Four new large 900cc road bikes and ten smaller 200cc trail bikes have been added to the police mobile force, with the new wheels added to the daily parade along Beach Road on Friday.
“Not everyone succeeded in the course, some police officers had to leave and were unable to complete the training, but the successful riders were the ones who lead the band this morning,” said lead trainer, Bret Murro, a former trainer from the Australian police force.
“The seventeen new riders were all successful in completing two different types of motorcycle training courses we had. “One of the training was the ‘Operational Riding for Patrol Motorcycles’ and the other training was ‘Escort for Motorcycle Riding on Larger Bikes’.
Motorcycles have never been that popular in Samoa but as car numbers increase and traffic jams grow more common, police are finding they need more nimble vehicles to get around on.
“It gives them more mobility especially when the enforcement of some of the traffic laws is needed and they can also respond to different jobs, basically it makes them more mobile,” said Mr. Murro.
The project costs a total of SAT$120,000 under the Samoan Australian Police Partnership.
Mr. Murro and another trainer also assisted with training of the larger motorcycle riders for the S.I.D.S Conference in September for escort riding from the airport to various locations.
Asked if he thought they are ready to ride, Mr. Murro said, “I hope so, because we spent a lot of time making sure they are safe in controlling motorcycles.
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“We squeezed a lot of information into a one week course for the escort riding, because back home in Australia these course runs for six weeks, so they have learned very fast and they have done an exceptional job.
The smaller motorcycles are mainly used for general patrol work and the larger motorcycles are used purely for escorting.
“We trained up to seven motorcycle riders to ride the four big motorbikes, that way we have three backup riders.
“They can’t all work all the time, sometimes they need a rest and another three come in so we’ve got seven motorcycle riders that can ride the large ones and altogether we’ve got seventeen I believe we trained that can ride the smaller bikes.
Advantages of the training is that it provides more safety and is an improvement to the scooters that are being used at the moment.
“They don’t look as nice, the larger motorcycles give them more ability to store more equipment in their panniers, they can have more equipment on board and it’s a more modern type of motorcycle, better suited to the roads here because it’s soft suspension,” said Mr. Murro.
They spent a long time researching different types of motorcycles so they’ve come up with these ones, which they believe are best suited for these types of roads.
Mr. Murro did not see any high speed chases happening when questioned concerning the use of the motorcycles.
“It is only for slow speed around the island, it’s not fast, so they don’t need big fast motorcycles like what we have back home, the smaller bikes are better.
The language barrier was among challenges he and a co-trainer faced during the training.
“There are numerous challenges, the language was a bit of a problem, some people spoke very good English and some of the others - not so good.
“We used a little bit of interpreting but most of the time they understood and they certainly picked it up very fast, I thought it would take longer but I was quite impressed with how fast they learned.
“Another challenge also for me and my co- trainer was the heat.
“We didn’t expect that but because we came from Canberra to Samoa, it was really knocking us around and it took a few days for our bodies to get used to it.
That was probably my biggest challenge - the heat. Assistant Police Commissioner Tala’imanu Keti stated that the purpose of the course was to improve safety on the roads and also to get ready for the Small Islands Developing States (S.I.D.S) Conference.
“There will be a lot of escorting during that time and we will have special guests here during the conference so that’s why we needed this course.
“We are most thankful to the Australian Government for their support - for providing both the training as well as the 900CC and 200CC motorcycles used for escorting and enforcing traffic law.”
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