The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office expects calls, crashes, and incidents over Fall Ride weekend, which ended Sunday.
Tens of thousands of Harley riders come to Tomahawk for the event. Last year, one person died as part of 14 people involved in crashes.
But this year, police got a pleasant surprise, responding to no crashes or incidents.
“Nobody here could remember a year where we had nothing,” said Lincoln County Sheriff’s Lt. Tim Fischer. “When you’ve got thirty, forty thousand motorcycles in an area, to go four or five days without an incident, without a major crash, it’s pretty much unheard of.”
The Sheriff’s Office got a traffic safety grant from the state to put more deputies on patrol.
That, plus bad weather, seemed to limit dangerous rides.
“The influx of rain that we had last week, I think that may have slowed people’s motivation to get out there on the motorcycles. That, coupled with the increased law enforcement. I think those are the two major contributors as to why we had a safer weekend this year,” Fischer said.
Fischer estimates Lincoln County’s population doubles during Fall Ride weekend.
