What is Chit Chat

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Hey guys, how you doing? My name is Christopher Johnson and I am the traffic bulldog. And you say to yourself, What is the traffic bulldog? Well, the traffic bulldog is me, but I am one of the United States most passionate, luckiest, fortunate road educators with both motorcycles and cars. I was also a CDL advanced instructor back in the UK many years ago, but I’m currently involved with lots of different entities that are teaching the best practices that can actually speak to the causations of the very, very many unfortunate fatalities that happen on our roads. So this is what we are doing. This is called Chit Chat. We will do this once a week. The way it’s gonna work is that we will literally have an interview e in at least once a month, and we will be reviewing your videos that you will be able to upload to this script link right here that’s being placed right now, and myself and my Mark and I will let him introduce himself in a second.

So this is literally major Mark Thompson, who is a retired oh four major from our wonderful United States Marine Corps. And Mark was actually part of a very important study that unfortunately we really didn’t execute on at the time, and we need do sound back. And this is our platform. So Mark, we’ll actually be co-presenting with me, right? We literally call him Major Mark because he likes to leave his mark on very important facts and and statements. And Mark, thank you so much for joining us today. And guys, watch this space, join Chit Chat once a week. We’re gonna make a difference. Mark, who are we and why are we here?

Mark Thompson:

Hey, Chris. Thanks. Thanks for having me. One of the things you just said that really caught my attention was, you know, the, what I was working on, the Marine Corps did not get up to the scale that, that we envisioned. But it doesn’t have to stop there. That, that we can continue to push this on. So the things we discovered there are, are going to be applicable and very useful to every writer.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

That’s amazing. So we know what we’re doing. We know why we’re here, okay? You and I do at this point. All right. Everybody else is wondering what the blade this is happening. All right? But this is gonna be amazing. This will never be about opinion ever. This will literally be us sharing our professional information, best proven practice from the best in the world. Cause we are both actually champ, university champ, school instructors, and have been in motorcycle education for many, many years. We are both very passionate about data and what it speaks to, not just nationally, but locally of where we live. What are the causations? We, we wanna bring that to you. There. There’s not gonna be any, I think you should do this. It’s literally gonna be engineers say this. We will literally get engineers on there to talk about how motorcycles operate the way they’re designed.

They’re not even rider, but they design these things. Some of them are writers. We will get the gentlemen on you. We will get data analysis on. We will get the most current information we can. We will get passionate individuals. We will, we have a lady right now who’s just self to ride around the world. And I’m talking to her and I want to get her on you while she’s riding around the world. You, you gotta follow that Bridget lady. She’s amazing. She’s literally doing that. So we wanna make this entertaining and we will make it informative because what we’re speaking about here is really serious issues. They are literally people dying, not just active servicemen, but the public are dying just because they don’t know the basic core fundamentals of best proven practice. And so that’s what we’re for, that’s what we’re doing. Major Mark, would you please tell our wonderful valid viewers here what that you did exactly in the Marine Corps that was very unique to motorcycle training?

Mark Thompson:

Yeah. So was back in 2013 there were a couple of us that sat down and we, we took a look at what what we call eight day reports. So anytime that a marine gets killed in the line of duty or not in the line of duty within eight days, a commander has to send a report all the way up the chain of command. So for, for motorcycle incident, an eight day report is a fatality. So we sat down and took a look at 28 8 day reports and, and put together a little bit of pattern analysis. And it’s, you know, it, and it’s not that we did anything that was that unique in the, the analysis that we did. We reached the conclusion that every, every study that’s ever been conducted reaches and that’s writers are, are dying into places. And that’s in corners, corner exits and intersections. I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s not rocket scientists science. It’s just

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

So there literally is, I mean, we are talking like a decade here almost of a trend that’s, that still hasn’t been addressed.

Mark Thompson:

Well, think about it, the first, the first real study was the her report, 1981, right? You can go through and look at you know, some of the basic conclusions. And he says the same thing that writers are tying because of fail breaking or failure to negotiate a corner. And that’s not changed. So basically every study that’s been done since then reports the same thing. So, you know, without having a background in, in safety, my background was in research and analysis and two of us sat down. My, my friend was a traffic safety professional. And, and we were like, Oh, this is pretty obvious corners and intersections. So knowing this is only a very small part of the problem. It’s, we have the problem now, now what are we to do about it? And that’s been hard thing.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

So when I think about that for a second, you know, as, as, as we said guys, we’re very fortunate, right? We ride at, we ride at race tracks with some of the best, literally some current AMA champions and races work with us side by side, and we get the opportunity to get analyzed. I literally was on a track within the last week in Washington State of the Ridge Motorsport Park, and I was with retired major Don Williams, who is one of the champion instructors. And I just purchased an MT 10 from, from Yamar Champ School, the one of their demos. And I asked him, Would you be willing to follow me? And now, and now I’m one of the free season instructors, but I’m always working on myself, right? I’m always trying to analyze. So I asked him, Would you be willing to follow me?

And he did. And he told me some really interesting things about my writing that, you know, and I’ve been trained, you know, and like this is ingrained my muscle memory practice. I’ve raced in two different countries. I’ve, I’ve won championships and came play second in two championships here in Washington State and didn’t even race every race. And Don Williams is one of the fastest guys I’ve ever seen on a 400 cc motorcycle. He’s stupidly quick. Yeah. And he’s taken the time to follow me and give me positive feedback, not negative. And it’s one of the things I was very excited about when I came to Champ School, because they do a video analysis of your writing. They literally video on day one. And when we video ’em on day two, right, Mark, And so think about this major, What is the purpose of that video? And how does that debrief go for each of those? Now think about this. There’s fur odd people in a room watching each video think about how it’s delivered and how nobody is great or belittled for their writing ability, the better degree of application. Talk about how that works.

Mark Thompson:

Yeah, that’s right. I mean, we’re, we’re all on our own individual path. I mean, there’s there’s writers that are much better than we are. And so when a student shows up, a student can be, you know, beginning writer, they could have bought a motorcycle that day, or they could be involved in racing moer racing. But everybody goes through a filmed lab and a, and a critique. And, and it’s, and the biggest benefit is from everybody sitting there watching the critiques. You know, and I, I started be I became involved with Y C R S in 2014. So I’ve, I’ve sat through thousands of these videos mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, and, and I feel like that’s really where you start to, to learn to coach is by watching these videos. Yeah. And, and initially, you know, when I, when I hear all the speak of, you picked up the throttle too soon or your head was too high, I couldn’t see it. I was like, What is he talking about? What are the instructors talking about? I don’t see how that’s affecting. But, but yeah. You know, after, Love

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

That. Yeah. I love this feedback. This for a second. At, at the driving school I started, right? I’m part of it, you know, I helped co-write the curriculum. New drivers, right? Brand new drivers. So there’s nothing to build on at this point. We literally take them from the ground. And it’s the same from for the motorcycle program, Washington Motorcycle Safety Training. I started back in 2009 for two. And FreeWheel now is one of the largest providers in the country for FreeWheel training. It’s amazing. And I’d like to thank Can and brp for their supporting that. It’s amazing, right? But think about this. We literally teach our new drivers at Wmst in our curriculum, Own your own drive. Like, literally, like ride your own ride is what we say. Right? Own your own driver. And you know what, why is so interesting about the way that people teach cuz they’re so scared about liability.

You know, liability, liability is that they never show, don’t be that guy. They never say, Oh, you see that there? Yeah, don’t be that guy. That’s not a good choice. That’s not a best practice. All right? See how close this car’s for in this other car on the freeway? It’s 60 miles an hour traveling 90 feet per second, almost with one second following time. He can’t stop. Don’t be that guy. And so when you think about that, you know, we are offering an opportunity here to do that for, for our viewers, right? I mean, like, this is what we are literally in a pandemic after the pandemic. Talk about the numbers we just learned at a national conference just north of our beautiful city, Boston. What did we just learn, Mark from at the lovely LJ from Nitza. What’s the current trend in pta? It’s just in motorcycles. Let’s just talk about a motorcycles for now. What’s the current trend?

Mark Thompson:

Yeah, we were talking about this earlier. So it’s you know, it’s the second place rider are dying, and that’s an intersection. So it’s, it’s urban area. So you know, a problem that’s really hard to get to because it you know, you, you have to come at it from multiple different ways. I mean, so I mean, we know from the naturalistic study that was conducted by Virginia Tech and msf, I forget what year, but it was, they followed motorcyclists with equipment, cameras, monitors for a couple years. And, and they were able to kind of qualify the, the places that you, you’re most in danger. So, I mean, when you’re going through an intersection, your, your danger factor goes up by multiple of three. If you’re going through an intersection that’s unmarked to you, the rider, your danger factor goes up by multiple of 40. So, so this is, you know, if we were talking to Marines, we would say, this is the kill zone and this, so, so this brings up your, your level of awareness. Like, okay, this, I have to, I have to bring my focus up. I’m going through these urban areas, I see all these intersections. I have to work my focus up. We also say, this is the place where you have to bring your speed down. You have to bring the speed down and be prepared for these immediate actions.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I love that.

Mark Thompson:

And at the school, we also say, you have to cover the brakes. Yes. So we’re doing, we’re doing 60 miles an hour. We’re going 88 feet per stuck. And if it takes us a half a second to go from the throttle onto the brakes, we, we could be losing 40, 44 feet. So we I

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Love that. And I love that we talked about, sorry to, I just, you got me really fired up about saying, because we literally have partnered with Champ School MIT Motorcycle Instructor training is a company that I’m, I’m part of that develops curriculum. And we’ve actually partnered over the last couple of years with, with the best, what the best in the world are doing. Mr. Nick, iron Ash and the whole team, right? All the way down, all the knowledge from Freddy Spencer, five times World champion, I believe, all the way down right through the chain. And we’ve brought that to the parking lot. We, we, we actually have that in our new curriculum that just, I just got the email to say that Really’s been approved in Washington State, so we now are gonna be teaching cover the breaks. When you’re in that and busy area, Chris,

Mark Thompson:

The Hurt report tells us that when the vehicle pulls out in front of the rider, the rider’s gonna have less than two seconds to react. So, so we’ve gotta, Another thing we’ve gotta do is we’ve gotta train writers to keep their eyes up. We gotta look up sooner and scan back. Gosh,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I am so excited. You said, look up. I can’t stand it. We wrote an on street class here in, in, in Washington state. It got approved right years ago. And the instructors will say, there’s look down the road. And I’m say, No, you mean look down the road. We’re not looking down the road. We need to look up the road. I’m so excited to where you say that. That’s huge.

Mark Thompson:

You know, And the other, the other thing that was, was missing that we found from the study that we did that writers aren’t practic practicing the skill. So, you know, in the Marine Corps we say, and probably every services says, says that we, we have to train, like we fight, we have to train like we, we fight. So, so we do. You know, the infantry does movement to contact with live fire. You have to conduct realistic training. And the harder you train, you know, peace time, the less you bleed more time. Well, consistentt happening in a lot of the a lot of the courses around the country, we’re not really training how we fight. So, so we might, we might be able to take the motorcycle from 15 miles an hour down to zero in a parking lot. But if we haven’t gone out, found a place to train ourselves from going at the speed, we generally travel at, say if we’re riding 60, 65 miles an hour, we should be able to have the skill to, to conduct a threshold break from those speeds. Right? And it’s a time a writer tries to do it, is when their life depends on it. Most of them will fail.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

So, so I’d love that and unfortunately hate that at the same time. So let me, let me, let me paint a little bit of a picture here.

You are literally saying like, so when I was in the Army and I would jumped to have a plane, right? I had all the equipment, I had all the best practices. Like I’ve done the little jump training on the onto the Mac, you know, I’m jumping and I have all my equipment. Like what you’re telling me is we literally sending riders out there, not just harmful the public, we’re sending ’em out there. We’ve really, without parachute or a backup shoe, I mean, we are really not even showing them how to disengage that one parachute and get the other one active. This is crazy. When you think about this, this is what we’re doing. We’re literally setting people up for failure. Now, lemme share this with you, if you don’t mind, Major, why I took away from the conference that you and I just attended with our fantastic team.

I mean, think about it. What a great team, right? So is I discovered from our main, think about what we just learned from going to the national conference just north of the wonderful of Boston. We sat there on a panel, you and I with some amazing individuals, and we had the CFO of Change school, right? Mr. Keith Cober, right? We had Alex, who’s an ex army sniper instructor, right? We had you retired major, we had Mike, our training manager in Washington State, a Marine, and then you had me, ex British army. And Keith’s the only one that’s not been in the arm forces off, right? So you imagine the banner that we had with that, guys, we have so much fun. You know, you got re and Army and, and everything going on. But what was interesting was we learned from each other so much, and we’ll continue to learn from each other so much.

We, we shine the light on so many different points at that conference, but both two and free will. How to teach best practice, very exciting stuff. But think about the numbers in, we learned that in 2021, there was an increase of 11% nationally in fatalities and motorcycles. And we learned from NT presenting at the conference. And this is all on the website. Let’s provide right out. You can go take a look at this amazing tool. All right? We learned that the projection for 2020 is 9% increase. So now we look at an overall 20% increase in fatalities, serious injuries and fatalities in the last two years for MRI for our riders. Mark, what does that mean? What does that mean?

Mark Thompson:

You know, just all these trends. It’s interesting. I mean, we, we we’re chasing this. We’re we, we’re, we’ve always been chasing this, we’re chasing it with technology. But, but you know, you and I we’re talking about chasing the, the gap in skills. Yeah, technology’s helping, I think, what is it? Insurance Institute, Highway safety, I, I, I hs. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. They, they claim that if, if ABS brakes were mandated that it would probably reduce accidents by roughly 30, 30, 30 3%. Wait,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Wait. If you noticed, I believe it was 2017, that every motorcycle in Europe abs

Mark Thompson:

Yeah, Yeah.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Where, what are we doing? What

Mark Thompson:

Are we doing? Why don’t we, Yeah. So

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Manufacturers,

Mark Thompson:

What are the forces at play that, that, that have prevented this country from, from mandating the same things? What do you think? What’s,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I don’t know,

Mark Thompson:

We can speculate on, on, on why we don’t have the same legislation here as other developed nations. And maybe we can make a whole show of that, but, but

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

More likely.

Mark Thompson:

But, but one of the things we can get at is, is this gap in skill, right? And, and it’s and, and I think that’s the, the low hanging fruit. I, I think that’s the part that we could, we could right now help riders with.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

So you said something a little while ago that I find so interesting. You said that you’ve analyzed a huge amount of video with Chanco, right? You’ve watched plenty of lap, consistent lap of writers and, you know, best proven practice, you know, and hey, a video tells, you know, a picture tells a thousand stories, right? But a video tells even more. Yeah. And it, it’s amazing for writers to be able to look at themselves and go, Oh my gosh, is that me? I’m doing that. I mean, my wife is a business coach, you know, and one of the things that, she’s been a business coach for 22 years and second generation owner of a company that been going for 30 years, right? And I just attended part of her two day seminar, one of her two day seminars. And, you know, I literally thought, Wow, why are we not recording these presenters right now?

Because they’re amazing and we can learn so much. And they would learn so much watching themselves present. We’re gonna watch this bag and go, Oh, <laugh>, what am I doing? And guys, this is for our viewers. Like, we want you to understand something here, Okay? Again, I can’t reiterate this enough, right? There is no opinion here. This is the, you submit your videos to us experts in the field. If you wanna come and speak on this platform, please do. All right. We, we, we don’t have an agenda. We, our agenda literally is the truth. So when you think about technology, when you think about best proven practices, what, what the best in the world of doing, right? Nick Aash blew my mind a few years ago, right? Because he came to a track locally here, and this is what he said to me. I said, We, he said, We should be teaching new writers what the best in the world are doing. And I had been instituted so much for so many years in training air that I actually said, No, dunno if we can do that. And he went, Why would you not? And it literally was a light bulb for me. I went, Oh my goodness me’s. So right. And so we started our journey and this is why we are here where we are right now.

Mark Thompson:

Yeah. And Chris, we, we’ll start talking about cornering methods, but, you know, one of the things that we always run into is some coaches will say, Well, these are advanced techniques. Writers aren’t ready for them yet. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> well, there was a coach there at the, the conference that said something that I, I thought was fantastic. He said, We’re, we’re sending them out to advanced roads. We’re sending them out to advanced situations. So when a vehicle pulls out in front of the rider, that’s an advanced situation. When you get into a corner and you’ve rushed it, you’ve gotten gotten into it too quickly, that’s an advanced situation. And you’re gonna need immediate action tools to be able to mitigate those to, to, So to send writers out without that training and say, Well, you know, and this is the argument we were making in the Marine Corps when we were trying to implement a new program to be a level two, we wanted it to be within days. So we wanted the rider that had never been on a motorcycle to take the basic rider’s course, Right? And then we wanted to get them back within two days. Two

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Days.

Mark Thompson:

We, we don’t wanna say, Hey, wait,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Wait, wait, wait. So lemme back up two days. Never read motorcycle, do the basic course, which is 16 hours tops of not even 10 hours of actual writing time. Right? And then you bring ’em back two days later.

Mark Thompson:

We wanted them back two days later to, to do the advanced, Well, we called it the, the Rider’s Essential Skills Training. So we, we believe that there were, So when, when we have a writer that goes through the basic Writer’s course in the Marine Corps we, we wanted them back. We wanted them back within two days because we thought that there were skills that were essential that were not being provided in the basic writer’s course.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Not as interesting you said that. And, and I wanna share you something that’s new here in Washington State. I literally had a meeting on the phone with the Department of Licensing here last week with the Washington Motorcycle Safety Program. Wonderful gentleman named Robert Willis. He run the program manager here. Interestingly, 14 years Army intelligent Officer, right? Retired. Thank you for your servicer and everybody else on airs Watson. Thank you so much. All right. My boys and my wife sleep so well because of what you guys are doing. So I just wanna acknowledge that for a second. Thank you. Amazing. And he shared with me that in 2019, we changed the policy in Washington State. We went to a four test process instead of a two test process in order to get a full endorsement. And I must say I, I’m very honored to be a big component that I push for it largely.

And it worked. We changed the testing standard now for, we have to now change the training standard to match that testing standard. And we were able to do that in Washington State. We were able to submit our own curriculum and get improved with all the core curriculum requirements and the national standards and everything else that’s involved. And what we’re seeing is this, and we talked about this at the conference, the length, you know, across the country, we are lucky to get 5%, three to 5% of our writers to come back and take an additional training. Here in Washington, we are getting up to, we’re like forties cause they have to come back. They get their permit now at the level of training that they used to get their endorsement and they’re coming back and major. This is the best part of this, right? The only people that are coming back are the ones that want to be writers.

Mark Thompson:

Yeah.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

That other 60% are not coming back. They actually don’t become writers now, which is great. They’re not on the road thinking, I own a motorcycle and a license and I can do this forever with no training. Now these guys are coming back and we’re able to go to fresh air breaking, trail, breaking multiple curves, covering the breaking intersections, all these things that are critical to them to be able to protect themselves and make the right choices on the road.

Mark Thompson:

Yeah. We, we used to have a policy in the Marine Corps that our writers were going through the level one, and then within 180 days it would come back to a level two. But our argument was we’re we’re sending them out to advanced situations, we’re sending them out to advanced roads, we’re giving them next to nothing for training. And then saying, if you survive, if you come back, Oh gosh,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

No, not okay, this’s not, okay. This is not acceptable, ladies and gentlemen, viewers, this is not acceptable. We can’t allow this asinine stuff to go on anymore. This is United States of America, right? I, I’m so fortunate that I was born in one great country and I’m living out the rest of my life in, in another great country. I’m so fortunate that I get to do that. I am a citizen. I know my rights, you know, seriously. Again, how do I know I’m American Mark and I don’t think I know major, that I am true blood in America? How do I know this? Ask me, say, Chris, how do you know you’re

Mark Thompson:

American? Yeah. What is it? How do you know you’re American? What’s the three

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

One I pay my taxes, right? Two, I owe do own more than one gun. Absolutely. Right. And free. I got a 6.7 power stroke

That makes me American <laugh>. And so I love this country and I love our sport and I love our new drivers too. You know, that we are gonna talk about that in, in future shows, right? The numbers are absolutely staggering. Young drivers up to 25 years old dying cars. It’s just, it’s not okay, alright. It’s just not acceptable. And so when I think about that, you know, it is our right as Americans and as a community to know the best information. And I applaud everybody that’s in right. Or driver education. I mean, it is a sport, a job that is, it’s not just about making money. I mean, you, you chop a lot of wood and get nothing for it. You are very passionate about what you know, and, and you share it. And I just wanna celebrate every school owner, every instructor for all the, the whole United States of America across the world. It it’s incredible the passion and knowledge that’s shared. But think about this for a second. How good of a job are the instructors school ones doing? If they’re not being given the best practice in known current buyer, what are they still teaching the same way they did 20 years ago? When everything is slid this way, the bell curve has gone that way and we haven’t traveled along with it. So what’s going on? Why, why we, why are we not doing that?

Mark Thompson:

You know, there’s, there’s not a lot changed, you know, since, since the very beginning of motorcycle training. You know, but the motorcycles have changed quite a bit. Technology’s changed quite a bit. And there’s, there’s still a big skills gap in what could be provided. You know, we’re just, we’re not looking at what the best in the world are doing. And that’s, that’s the initiative that that that I was a part of when I was with safety division. What was to, to try to bring these best practices that the most, you know, the, the, the most professional riders are raising community is using to, to our our entry level street riders. And, and it’s possible these aren’t advanced techniques. I mean, this is just how the motorcycle responds to input.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Absolutely. And again, no opinion here, right? Is just engineering facts of our motorcycle works. How a tire will actually get you through the corner if it’s loaded, right? We stuff,

Mark Thompson:

If you’re, if you’re on a a street, if you’re on a track, if you’re on a parking lot, does the motorcycle now it, it just responds to inputs. So, so we should be putting the same types of inputs into our motorcycles that professionals are.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Right. And you know, and this is, this is super fun. My, my my oldest son, Max is 14, He’s about to turn 15 in November. And I just got him his first car. I just bought a little mini Cooper s for him. It’s super cool. I can’t believe that CO is like, really? It’s, it’s, it’s an amazing little car. I mean, my first car was a mini and I think it costs 15 pound, you know what I mean? <Laugh>. So like, this kid’s getting an amazing car and rightly so, he deserves it. But what’s interesting is he’s now for the last couple of months, been sitting in the passenger seat with me and I’m literally talking to him about loading the tire before you work the tire. You know, taking away steering input before you add gas, stay on the brakes into the corner until you’re not nervous anymore.

You know, the, the five points of breaking at the beginning and then wherever you need, and then come back to five points, you know, and then come off, This is all the stuff that we learn at Champ, Right? Which is amazing. And it is totally comprehensive to him. And he gets it. He’s not even 15 years old. And he literally verbalizing my drive and not just the, the mechanics of the car, Not just that. They literally look up the road, my boys look up the road as they have done in the truck forever and ever. Amen. And they will literally say, Dad, yeah, you might wanna check your sex, you know, and communicate your attentions cuz that truck is about to pull out and overtake the other one. I’m like, Wow, I cannot believe that my 10 year old can mentally process traffic that far out, purely because I asked him to.

And I showed him a really simple technique is what can you see? What can’t you see? And what could happen? That’s all we teach, we teach our new drivers there. It’s in our motorcycle curriculums now. So what’s wonderful about the, the subject you’re bringing up here, and I want more about what you found in your, in your research is that there’s the skill part of operating a motor vehicle on the road, and then there’s the cognitive part of mentally processing traffic. Yep. So when I’m on a racetrack, I can focus so much more on my performance and what the motorcycle can do and what the car can do. But when I’m on the road, I have to focus a hundred percent on what anybody else is going to do.

Mark Thompson:

Yeah, that’s right.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

So let’s talk about the, the study. Let’s talk about a little bit more depth. What exactly did you find? How far did you take it? Who did you take it to and where did it, where did it end?

Mark Thompson:

Yeah, so how the story unfolds is, you know, we discovered the problem quickly and then we also discovered that it our findings correlated with every other study that’s ever been done. You know, that it’s corners, it’s intersections, and then it was what to do about it. So we, we had a cornering clinic in the Marine Corps. It was conducted in Quantico flight line. It was 700 by 900 feet. So it had been going on for quite a while. So, so we went and took a look at it, we participated in it, and what it was, was essentially a track day. It was an open track day where riders could just practice cornering. So being motorcycle riders, but amateur mo motorcycle riders, we were making the assumption that, well, perhaps this is all that we need. We just need a safe environment where riders can just practice cornering.

At the time, most of us were using the skills that were taught to us at the Basic Rider’s course. That means we are rolling, rolling off the throttle onto the brakes, and then we were releasing the brakes, tipping in and then going to some neutral throttle or throttling through. So we’re, we’re all practicing this in a circle, and at the end of it, I, I felt like, I don’t think my writing got any better. I don’t notice any difference. And I thought, well, I guess this is all we’ve got. This is maybe the best solution we have is to just come practice.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

How many times would you say in that training session you actually went through that St. Corn?

Mark Thompson:

Oh, numerous times. I mean, it was, we essentially just created a a closed circuit course. So it was just a,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Right, so we’re talking 10 repetition, 20 repetitions, a hundred repetition.

Mark Thompson:

I think it was two 15 minute sessions before lunch, and then two 15 minute sessions after lunch.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

And how many laps would you get in 15 minutes?

Mark Thompson:

Oh, you, you might get I dunno, you might get 30, 30 laps,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Right? 30 lap. Okay, so do the math people. Right. That’s a lot. Repetition. Repetition. I’m thinking 10,000 hours right now, but you just said there was no improvement. So why

Mark Thompson:

After having done the corner clinic, I felt like it’s more the same. This really didn’t help me. Yes, it was somewhat helpful being on a closed circuit course if I did drop the bike hopefully I wouldn’t run into a guardrail or some hard object, but, but it didn’t look like the writers were getting any better and I didn’t feel like I’d gotten any better. Right. So, so this is where luck kind of collides with our, with our project. My boss got a call from a Marine General who was the third senior Marine, I think at the time. General Smith, who was a Top gun pilot an avid track writer. And he calls my boss and says, I’ve taken this school, Yamaha Champions writing school, send some people up to evaluate it. I understand that you’re, you’re making an effort towards producing a level two course. Come check it out. And at the time I felt like it was a distraction. I was like, We, we’ve taken all these courses. We, we, we, we know everything that we think there is to know

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

<Laugh>, well noise, well noise,

Mark Thompson:

But, but you know, when when you get ordered to go, you go. And so three of us went and you know, we just had this real epiphany once we went through the course and, and before going to the course, we, we thought we were just using the brakes for one thing. And that’s to slow the machine, right? You know, afterwards, like, Oh, this manages our traction and we can deal with it.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

<Laugh>, Wait, what? What are you saying? What are you saying? Yeah. Are you saying if I, if I use the brakes, I can get direction earlier?

Mark Thompson:

You can steer the motorcycle with the brakes that tightens your radius. It’ll,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

You No, you can’t,

Mark Thompson:

You can do it.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

There’s four people you can <laugh> major markets Absolutely right here, I am gonna get a little bit lit up about this. Please share this, this is huge. This is the major reason why we’re losing so many unnecessary rider and armed forces. We were literally losing active service men and women because they’re not getting this information.

Mark Thompson:

We are, Chris,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

What did he do for you as a rider? Once you are delight bulb and you are able to actually apply that skill,

Mark Thompson:

The low hanging fruit, we talk about the skills gap. This is it, This is the lowest hanging fruit that we could get to. So I took the course and then, you know, I, I went about my way again on my 2004 Harley went back to the Blue Ridge Parkway to where before, you know, I’d go through, what is it, almost 400 and something miles. And, and I would, I would follow the speed limit, but there would be places I’d get it wrong. The, the corner would tighten up and I’d find myself running across the center line. I went back with a completely different method. It was like, okay, how am I gonna approach this? Just like the school teaches when I go to the breaks, when I get nervous and here’s the, here’s here’s the part of the change. How long do I stay with the brakes until I’m happy with my speed in my direction? Meaning I tipped the motorcycle in with the brake still on. Yeah. And then I trailed them off once I’m happy with my speed in my direction. And it’s like, once that happened, I was like, this is, how did, how did I not know this? How, how, why wasn’t I taught this?

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

And you know what’s so interesting when you say that is we just learned that one of the, your presentation, like with Mr. Keith Coover from the, the, we did this on bicycles. We did this tiles already. We already, we already trail break. We just, we just got told you can’t do it on a motorcycle, but you can. We do it all the time. It’s just that, I think the difference now is, you know, let’s talk about the, the, let’s talk about the amazing speech. All right, let’s talk about no knowns and unknown. Let’s talk about that for a second. Would you please share with our viewers exactly where you were? February, is it 22nd? What is

Mark Thompson:

It? Second

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Sec. All right. Where were you? What did you hear? How does it affect what we’re talking about right now?

Mark Thompson:

Yeah, so that was Don Rumsfeld, you know, he was the, what was it? He was the youngest Secretary of Defense and also the oldest secretary of defense under Ford and, and Bush Bush Senior. So yeah, I mean he was very charismatic and he was on the TV quite a bit. And so yeah, we were we were sitting in Kuwait, we’re trying to figure out if we were gonna invade Iraq or not for the second time. And part of his response to a reporter was, you know, there, there are knowns known unknowns and unknown unknowns, meaning that we don’t, we don’t know what we don’t know. And we don’t know how big that gap is. We don’t know how big that is. No. And so, you know, that this, this should make us all think that I gotta keep an open mind. I have to entertain doubt all the time. Doubt is our friend. We have to entertain it because it’s the only way we can grow. When, when, when new evidence presents Yeah. We can evaluate it, look at it and go, Wow, I was, I was, I was wrong about something and I wanna be wrong for the shortest amount of time possible. So this is, this is when that ends. This is when I adopt this.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Yeah. You know, it’s so impactful. I’m thinking back to our driver education program now with our new drivers, right? Our 15 year olds, you know, and you know, they come into school and you know, now I’m unfortunately most of it’s online, you know, with Zoom in because of our wonderful Pan National, you know, and Global Pandemic. And that’s okay. We’re making the best versions that we can it, but we do still teach some classes in person. We just can’t go into the high schools here anymore. Right. And it’s, it’s a frustration, but we get, we’ll work it through, we’ll find through breakdown, there’s breakthrough, right? So we’ll figure this out. But this is what we did on day one. They would come in and sit down and their psyche would be, Okay, I’m here. You’re gonna teach me. Because Whammed from five years old, they went to school, they got dropped off, right?

And they got taught. And we, and we trust the system, right? As parents, when we first drop ’em off, we’re all nervous. They’re gonna have a good, good day at school. Oh my God, I always have a good day. She’s doing okay. You know what I mean? And here we are 10 years later going, go drive their teacher. We done. Now we know that parents and guardians are huge influence on the standard that they’re driving. They need practice sales practices only get six hours, five with most schools that would they to get six. With our school, we, we give the extra hour in the car because it’s, I you need to, right? They need more. But think about this, on day one, they sit, the desk not ready. They’re not ready. Most of them are not ready. They’re very complacent. They have no idea what’s going on.

They’re really done. I haven’t done even really wanna be there. And literally we start with an introduction of who we are, why we’re here. And then this is when I was teaching regularly, this is what I would say. And all I know, our team do this, right? They literally do, they get in a car now, we did the same thing. We go, Where’s your notepad? Sorry, where’s your journal? Where was I supposed to bring one? Yeah, I didn’t know that. Well, why would you not know that this is driving, this is operating a murder vehicle on public road. You’re gonna be driving down the road within a year from now next to me.

Mark Thompson:

Yep.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

In my truck with my two boys and my wife in there. And if you make a mistake and you force me off the road and my vehicle does not protect me, and I expire.

Mark Thompson:

Yeah.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Why have you not got an notepad?

Mark Thompson:

Right?

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

You’re scaring the life at me right now. Where’s your oppa? And what do you think will get happen the next day? What do you think those students would come do the next day when they come to class?

Mark Thompson:

I hope they,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Do you think they’d have a journal and a notepad?

Mark Thompson:

Maybe take some copious notes. You know, Chris, this reminds me of something else. This made me think of something else. So that really stood out when we were doing this with the Marine Corps is, you know, when we, when we send a Marine to the rifle range and you know, we, we have ’em qualify you know, there’s, there’s a standard and at the end of it, if, if they score the within a certain range, we call them an expert. And, and they really are. That’s fair. That’s fair to say you are rifle expert. Target it at 500 meters consistently. And so they marines get used to that. They’re like, Okay I know what the standard is. If I meet it I’m, you know, I’m deemed an expert in this, in this field, but, and then we send it to motorcycle training and they take their level one training and they do it for a date and we hand them a card and we say, You’re, you’re, you’re ready to go. You’re good to go now, just like the life range, this is the motorcycle range and you’re good to go. And

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

The experts

Mark Thompson:

And, and, and they’re not. And they’re not even close. And it’s, it’s the fact that, that we’re we’re,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Oh, it’s tragically wrong and just, it’s not funny. I mean, I’m laughing because I’m just,

Mark Thompson:

Just, it’s laughing. It’s laughable to think that you could, you know, spend that short amount of time with a course that that’s at those speeds and with without learning the three things your breaks do for you and you only one of those. And, and when all three are crucial, you have to know how to manage your traction. You have to know how to slow it. And you have to know how to use your brakes to steer, right? We, we sent these people out with knowing one of those, and they’re dying in corners. And that’s why, and that’s why, that’s why our average civilian rider who’s gone through, you know, basic course goes up, understands you can’t put it through a corner when these people are dying corners. It’s not that something’s interfering with their ride. They simply can’t get the machine navigated through the corner instead, Oh,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I’ll major you just, you just thought saying that’s so resing important to our views. They need to know this. Right? Let’s literally talk about miff busting right now, right? A little bit of miff busting fact right there. There’s so much information out there now on forums, YouTubes, you know, every platform you can think of, right? Instagram tos, everything, right? And it it, it is like, do this, do this. This is what happens. This is best. Let me share something with you right now. Major I, this is literally this week, okay? I go into our main office here in Washington State and our general manager goes, Hey, I’ve got a gift for you. And she gives me a little paper bag. And inside the paper bag is a gift for my husband. He’s a writer and he gives me this fellow a

Mark Thompson:

Nope,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

He’s a little, no, he’s, and and he is gonna sit on my very lucky to have 2022 PanAm America special. Very cool. Right? Very cool. And we will share that by it cuz it’s been wrapped and it’s sick and I’m loving it. Right? The technology on that thing is insane. We will, we will have to do a show just on technology. It’s crazy. But check this out, this, this, the little known it comes with a little message. Super cute. Now I’ll read this message to you and you tell me what’s so wrong about this cute little message. Are you ready? A message from a little biker? No, when in doubt frontally out cuz that’s what life is all about.

Mark Thompson:

When in doubt throttle out. Yeah. He’s, he’s, he’s the misinformation

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

What life is all about. Now, this is a really good friend of mine. He would never want any harm to me in any shape of,

Mark Thompson:

He’s a

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Gremlin. He’s given me a shoot. Little gift. But why is so wrong about that comment right there?

Mark Thompson:

Okay. Yeah. What, what that, what that little gremlin has delivered to you is a, is a, is a big piece of misinformation, you know, and it’s, and it’s what a lot of riders are trying to do out there. But, but yeah. So, so what happens if, if I’m leaning the motorcycle over and, and I, and I add a throttle input. If I add throttle to it, what, what happens to my motorcycle? Does what happens to the radius? Is it, does it widen or does it shrink? It widens. So it’s steering, it’s

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Quickly <laugh>

Mark Thompson:

Extremely

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Quickly.

Mark Thompson:

So, so as I’m doing this, if I’m adding throttle, I’m telling them it’s an input, It’s an input. And, and the bike is, is getting the input and, and, and it’s, and it’s opening our radius. It’s opening our radius. Now if we’re, we’re making a right hand turn and we’re trying to stay within a lane, what’s the problem with giving up the brakes, tipping in and throttling out? It’s pushing us across the center line. How do we, how do we fix that? We fix that by adding lean angle we say is Lean angle, infinite. It’s, and so where Rider Crash did they crash at the, the entrance where the exit that they’re crashing at the exit. So a lot of these eight day reports would, would try to try to say that the rider was having a problem at the exit. Well, the writer wasn’t that the, the problem manifested and came to fruition at the exit. But it started, it started at the entrance. You know, we, we, we say it’s like tripping and falling off a 10 story building, right? All your problems started way up there and you paid for it when, when you hit the sidewalk below. And that’s,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

I love it. Then you’re sharing that at that picture. Let me share something that Washington did, which was instrumental, right? They went to that four step process. There’s only two measurable parts in the endorsement skills test only two. There is the emergency quick stop, same process is entry level, right? It’s exactly the same difference is 20 to 25 miles an hour. Yep. Rain doesn’t matter. 20 to 25 miles an hour. They get a longer run up. They get to settle the suspension, right? Because in in the permit level testing, it’s literally you get such a short run up. You’re like gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas unloaded tire break right? Break right? And we see all the time, 15 miles an hour, right? It’s crawling now go to 2025. These people now have to load that tire before they work that tire. Cause it’s the only way they’re actually gonna be able to stop at 25 miles an hour, 2020 in the rain.

The second thing that Washington did, which is speaking to exactly what you’re talking about with Corning, is we now have to ride a big figure of eight, nine foot wide lane, big figure of eight. And it’s timed and it’s a very generous time. When we tested it, I wrote it on a Gz two 50 in the rain, you know, and we could, well under the time every time, right? So think about this, It’s not that big of a degree of application, but we are measuring their ability to get entry speed. We are measuring their ability to keep the constant speed for a radius. And it’s great. I mean, at least we’re giving ’em an opportunity. You wouldn’t believe how people just blow it. Yeah. Don’t they just blow it and it and they’re the ones that just come test. They’re not, they’re not taking the training, right? And they get so angry, you know, I, I can’t believe you dude, that’s nothing like the real road and da da. And I’m like, What? Hey, did you get here?

Mark Thompson:

Hmm. Right?

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

And how you getting on? I mean, I’ve, I have seen riders and I just, Come on guys, you’ve gotta help us out here, right? This stuff’s gotta stop. I’ve seen people ride out of our training sites that have found the testing, that didn’t take the training and they just rip that bike up that street. And I literally say to myself, Please, please, please, please, please don’t become a number.

Mark Thompson:

Yeah,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Please. I mean, we’ve literally given classes away to people because we can just see that they, they just don’t know.

Mark Thompson:

So yeah, there, there’s, there’s, there are no racers that are going to the track and, and giving up on their breaks before chip end, you know, And we do this training on base Nick Eno, she’s done several of these we call it Champ Mill courses. You know, you have to keep your eyes on a lot of different students. And we, when we bet the course opened up and there’s circulating around the course, he says he’ll watch him and he says if he sees a writer going in, breaks are on and him breaks on past tip m he stops watching. He’s like, I know that writer’s fine. I’m gonna watch somebody else.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Nice. That’s impactful. That’s really nice figure. I love that you just said that. You know what we did here. Let’s look at another angle here. When we look at the educators, the actual instructors, the facilitators, right? Both driving and motorcycle. One of the things that we started a couple of years ago here in Washington State and my program, Washington Motorcycle Safety Program is that sorry, was motorcycle safety training, not the program, right? Why was, is we started taking our instructors to the track. So we would go to the track and we literally did it again this year. It was so fun. We buy out the whole Novi session of a track day, right? So my good friend Carol Carpent Motor Vixens, thank you very allow us to do that Carol. It’s amazing. Go check out Carol. She just did a TED Talk. She’s a phenomenal, amazing ambassador for our sport and a phenomenal entrepreneur.

I just love that lady so much. I will get her on Erin and interviewer cuz I literally taught her 12 years ago to go around a track on the DKA monster and she just celebrate 10 years of having her own track day company. Brilliant. Lovely Carol. So check this out. We brought the whole Novi session out for the day. We took 30 of Aaron instructors to the track. We did five classroom sessions on best proven practice. And then they went out and rode, they rode at their own pace. I rode on my GSA drug, didn’t need to pull out on i one, we didn’t need to go that fast. And I followed our team and worked with them. And that is now trickled into the parking lot. They’re literally the guys, the bridge Motor Sport Park. I’ve been going there for over a decade. I was there at the inauguration event and they’re literally the corner workers.

Like, is that your guys? Yeah, so cool to see a Harley completely body position and going through the corner, the brake lights are coming on and a a street like, you know, and a and a 12 Gs 1200 and a and a t w 200. Seriously. Amazing. So let’s talk about that for a minute. Like even the facilitators, I mean now they know that, and they also took some of the champ products too. They took Champ Street and took the actual champ school. Some of our instructors there. Think about a trickle down now that knowledge

Mark Thompson:

Yeah.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

That one instructor will be in the parking lot how many times in a year and how many times will they share the message now,

Mark Thompson:

Right?

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

And now we’ve actually provided a curriculum that they can support their knowledge. So what do, what, how do you see that being different? What now that I’ve managed to achieve that in Washington state with the collaboration of some amazing people, what would that have done when you were in your position as a major?

Mark Thompson:

You know, Chris, and this is sort of the, the, the tough part about it. I mean, we knew that, you know, most of our writers, well, most didn’t have proper training. I mean, they didn’t have the essentials to survive, you know, a vehicle that pulled out in front of them and they didn’t even know how to navigate the, the corner by using the brakes, by managing their traction. So a huge gap. So, so our theory was that we had to inoculate all 17,000 of our riders with, with this proper training, bring their skill levels up.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

That’s a heavy lift,

Mark Thompson:

That’s a heavy lift. And we were only getting to about 3% annually. So it was just not enough to really chase any data. You done like that the program went all the way up to contracting. And then the Marine Corps at the last moment said that they couldn’t afford it. So

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Whoa, whoa. I’m sorry. That’s just not okay. I’m really, I’m getting really upset right now because I started this, I served right. And I’m right. I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m a dad, I’m a friend, I’m an uncle. I’m, I’m my husband. Right? And I started this school cause I’m the only one left out of 5, 5, 5. Pretty good guys. Writers drive racist used to race with them, right? And how did that, No. Where’s, how much money are we talking about?

Mark Thompson:

I think the contract went up to close to $5 million, which is, you know, for, I mean that sounds like a lot to the, to, to our budget, but when we’re talking about a service, it’s you know, I don’t know. Let’s say for instance, you sometimes, you know, you’ll see environmental studies that take 50 to 60 million. And it’s 5 million.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

We said its too expensive.

Mark Thompson:

What

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Does it cost us to lose one service member?

Mark Thompson:

It’s, it’s now up to the estimates up like 7 million per service member. When we take in everything from the recruiting effort all the way up to the serviceman’s life insurance, that it’s a $7 million loss to the taxpayer when we lose a service person.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Okay? So numbers don’t, like we know that, All right. That’s proven down. But I’m thinking about what did that do to the families?

Mark Thompson:

Oh sure. Yeah.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

What did you, I mean, come on. This is, listen, let’s get real all I’ve held the bodies serving and riding motorcycles and driving cars. I’ve held the bodies, I’ve seen the light expire out their right. And then I’ve been to the funerals and I’ve talked to the families and this is not okay people, Right. It’s just not okay major. I

Mark Thompson:

Mean, you and I know that this is, I mean,

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

You’ve got so much work to do, but we don’t have to do all the work. People help us do this, share this message. We will, we will commit to this. If you keep, bring this resources right. Major, we will analyze it. If you keep this information

Mark Thompson:

Is, you know, change comes about by, by one of two ways. Is either through evolution or revolution. And, and you know, we really tried to start a revolution, you know, with, with the Marine Corps with, we wanted to train all 17,000 of them and we thought two or three years we’d have all this data and we could prove it and we could take it to the state and we could, we could move on. We, we do all these great things, but, but that didn’t happen. So, so we’ve gotta move past that and, and say, okay, we, we’ve gotta look to, you know, evolution. So we have to evolve and it’s gonna take a while. But, but you and I should, should work really hard to get this message out. Yeah. And we could be a part of changing motorcycle industry training. And

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

You know, what’s really interesting about this is that you say we have to work hard, right? To get a message out. But we actually don’t. And, and the reason why we don’t have to work hard is because how many people do we know in the industry just cannot wait to help. They cannot wait to share. I mean, this is a sport, right? And this is a, you know, driving and riding motorcycles is a, it’s a freedom. It’s a gift. We teach this to our new drivers. You have a gift now. You’ve been given the opportunity to travel, to go eat where you want to eat, to go create an opportunity to have an experience and do a road trip with your friends, but you’ve also been given the gravity and the severity of you could kill yourself and you kills your friends. You could literally pull a family apart in a second. And we are analyzed some of those things. We’ll share on this, on this channel, on this viewing real causations of,

Mark Thompson:

I mean, this is just the wave tops. We’re just getting started. We, as we go, we’ll be getting more specific and as, as writers start to send in their videos, we’ll get, we’ll get detailed, right?

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

And the, I would love the videos from the drivers to, you know, it’s all the same best proven practice. The, the driver’s edge stats of young drivers don’t the same causations, same left turn, multiple people in the vehicle speed corners. And unfortunately there’s impairment as well. You don’t mean that’s something that we were addressed at some point. Cause there’s multiple lever of impairment or just alcohol, drugs, there’s lots both. Let’s think about this as, as we wrap up here, major. What can people do to help us make this valuable?

Mark Thompson:

Man, you know, I I think spread the word on this. There, there really is with any activity one best practice. And, and, and we’re, we’re, we’re simply trying to get that message out. That, that, right now, in the motorcycle world of, or motorcycle training world, it, it’s, it’s been the wild West. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I saw that when we did the traffic study in 2000 13, 14. That it’s the one, the west, you know, and you’ll hear things like writers will say, you know, well just go to every school you can go to and pick up, you know, every bit of knowledge you can. And, and that’s, that’s really not true. I, I, I mean, you, you wanna learn how to fly an airplane. You, you, you’re gonna get the same information at a school in Arizona as you are in Oklahoma, right? In the military, you wanna learn how to shoot you know, the, all the, all the branches are using the, the, you know, the same techniques, best practices for how to shoot in the motorcycle industry. It’s sort of the wild west. I mean, there’s, it’s either signal or noise. And unfortunately there’s a lot of noise out there and very little signal, right? So you, I hope what you and I can do is with our contacts, with the, with the professionals that we can get that signal out there to, to every writer.

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

And you know, I, I love it when you say, you know, I hope that we can do, I know we can do this. I, I, I actually really believe we’ve done it. I do. And the reason why, it’s because I’ve lived in this country 17 years, right? And this is what I know about America, right? We have rights and we fight for those rights. And that this country is formed on that right now. We kick the bricks out. I get it on one of them, right? So am let’s not talk about Boston and the Tea Party, but has to be serious for a second. It’s our right as a nation to have this information. It’s our right. And so please go and share as major Mark just said, share it. Get the platform. Come to us with the questions, come to, we will get the right inform.

If we don’t know the right answers, we will find people that will be willingly. Come on here and sit with us for an hour and give you all the correct information. And you know what guys, we’ll wrap this up down. As I said, this was our first CHI chat. I’m looking forward to next one. Maybe next time make a cup of tea. You know, I’ll grab a coffee and, and we’ll do this again. You can watch this back any time you like. Right? There’s the links for Adam to subscribe. I do wanna announce that Major Mark and I made a decision. The every active serviceman or woman will not subscribe or pay for any of our services, literally that they can just describe for free. We’ll figure out how to make that happen. We want them to have analyzation of their videos for absolutely no cost whatsoever. We’ll do that. We’ll answer their questions. We need to.

Mark Thompson:

That’s super generous of you. And I think that’s awesome. You know, and, and we can also use this, that just dawned on me that a lot of times I’ll show up at a base and we’ll do some training and the gate guard will say, you know, what do you got back there? Motorcycles. Oh, I ride a motorcycle. We’re doing a training today. Like, I didn’t know about it. So, so military members aren’t getting the information. So, so if this, if this spread, we could actually use this as a, as a platform to announce trainings. And I

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Would give spread. I I trust, I trust the public. I trust, I trust Americans. I know where I live. I know who they are. This is the country of opportunity. I moved here 17 years ago and I am on the right path to being a success entrepreneur. You can do it in this country. You can apply and deliver and you can buy and receive. So I know we’re gonna do this major. I know who we are. I know who our team are. I know our families are, and I know that I know the right in public and the driving public. I know this is gonna work. So with that said, guys, we’d like to wrap up now. Thank you for joining us on Chit Chat. All the links are on the page right now. You can go ahead and interact with that. And we look forward to seeing you in a week. And as I say, as the traffic bull up, keep it real keeping.

Mark Thompson:

Hey, I’m Major Mark. And we’re gonna leave a mark here. We’re gonna change things. Didn’t get as far as owner to get when I was on active duty, but we’re gonna do it now. We’re gonna change things. We’re gonna leave a

Chris Johnson “The Traffic Bulldog”:

Mark two hours, Yeah. Where we are. Thank you for your service, everybody active major, thank you for your past service and your passion for our community. I am so excited. Let’s make a difference. So next time.