PROVIDENCE The state Department of Transportation’s Office of Highway Safety kicked off its Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Month on Wednesday with a series of lectures and demonstrations.

RIDOT Assistant Director Phillip Kydd said Officer Alan Davis from the Cranston Police Department showed 29 police officers from 14 departments around the state how to reconstruct a motorcycle crash.

He said such reconstructions can help determine whether operator error, obstacles or another motorist or a combination of factors had a part in causing the accident.

Motorcycle crash survivor Dana Garlock talked about his recent crash and how he might not have survived if he had not been wearing a helmet.

Kydd said there were some 500 crashes involving motorcycles in the state last year, with 13 motorcycle riders losing their lives. With the warmer weather, he said both motorists and motorcyclists should get used to sharing the roads.

Kydd said the Community College of Rhode Island’s Knight Campus in Warwick, where the demonstrations were held, hosts a very comprehensive motorcycle training program to about 3,500 riders a year.

He said the aim of the awareness program was to reduce the number of crashes and to encourage riders to wear safely helmets, although he conceded that is a very controversial issue.

In Rhode Island, riders 18 years old or younger and residents who have been riding less than a year are required to wear a helmet, although Kydd said it was very difficult to enforce the law just by eyeballing riders.

“We encourage people to wear helmets because it reduces the risk of injury,” he said. “And we would support a (comprehensive) helmet law in the state.”

For more information, go to www.dot.state.ri.us/news/

pages/dispNews.asp?id=380.

pelsworth@projo.com