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Motorcycle enthusiast Phil McDonald aims to increase awareness of safe riding practices through Tulsa’s Motorcycle Training and Safety Center.
Motorcyclist Phil McDonald with his wife, Cindy.
The motorcycle business is in Phil McDonald’s blood. His father, Norm, along with a friend, opened K & N Motorcycles in southern California in 1957, the year before Phil was born. That one shop turned into six, and in 1971 the McDonald family moved to Tulsa and opened another store.
McDonald, like his father, found himself drawn to motorcycles. He began riding motorcycles when he was 3 and racing at 7. By the time McDonald was 14, he turned professional.
Racing wasn’t his only passion, though. McDonald found that he also enjoyed teaching basic motorcycle repairs and motorcycle restoration, which he began doing in 1989 at Tulsa Technology Center (TTC). Three years later, McDonald, along with his father and Jerry Treiger, started the Motorcycle Training and Safety Center, which teaches basic and advanced riding technique courses, at the TTC in Broken Arrow. At times, the class has had 50 to 60 people on a waiting list.
“With the increase in motorcycle sales, this is why I felt this was the right time to make available the basic riding techniques and experienced-rider advance techniques,” McDonald says.
McDonald says the training center was needed in Oklahoma because it is one of three states that do not have a state-funded motorcycle rider education program.
“The state requires a special license to ride a motorcycle, which is an ‘M’ endorsement on a license,” he says. “However, they offer nowhere to get the training to get the ‘M’ endorsement. So the need to make this available for riders was lacking in Oklahoma.”
The Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) Basic Rider course is designed to train both new and experienced riders in the correct basic motorcycle skills.
Most riders learn from a friend or family member, but what they learn are bad habits, McDonald says.
Through the class, McDonald’s goal is to improve public acceptance of motorcycles by projecting a safe, positive image of motorcyclists and emphasizing the importance of sharing the road.
And he does this all with limited use of his left arm.
In 2003, McDonald was riding his motorcycle to lunch when a truck hit him in his rear wheel. He was thrown off his motorcycle and hit a traffic sign with his left side. When McDonald got up, he had no feeling in his left arm.
He was rushed to the hospital and doctors told his family that he might not make it through the night.
Twenty-three days later, McDonald was released from the hospital and missed teaching classes the rest of the year.
Eventually, he began assisting with some classes and then started riding again. He rides at least 300 days a year.
McDonald still considers his left arm a work in progress and has had two surgeries this past year to continue to improve its use. Another surgery is planned to improve his shoulder.
“I try not to let it slow me down much,” he says. “Even with my disability, it has given me more determination to spread the message of motorcycle safety and to try to make the operators of cars and trucks watch and be more aware of motorcycles.”
He also wants to emphasize to motorcycle riders that it is their responsibility to be seen and wear proper riding gear.
“If it could happen to me, it can happen to anyone,” he says.
For McDonald, one of the most rewarding experiences is to see a rider progress from shaky and unstable to confident and in control.
“Over the years we have had past students that have stopped by the MTSC training course or by the shop and tell us how what we taught them helped (protect) them from a crash or accident,” he says. “That is too cool.”
