Bike crashes in Haleakala park declining
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau
Despite Sunday's fatal downhill bicycle tour crash and another one in September, the industry's accident rate has improved dramatically in recent years — at least in Haleakala National Park.
Advertiser library photo • Jan. 8, 2000
"The bicycle tour industry has worked hard to improve their safety mechanisms and safety records,'' Chief Ranger Karen Newton said yesterday.
Riders coast down Haleakala with Maui Mountain Cruisers, a tour operator in an industry that takes in at least $15 million a year.
Newton was not able to provide figures immediately, but she described the accident rate as "demonstratively down," the likely result of operational safety plans recently required of downhill tour companies operating within the park.
While the accident rate covers only the park and the first 10 miles of Crater Road, the safety plans are designed to cover operations both inside and outside the park, Newton said.
Only the park's law enforcement arm compiles statistics on bicycle accidents. No statistics are available for incidents on the rest of the downhill route, which descends another 28 miles through Makawao and ends at the ocean in Pa'ia.
Sunday's fatal accident occurred nine miles from the summit at about 11:30 a.m.
When district ranger Ron Martin arrived at the scene, people were performing CPR on 72-year-old Robert Burkhart of Vallejo, Calif., who was in full cardiac arrest and suffering from extensive injuries to the head and face. Martin tried to establish an airway to his lungs, but the man died a few hours later.
Police said Burkhart's bike had veered off the roadway and hit a guardrail, catapulting the tourist 40 to 50 feet down a mountain embankment.
Brian Kramer, general manager of Mountain Riders Inc., would not comment on the accident yesterday while it is under investigation.
On Sept. 1, a Michigan woman died of injuries after her tour bike crossed the centerline of Baldwin Avenue and hit a van near Rainbow Park below Makawao.
Bicycle tours began on Haleakala in the mid-1980s. Today it is a $15 million to $20 million business, with more than 86,000 people riding down each year.
The last time someone died on a bike tour within Haleakala National Park was in 1998, when a New York woman ran off the edge of the road.
It was about then that park officials, alarmed by the bike crashes that seemed to happen every few days, hired a safety expert to study the causes. The expert found that speed and too much space between riders were among the major factors.
Park officials met with the tour companies in 1999 and asked them to submit operational safety plans, Newton said.
Among other things, the park requires that riders wear helmets, tours have a maximum of 14 bikes, an escort follows at the rear, the driver and lead guide have two-way communication and at least one staff member be CPR-certified.
The companies provide a safety briefing before each tour and ask riders to sign a waiver recognizing the possibility of injury or death.
Rich Goodenough, owner of one of the oldest companies in the business, Maui Downhill, said his accident rate had gone down in recent years, averaging two or three accidents out of about 3,000 clients in that time period.
Reach Timothy Hurley at thurley@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.
Correction: The California man who died in the bicycle accident Sunday was on a tour with Mountain Riders, not Maui Mountain Riders. A previous version of this story referred to the wrong company.
