By Mark NIELSEN
An organization a Kitimat woman launched in memory of a son who died in a motorcycle crash will be front and centre this Saturday at the Dillon Adey Memorial golf tournament.
In memory of Corey Lodge, his mother, Denise Lodge, has organized the Coalition of Riders Educating Youth to raise awareness among young people about safe riding on motorcycles and about safe driving around them.
Corey was 21 years old when, in March 2005, he died in a crash while trying to go around a corner on the Malahat Highway on Vancouver Island. He was riding a “super sport” motorcycle with a 1,000 cubic centimetre engine and after-market enhancements and had obtained his learner’s licence for motorcycles less than 24 hours before.
The centrepiece of Lodge’s effort is a presentation she’s been fine tuning and has taken to high schools in northwest B.C. as part of a larger version that includes representatives from RoadSafetyBC and RCMP.
Lodge’s role is to bring a human face to the message before a RoadSafetyBC representative steps in to deliver the advice.
“How to protect yourself,” Lodge said. “Things that are a nuisance to a car are deadly to a motorcyclist…the gusting winds, the air streams.”
Driver etiquette around motorcycles is also a part.
“It hits on both keys,” Lodge said.
Then an RCMP officer speaks about the consequences of getting a criminal record for driving – and riding – while impaired.
“They’ll say ‘do you like going to Hawaii and Mexico on holidays?’ Everybody’s like ‘yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Well, guess what, you won’t be going anywhere if you get charged with a DUI…there are so many you assumed they know but they don’t,” Lodge said.
It ends with Lodge giving a recap on the safety, training and proper gear for riding.
Lodge wants to reach out to more young drivers and riders starting in the 2016-17 school year and, in the meantime, is raising funds to pay for administration, travel and the thousands of wrist bands she plans to hand out at the end of the presentations.
“I have 10,000 on order right now,” Lodge said. “I need way more than that, I need hundreds of thousands to do all of B.C.”
Corey’s story is remarkably similar to Dillon Adey’s. Like Corey, Dillon was 21, was holding a motorcycle learner’s licence and was riding a high-powered motorcycle when he died.
In June 2009, he had decided to sell the machine but decided to take it out for one last ride. He ran into the back of an SUV near his home on Tabor Blvd. Speed was a factor in the fatal collision, RCMP have said.
When Dillon’s parents, Perry and Cindy, learned of Corey’s story they got in contact with Denise and now sit on the COREY board of directors.
The golf tournament’s primary goal is to raise money for an endowment bursary fund for financially-strapped students at College of New Caledonia but helping Lodge raise funds for COREY is also on the agenda during the awards banquet Saturday evening at Treasure Cove Casino.
More information on COREY can be found at coreysafe.com.
Culled from the Prince George Citizen
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