Much of the discussion around rider training focuses on what we teach — braking, steering, throttle control, positioning — and far less on how that teaching is delivered or questioned. In earlier articles, I’ve argued that riding skill is unlocked not by technique alone, but by understanding when, where and why those techniques should be applied. The same principle applies just as strongly to instructors. If training is to improve outcomes rather than simply tick boxes, we need to examine not only how riders learn, but how trainers themselves continue to develop, reflect and challenge established practice.

How easy is instructing?

Riding — and teaching riding — is arguably the most dangerous activity most of us will routinely undertake. And yet, all too often, training is delivered and received in a surprisingly blasé fashion. I’ve already touched on the dangers of rote learning at basic level, but the problem doesn’t stop there. Even at advanced level, relatively few trainees are actively encouraged to question what they are being taught. Post-test skills are commonly delivered — and accepted — on trust.

That is not, in itself, a criticism of instructors’ enthusiasm or commitment. Most instructors care deeply about their trainees and take pride in their role. However, comparatively few spend much time reflecting on what they might learn in order to become better trainers. There are, of course, notable exceptions. I have worked alongside some excellent instructors who had clearly gone well beyond the minimum, and others who were actively trying to improve. Organisations such as the IAM have also recognised this and put systems in place to raise observer standards.

At basic training level, however, the picture is less encouraging. I have long been surprised that many CBT schools invest so little time and effort in developing their instructors once they are qualified. Even allowing for the commercial realities — the pressure to move candidates efficiently from CBT to test — better training would pay dividends, not least in reduced retests, fewer problems downstream, and safer, more confident riders. One frequently cited concern is that a well-developed instructor will “jump ship” and set up their own school. That may happen occasionally, but it is a poor justification for accepting stagnation as the norm.

Part of the problem is structural. Ours is a largely solitary profession. Once past the initial training stage, even in larger schools, instructors rarely observe one another teaching. There is little cross-fertilisation of ideas, limited challenge, and few incentives to reflect critically on established practice. The results are easy to spot: instructors still insisting that trainees look over their shoulder before signalling — a habit the DSA dropped back in 1997 with the introduction of Direct Access — or basic trainers still following long-defunct CSM manuals, often third- or fourth-hand copies of material from an organisation that ceased trading in the early 2000s.

Another factor may lie in the DVSA’s own approach to check tests. For many basic trainers, these are viewed with genuine trepidation. The reason is simple: check tests are almost always experienced as critical rather than developmental. Innovation is rarely encouraged, and deviation from a narrow interpretation of “the approved way” is often discouraged. Faced with that, it is hardly surprising that instructors play safe, stick rigidly to familiar routines, and avoid experimentation or reflective practice.

Finally, there is a cultural issue. Motorcycling has always traded heavily on ideas of freedom and independence, and that can sit uneasily alongside professionalism in training. Riders’ rights groups have often opposed further training requirements as restrictive or unnecessary. Against that backdrop, it can be difficult to persuade riders that better training brings genuine benefits. And yet the evidence is there: the introduction of structured basic training, and particularly Direct Access, has significantly broadened the appeal of motorcycling — not least by encouraging far more women to take it up.

If training is to move forward, we need to accept an uncomfortable truth. Teaching riding is not just about transferring techniques. It is about developing judgement, decision-making and understanding — in trainees and instructors alike. Without a culture that values questioning, reflection and continuous improvement, training risks becoming little more than a production line, delivering certificates rather than competence.

If there is a single thread running through all of this, it is that good training is never static. Riding is a complex, high-risk activity carried out in an unpredictable environment, and it demands more than the mechanical repetition of drills. The same is true of teaching it. An instructor who simply delivers a syllabus without questioning its purpose, relevance or application is no better placed than a rider who can operate the controls but does not understand the risks they are managing.

Professionalism in rider training should not be seen as restrictive, bureaucratic or contrary to the spirit of motorcycling. On the contrary, it is what allows riders greater freedom — freedom from fear, from uncertainty, and from avoidable mistakes. Encouraging instructors to reflect, to learn from one another, and to keep their knowledge current is not an optional extra; it is a safety intervention.

Ultimately, better-trained instructors create better-thinking riders. And better-thinking riders are not just more skilful — they are better equipped to survive in the real world, where judgment matters far more than any single technique ever could.

How do you get a qualification in motorcycle coaching? Here’s my experience.

Working to gain a BTEC Part One

Soon after starting Survival Skills, I decided to look for some kind of recognised qualification as a post-test instructor. Although I was already a CBT and DAS qualified instructor and have a Masters degree in a science, something more relevant would look good on the CV, I thought. The best bet at the time looked to be a Driver Education course at Middlesex University, firstly partly because it had a distance learning option and I lived in Kent, and secondly because it could be extended through NVQ to degree, master and even PhD level.

After signing on and parting with the relevant amount of cash, my first modules arrived in the autumn. I knuckled down and got stuck into the work. With the deadline approaching two months later, I presented the work only to discover my tutor had taken a holiday just as we were supposed to be submitting the work. I was told it would now be marked too late to move onto the second module in the spring. I wasn’t particularly happy about that. I was even less happy when several of the topics I’d submitted were rejected because they were motorcycle-specific – I was told they didn’t have a tutor who knew anything about motorcycles. Hardly my problem, I thought. Eventually, I gathered a couple of points towards an NVQ, but as the experience hadn’t been brilliant I reluctantly decided to drop it and save my money.

Instead I turned to the BTEC in Advanced Motorcycle Instruction that was run by South Lincs Motorcycle Training. It turned out to be a far better choice than the Middlesex University course.

Both courses used an element of ‘accreditation of prior learning’ (APL) element for instructors with previous experience to replace traditional ‘taught’ courses. The idea is that you show the assessors that you have not only been teaching, but that you have used the courses you have taught as a learning experience for yourself to develop and improve both personal skills and the training being delivered. It avoids the need to spend weeks in the classroom being taught what you already know.

The required format for the BTEC was slightly different from the Middx course. This meant the original submission I had made to Middx was a useful background document, The main exhibit was to be a portfolio which still needed fleshing out with the hard evidence.

Sounds easy? Yes, at first sight. Easy enough to provide photocopies of my driving licence and CBT card. Not too difficult to provide copies of my current training notes. But to demonstrate learning?

Fortunately I’m one of those people who NEVER throws anything away. That does mean the office is knee-deep in paperwork and old bike magazines but it also meant I could lay hands on old notes which I used to develop the syllabus, briefing notes at various stages of development, course details themselves including debriefing notes and so on, right up to the current ‘in-use’ stuff.

First up I assembled notes from the original instructor training course I attended in 1995. I added the DAS training course I personally wrote back in early 1997 for the basic training school to help instructors pass the Direct Access assessment. I had a large pile of notes which became the drafts, redrafts, final versions and revised final versions of my advanced training syllabus itself. I had the same stacks of papers showing the various stages of development of the course handouts that go to the trainees. I added copies of other training materials such as training aids and assessment sheets. I added items of interest from from the website and motorcycle forums. I added original drafts and photocopies of items that appeared in the various magazines I have had articles published in. Finally, I added selected emails from trainees requesting courses and the follow up written debriefs that are provided with the courses.

The result? An overflowing A4 box-file on which I couldn’t actually shut the lid.

I made a date for an interview to determine whether the portfolio was up to the job and to see if I could justify the learning I was claiming. It wasn’t quite the grilling I had expected – Malcolm Palmer popped over to meet me in Oxford and spent a long evening chatting informally over several mugs of tea and a plate of fish and chips, whilst going piece-by-piece through the file. However, he was thorough – around 4 hours later (too late for a quick pint) Malcom left me with a list of what he would like included and copied for the formal submission for APL.

Now all I had to do was copy those I needed to submit, and annotate them to explain what they were and why I was submitting them. Job done, I thought.

Ha. What seemed like a couple of hours work dragged on into weeks of sifting the box, and hunting for the original files on the PC and long-lost zip disks (remember them?). Sometimes I discovered they were formatted for an extinct version of a word processor it seemed no-one else had ever used. In some cases I was able to reformat and print a copy, but where the notes were handwritten or the PC version was long gone, I had to scan then print page-by-page for the portfolio.

Eventually, everything was neatly placed in a large red ring binder and dropped off to Malcolm the evening before the second part of the APL assessment.

…. to be continued ….

This article was first written over twenty years ago and lightly updated since, but the central question it poses remains unresolved: what should post-test motorcycle training actually be for? While machines, testing regimes and training organisations have evolved — with ABS, traction control and more formalised “advanced” pathways now the norm — newly qualified riders still emerge with gaps in confidence, control and understanding.

“Do they know what they’re doing, do they know why, and are they managing risk?” is as concise and useful a training lens as any modern coaching framework. It also aligns neatly with contemporary human-factors thinking, even if I did not label it as such at the time.

The tension between rider-centred skill-building and training aimed at meeting an external standard has not gone away. If anything, it has become more important to challenge, as technology increasingly masks weaknesses rather than addressing them.

What’s the goal of post-test training?

Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the goal of training after passing the motorcycle test. Obviously we want to improve the skills and knowledge that a rider gained on basic training. But what does that really mean in terms of what we deliver? Are we looking for perfection? Or should we be looking for a pragmatic approach to riding?

When I moderated a riding skills forum, we regularly used to get requests for help with a riding issue. In one instance, the request came from a very newly qualified rider on his new motorcycle:

"I passed my test 2 weeks ago tomorrow and am really a complete novice as I'd never ridden before I started my training which was basically 3 lessons. Anyway I bought a 6 month old Thundercat as my first bike after a lot of worrying that the bike was too powerful for a 1st bike. I want to know what tips you can give to a new rider... I'm really struggling with a few things in particular:

1. setting off I'm not sure what revs to use, and find it hard to keep the throttle steady... I panic that the the front wheel is going to fly up and throw me off

2. turning into a side road I was taught to use 1st but it just doesn't feel right as I'm very jerky on the throttle

3. which brake should I use? For example on country lanes if I want to slow down from a speed above 30 ish, is it the front? I worry that wheels are going to lock and start sliding"

Now, it should be pretty obvious that we have here a rider who has clearly identified some major problems with his ability to control the machine. So I responded with a series of practical suggestions.

I referred the rider back to some of the exercises he would have performed on CBT including some very simple straight line stopping and starting exercises to help get used to the clutch on the new machine. I also advised him to use a slipping clutch when turning into side roads (what would have been taught for the U-turn exercise, so nothing new) and a reminder about basic braking technique (front first, rear second, then a progressive squeeze of the front to slow at the required rate). I also suggested that the rider look for some personalised training to fix the problems sooner rather than later.

Of course, I wasn’t the only one with advice. I generally try not to criticise other people involved in rider training too often but in this case the response of one of our IAM observers made me blow my top. He started by offering some useful – but theoretical – advice, but then qualified it by saying:

“Unless you really do feel that you can’t manage I would delay any extra training until you’ve been riding 5-6 weeks or so. You’ll be amazed at how different it will be then and you’ll get more out of any training you do.”

Of course, there’s a very big assumption there. And that’s that our wobbly novice is still in one piece after that period.

And then he suggested that at the end of this learning period the new rider would then be in a position to benefit from advanced training with the IAM.

As I’ve said many times, there are two ways of approaching rider training:

a pragmatic ‘improve what’s weak’ approach
building standard skills to test against a set riding standard

Either are valid in certain circumstances. But which is more appropriate here?

I think the answer is pretty obvious. A client-centred course, of the sort offered by the Survival Skills Confidence: BUILDER one-day training course, is more likely to address the novice rider’s needs.

The mention of the Thundercat dates the event, and since then I’ve been told “ah, but the IAM has changed a lot”. That is undoubtedly true, there has certainly been a drive to improve standards and consistency but what hasn’t changed is that the organisation still promotes a brand of training style of riding which has passing the test as its goal.

At the risk of provoking a chorus of “he would say that, wouldn’t he?”, if you think you have a problem with your riding, ask yourself where you’ll get the better support; from an independent trainer who’s prepared to focus the training on YOUR needs, or from an organisation that commits you to pursuing their own goal?

LATEST UPDATE JANUARY 2025

SUMMARY

Updating this article with the latest UK motorcycle crash statistics show that the fundamental patterns of motorcycle collisions have remained consistent over the past two decades — even as total numbers have moved mostly down. These figures come from the 2023–2024 “Reported Road Casualties Great Britain” factsheets published by the Department for Transport (DfT), which are the latest comprehensive government data available.

Overall Casualty Numbers (Trend vs 1998)

Then (1998):

• ~24,969 injury accidents involving motorcycles
• 498 rider deaths
• 5,944 serious injuries
• 18,168 slight injuries

Now (2024):

• 340 motorcyclists killed in reported collisions
• 5,468 seriously injured (adjusted)
• 10,152 slightly injured (adjusted)
• On average (2020–2024) about 6 riders are killed and 101 seriously injured per week in GB reported road casualty data.

Interpretation:
While the exact numbers have shifted due to changes in traffic levels, exposure, reporting and other factors, the pattern remains: motorcycles are still involved in disproportionately high numbers of serious and fatal collisions relative to their traffic share (under 1% of traffic).

Collision Type: Rural vs Junctions

Junction Incidence (2019–2023):

• A majority of motorcycle fatalities (≈59–63%) occur not at or within 20m of a junction.
• Only around 27–32% of fatalities occur at T/Y or other junction types.
• Junction collisions remain a noticeable but not dominant proportion.
• Majority of fatalities are not at junctions; many occur on rural roads.

Rural Roads:

• ~69% of motorcycle fatalities occur on rural roads (where speed and cornering challenges are greater), even though rural traffic is a much smaller proportion of total vehicle miles travelled.

Interpretation:
This echoes my original point that high-speed rural road accidents and loss-of-control incidents continue to be very significant, rather than urban/driver-at-junction scenarios being the overwhelming cause.

Involvement of Other Vehicles

Recent breakdown (2019–2024):

• A significant portion of fatalities still involves other traffic—fatal accidents involving two vehicles including a car ≈38%
• These include overtaking crashes, not just collisions at junctions.
• Many fatalities occur without any other vehicle involved, underscoring the role of single-vehicle incidents.

Interpretation:
This supports the earlier narrative that not all crashes are “car vs bike”, and that single-vehicle crashes are a significant part of the overall picture. While total fatal and serious injury numbers have decreased compared to the late 1990s, the distribution of crash types is little changed.

Back to the Future: the original article

Starting work as a courier in late 70s London made me very aware of the consequences of crashing – after all, if I couldn’t ride, I couldn’t eat. So not only did I do my very best to avoid crashing out on the roads, I also researched the topic as I tried to find out as much as possible about where, how and why motorcycle riders crash. The result was that I survived sixteen years and around half a million miles as a courier. Not surprisingly, once I became a motorcycle trainer, it became a self-appointed goal to educate other riders about why we crash.

Naturally, avoiding crashing has been a feature of my Survival Skills advanced rider training courses but I’ve also been writing on the topic for well over twenty years. My very first column for the Motorcycle Action Group’s magazine back in 2002 addressed crashing, but unfortunately it seems the topic needs revisiting on a regular basis.

Let’s start with a fact. There are a lot of urban collisions between bikes and cars. In 2019, just before re-publishing this article, MAG launched a new safety intiative online and one of the very first comments was along the lines of “it’s time we stopped drivers killing bikers”. It’s an attractive belief – after all, we hear a lot about bikes colliding with cars and now we have YouTube as an easy means of posting up the ‘evidence’.

Unfortunately, it’s largely a myth. Whilst there are fatal collisions at junctions, the fact is that far more riders kill themselves running wide in corners or through a badly-judged overtake.

But so is the idea that it’s power which is the problem. Here’s the text of an article that went up on my website in the early 2000s as I researched my first MAG articles in response to threats of a power restriction on bikes.

Since then, I’ve kept an eye on each new report or study into motorcycle crashes. And here’s the bad news. If you care to dig out the latest stats on motorcycle accidents, you’ll find nothing’s changed. We’re still having the same crashes in the same places. Some elements have changed since I wrote the article below – the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ on power went out of the window – but the essential analysis of crashes is still entirely relevant two decades on.

Power Output

If you are a member of either the BMF or MAG, or just interested in motorcycle politics, you’ll know that the EC and various member governments have had serious concerns about power and motorcycle accidents.

Motorcycle manufacturers are slowly waking up to the fact that there has been a change of approach by road safety campaigners, and that vehicles capable of such high speeds are being targeted as socially unacceptable, and possible solutions include compulsory bhp limits and speed restrictors.

Limiting speed of traffic has been on the agenda in the UK for months, and Dutch and German governments have shown concern over recent high performance models. Euro-wide plans for a power limit have been around in one form or another for ten years. Some countries have had power restrictions in place for years. Since 1984 French bikes have been restricted to 98 bhp and Swiss riders have to make do with 85 bhp.

A 125 bhp “gentleman’s agreement” in the UK was scuppered, ironically enough, by Triumph when they released their 143 bhp Daytona 1200, and since then the power race has been on, and speeds have climbed to match, to the point where the Hayabusa and ZX12-R are nudging the 200 mph barrier. The result of concerns in the UK is that the Big Four Japanese manufacturers have put in place a voluntary speed limit of 186mph on their most powerful models.

Power limits are generally justified on the grounds that power equates directly to speed, and that speed causes accidents. The mid 90s Martin Bangemann-inspired 100 hp limit was only ditched by the EC when the research on which it was based was shown to be flawed. More recently a Dutch safety study into motorcycle accidents found no link between accidents and bikes of 100 hp or more and clearly showed that power is not an issue in motorcycle accidents. The study, which was carried out by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, included a survey of existing reports, as well as evidence from the Dutch police.

Existing reports clearly showed that the major factors in accident risk were not engine power, but the motorcyclists themselves

age
experience
attitude
alcohol

and the accident circumstances

type and condition of the road
location
weather etc.

Evidence from the Dutch police accident investigators showed that high speed and taking risks was also a significant factor :

losing control on a bend
other road users wrongly estimating speed
reckless riding

Even there though, there was no evidence that more than 100bhp was being used at the time.

Accident Statistics

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) figures published in February 1999 show that in 1998 there were:

24,969 Injury Accidents Involving Motorcycles
498 Motorcyclist Deaths
5,944 Serious Injuries
18,168 Slight Injuries

Motorcycle riders and passengers accounted for 15% of those killed or seriously injured in 1998, but powered two wheeler traffic represented less than 1% of all road traffic.

There were 17,422 two vehicle accidents involving motorcycles in 1998 and 5,529 single vehicle accidents. Of the single vehicle accidents, 1,446 involved one or more pedestrians; in these accidents there were 1,490 pedestrians hit, of whom 29 were killed and 344 seriously injured.

On built-up roads, over three quarters of motorcycle accidents occurred at junctions, and almost a half at T or Y junctions. By comparison, on non built-up roads, less than a half of motorcycle accidents occurred at junctions, and just under a fifth at T or Y junctions.

The motorcyclist casualty rate was higher on built-up than non built-up roads. Less than half of motorcycle traffic was on built-up roads, which accounted for 72% of casualties. The lowest casualty rate was on motorways. However, the proportion of accidents involving serious injury was higher on non-built up roads and motorways, reflecting the higher speeds on these roads.

London had the highest rate of motorcyclists killed or seriously injured in road accidents but was only slightly higher than that for Scotland as a whole, but twice that of the South West region which had the lowest rate. London had the highest rate and the North East had the lowest rate for all severities of casualty.

Per registered motorcycle, Great Britain had a high death rate in comparison with other countries. Ireland had the highest and Japan the lowest. Britain’s death rate of 6.8 per 10,000 licensed motorcycles is about eight times that of the Czech Republic, with the lowest rate.

When accidents occur

The average daily casualty count was higher during the week than at the weekend, with Fridays having the most casualties in 1998. However, the proportion of casualties killed or seriously injured was higher at the weekend, at 32% compared with 24% during the week.

There is a marked difference between the proportion of motorcyclist casualties injured during summer and winter, whilst there is much less seasonal variation in all road user casualties. The highest percentage of casualties occurred in August for motorcyclists and in November for all road users.

Who causes accidents?

Riders have long taken (cold) comfort in the findings of the Booth Report (1987) which, looking at accidents in urban areas, concluded that car drivers were at fault in two thirds of accidents involving motorcycles. Equally, high casualty rates amongst the under 25’s were often put down to youth and lack of experience.

The DETR figures show that accidents involving a motorcycle and another vehicle still account for 2/3rds of all motorcycle accidents. However, they also show that single vehicle accidents with no pedestrians or other road users involved accounted for 18% of all motorcycle accidents resulting in injury. This compares with 14% for cars and 7% for goods vehicles.

However, an in-depth analysis of accidents in Cheshire between 1 April 1998 and 31 October 1998 reported in Street Biker (Feb-Mar 2000), the MAG newspaper. John Moss MBE, Chief Road Safety Officer for Cheshire (and MAG member) revealed that fully 67% of all the crashes studied were due to rider error and that the traditional view that most motorcycle accidents are down to blind Volvo drivers is badly flawed.

Let’s look at the bald statistics:

lost control on right hand bend - 16.7%
lost control on left hand bend - 13.7%
right turning vehicle hit by overtaking motorcycle - 12.7%
motorcycle hit by emerging vehicle at junction - 9.8%
motorcycle collides with rear of stationary vehicle at junction - 7.8%
fell off - 6.9%
collisions on roundabouts - 6.9%
motorcycle crosses carriageway on l/h bend
and collides with oncoming vehicle - 5.9%
motorcycle crosses carriageway on r/h bend
and collides with oncoming vehicle - 3.9%
motorcycle collides with vehicle turning right across its path - 7.8%
stationary motorcycle hit from behind - 5.9%
others - 2.0%

Sports bikes were involved in 43% of these accidents and the 26-40 age group in an overwhelming 55.3%. The supposedly high risk group of under 25’s accounted for 23.6%. Not unexpectedly in a survey area which includes the infamous “Cat & Fiddle” over 50% of riders lived outside the survey area.

How can we interpret these figures?

The fact that London dominates the casualty list is hardly surprising. The population of London is something like 6 million, around 10% of the entire population of the UK. In addition, several million drivers and riders more commute into and out of London. Traffic density is high over a very large area. What is rather more of a surprise is that Scotland was only slightly lower. What is not clear is whether the casualties are concentrated in the Glasgow and Edinburgh areas or whether rural accidents make a significant contribution.

Neither is it surprising that over three quarter of motorcycle accidents and just under three quarters of injuries occurred at junctions. If you hit a car, even at twenty miles per hour speed you are likely to be injured.

What is not so clear until you look at the figures more closely is that the DETR figures show that accidents out of town occur at higher speeds and result in more serious injury, even though the figures for in-town accidents appear to dominate the statistics. The problem is one of interpretation. Lumping together serious and fatal injuries is misleading and many serious injuries are not necessarily life threatening. As I understand it a broken finger requiring medical treatment would be considered a serious injury and relatively minor injuries of this kind are much more likely to occur when you ride a bike and are involved in a minor accident than if you drive a car.

The way the figures for serious injury and fatalities are taken together tends to disguise the consequences of rural accidents. Earlier statistics from 1994 show that 50% of all fatalities occur out of town.

Although single vehicle accidents account for slightly less than 1/5th of all motorcycle accidents according to DETR figures, these accidents usually occur outside town and at higher speeds and lead to more serious injury. This is borne out by the higher proportion of serious injuries and fatalities occurring at weekends and in the middle of the summer, which implicates recreational riders rather than workday commuters.

So who is at fault for rural accidents? A common factor between Californian, Dutch and UK research into motorcycle accidents is that many could have been avoided it the motorcyclist had the rider shown more awareness of potential danger, been more visible or had been capable of braking, steering or cornering properly. Alcohol, experience, attitude, high speed and risk taking were other contributory factors, as were the type and state of the road and weather conditions.

The Dutch study in particular showed that losing control in bends was a significant factor. The Cheshire figures show that accidents involving misjudging bends make up 40% of accidents in rural areas. The fatality rate for these kind of accidents is high. This was made clear in our local IAM magazine a couple of years ago when a serving police officer revealed that out of twelve riders killed in Kent in a year, eleven lost control on bends. The Dutch study also found that many of the accidents investigated would have been less serious, or avoided altogether, if the rider had been able to make an emergency stop.

Other more recent statistics than the DETR report showed that there has been a shift in location of accidents from urban to rural environments and that the peak age for accidents has moved away from young to “born again” riders.

The Cheshire report should shake the traditionally-held view that bikers are usually the innocent victims of car drivers, which the DETR figures appear at first glance to support, or that only young riders are at risk. The reduction in accident rates amongst youngsters resulting from Compulsory Basic Training is well documented, and these figures highlight that the 25-40 age group of riders who largely predate the widespread emergence of training schools and would have been mostly self-taught are very much at risk too.

Mr. Moss goes on to consider what conclusions can be drawn from the research. He says:

“Consideration of the various factors relating to rural motorcycle crashes leads unerringly to the conclusion that riders are failing to ride their machines within their personal capabilities even though the bike itself may have been well within its performance envelope at the time of the crash. The vast majority of the “bend” crashes had clues which indicated that the riders had either braked or shut their throttles mid-bend, resulting in understeer crashes. In the crashes where right turning vehicles were hit by overtaking motorcyclists, it seemed that the rider should have foreseen the likelihood of the turning movement e.g. garage forecourt, side road etc..”

Look at the figures. 20.5% of the accidents, the total of bikes hitting cars turning right or hitting them from behind, can be largely attributed to poor observation and anticipation, probably made worse by excess speed, and in my opinion this is not entirely unexpected.

However, the fact that 40.2% of the accidents occurred when riders either lost control in, or ran wide in bends is chilling and far worse than I thought. Bend-swinging is so fundamental to our enjoyment of the sport that we take it for granted. Now it seems that we have to think again. As well as a lack of the observation and judgement skills we need to ride safely, it also betrays that most riders lack a fundamental lack of understanding of the way a motorcycle steers and behaves in a corner.

Mr. Moss recognises that whilst police enforcement of existing traffic laws is important in restricting the activities of a “lunatic fringe” of riders who flout deliberately regulations, it cannot by itself tackle the underlying problem of lack of skill, and cites the North Yorkshire BikeSafe 2000 initiative as kind of mix of enforcement, education and encouragement that police forces across the country should be pursuing. However, he rightly points out that it places heavy demand on police manpower so that its impact is not as widespread as would be desirable, and indicated that some forces have declined to join the scheme as they “do not have a problem”, even though their riders may be crashing on another county’s roads.

He goes on to say “there is a countywide need to equip riders with the skills needed for them to avoid or minimise crashes caused by their shortcomings in machine control, otherwise increased machine sales will be reflected in a parallel increase in casualties” and points out the valuable role that the IAM, RoSPA and commercial advanced riding schools have to play in rider training.

Conclusion

So, research shows that claims that power causes accidents is flawed. But so is the traditional motorcyclist’s view that it is blind Volvo drivers that kill motorcyclists.

Riding experts like the IAM agree that speed and power alone don’t kill. Speed in the wrong place, speed without judgement, speed without skill can and does.

The evidence also pinpoints the sad fact that a lot of us can’t manage to negotiate corners without falling off or hitting oncoming vehicles, and when we get it wrong, the result is often very bad indeed. The message John Moss is giving is that it is down to us as riders to put our house in order. As a member of MAG, he can hardly be classed as a killjoy or a scaremongerer. “Get trained and improve your riding skills” he says. With the proper skills you can have fun, but be safe at the same time.