Daytona Bike Week brings motorcycle stories and tragedies

Every year Daytona Beach Bike Week brings its own dramas and stories to the motorcycle world as it officially kicks off the riding calendar.

The last few years have been witness to challenging weather, falling attendances but also enjoyed fewer deaths and arrests.

This year, the event appears to be defined by a surge of bikers riding into town over the last few days improving on low attendance numbers with law officials and organizers expecting the last week of Daytona Bike Week to finish with style.

There are still some interesting stories to come out of Daytona’s 2011 Bike Week.

The first week of the event was quiet on the fatality front with no riders losing their lives in the first six days, but that silence was broken with three deaths within a fourteen hour timespan. One rider lost control and rode into a pole while another clipped his handlebars on a passing garbage truck. One was wearing a helmet while the other wasn’t.

With the third death, wearing a helmet wasn’t an issue or question. Tragically a pedestrian was hit by a motorcycle when he was crossing the road. The injured biker was taken to Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach after his motorcycle skidded along the road after the collision.

A fourth death has been reported in Volusia County, considered the official area monitored for such statistics, but because it happened before Bike Week started the fatality hasn’t been included in the figures. In that case a 68-year-old biker was killed when a car pulled out in front of his Harley-Davidson.

Much celebration was given to highway fatalities falling to an all-time low of only four during last year’s rally, but many agree this should be tempered with the understanding cold temperatures kept a majority of the motorcycles off the roads in 2010 compared to other years.

With Bike Week enjoying better weather this year, a cautious optimism in the motorcycle industry and hotel industry sources in Daytona Beach and the surrounding areas noting their booking are stronger than last year, everything points to busy streets at the 2011 Daytona Beach Bike Week.

But regardless of how many riders come to Daytona, all will face one certain disappointment. City Commissioners decided a long-standing tradition of the famous motorcycle event won’t be happening this year. The riding of the boardwalk has been banned from oil stains and tire marks that were left by motorcycles last year on the city’s brand new paving tiles on the boardwalk. Reportedly, the paving tiles cost the city more than $1 million to install, so the commissioners decided ban bikes this year.

And finally, disappointment might be too mild of a word for a group that is sure to know some harsher ones. There appears to be no love lost between Daytona Beach’s law enforcement and the famous one-percenters in the Outlaw Motorcycle Club, or the American Outlaw Association.

Earlier this week, police forced the Outlaws out of a building they had rented for the week claiming the property was zoned commercial and unsuitable for residential purposes. The building the group rented is a storage building with a fence around it located in a commercial area.

At the heart of the problem is the complaint by the motorcycle group of police harassment. According to reports this is the fourth time over the years police have pressured the club to move locations during Bike Week.

“It’s blatant harassment on the American Outlaw Association. That’s all it is man,” Outlaw member Hillbilly told Orlando news station WFTV.

“There’s plenty of other motorcycle clubs in this city right now, whether they’re One Percenter clubs, or Jesus freaks, and they’re not being bothered, but we are,” Hillbilly said in the interview.

The Outlaws have had trouble finding a home in Daytona Beach since federal agents raided their clubhouse four years ago. Then, police looked for code violations at their new home on South Street and parked a mobile command center at the house on Tanglewood last year.

“If we can keep a step ahead of something happening, we’re going to do it. We’re not going to stop, sit by and just wait for something to happen,” said Dep. Chief Steve Beres, Daytona Beach Police Department told WFTV.