Riders say the goal is to remind drivers to stay alert as more motorcycles return to the roads with warmer weather.
TYLER, Texas — Members of the Tyler Biker Church and local motorcycle clubs are traveling across the East Texas this spring, asking city leaders to adopt proclamations recognizing May as Motorcycle Awareness Month.
Riders say the goal is to remind drivers to stay alert as more motorcycles return to the roads with warmer weather.
“We’re people too. We have jobs and we have families, and we’re all trying to make it back home safe.” said Wyatt Perkins, vice president of the Zealots MC.
Perkins said the effort is driven by personal experience and ongoing concern about distracted driving, which he believes remains one of the leading causes of motorcycle crashes.
He and his wife were seriously injured in a crash last year that he says was caused by a driver on a phone. He also pointed to multiple fatalities within the riding community.
“Every year, our clubs attend at least two to three funerals,” Perkins said. “And it’s always the same thing — somebody got hit, somebody got ran over.”
The Texas Department of Transportation reports that one out of every 16 motorcycle crashes are deadly. And Perkins says deaths tend to increase during the spring and summer months.
Stephanie Bryan, a member of the Daughters of Destiny through the biker ministry community at Tyler Biker Church, said she lost her boyfriend, JD Rush, two months ago in a crash involving a distracted driver.
“My life stopped when I got that phone call,” Bryan said.
She described Rush as a lifelong rider and community volunteer whose death has had a lasting impact on family, friends and fellow riders.
“It can happen to anybody, because you don’t know when you’re on the road and what the person next to you is gonna do,” she said.
Club members say they will continue visiting East Texas cities throughout May, urging drivers to avoid distractions, look twice for motorcycles, and remember that every rider on the road has a family waiting at home.
