we, we, we can we can settle all this. And you know how how we settle it is we just figure out what are the best in the world? What are the best in the world doing? What are the best writers in the world doing? We need to discover that. Yeah. What, what are the best rider in the world doing? What, what are the racers doing? What, what? And, and this, and it’s not just, oh, we, they’re racing. That’s completely different. The street riding. We’ll, we’ll get we’ll get some pro razors on here. We’ll get Kyle Wyman it, we’ll get Chris Paris. We’ll get Nick, Nick Inot. I asked him, We’ll say, Hey, hey, when you when you race you successfully race, How about when you street ride? You change it, you change it all up, is at a totally different technique when you’re on the street. And, and they’ll tell, you know, it’s the same technique.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Think we hung out with these boys? They say they always say the same.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Yes. And they’ll say, I’m using these techniques because it puts the motorcycle where I want it. And that’s how I win races. Guess what? I, I use the same technique to put the motorcycle where I want it on the street. It’s no different. It’s just the degree of application. Totally.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I mean, given an exact, an exact example of what you’re saying right now, right? You and I, right? When, when we, we are going to our corner, right? We’re using our body position, right? We’re getting that bike up on the fast part of the tire, right? Cause we’re trying to drive hard out the corner, right? And we keep our bodies in, right? This is what we learn. You and I, we do this right? And then the best of the world to doing this to stand in that bike up the keeping their bodies in, you know, go watch mode gp, go watch ama, go watch the British Super Bike Championship. They all do the same thing. Bike’s coming up. They stay in, they stay in, stay in. I don’t do that when I’m on the road. I don’t stay all the way down here. You know what I mean? The bikes all the way up here. I can’t see what’s going on over here if I’m doing that on the road.

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

But you know what we are doing? We’re still, we’re still trailing the brakes until we’re happy with our speeding, dragging my knee. Nope. But my body’s still over on the right quite a bit. We’re still using the application. Just a, just a bit less. Exactly. Hey, Chris, the same. My sessions starting right now. I’ve gotta go ride.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I love it. Well, thanks you so much, so much for coming on today. Please remind my

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

Pleasure.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

It’s get information at the bottom of the screen now of where you can go help Major Mark and Steve take care of these arm forces individuals that we gotta get that training guys, right? We have to get it for him. We have to make it affordable. We’ve gotta give these wonderful people the opportunity to not die when they’re done protecting us and just trying to live their lives. Like we have to give them that opportunity. So I was a traffic bulldog keeping real, and you was,

Mark Thompson & Steve Johnson:

And major Mark. Appreciate everybody listening and yeah, think about this for your own writing and, and, and try to make a difference.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

All right guys, we’re gonna see you on the next one. Thanks ever so much for your time. Don’t get the clicks. Describe and follow us and go spread the word, right, because we are gonna make a change. We are changing the direction of motorcycle training in the United States of America.