Tag: awareness

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84. ‘All dressed up’ – coping with loose chippings

This is based on an article I wrote for the old ‘Survival Skills’ forum on a now-defunct bike forum back in 2007. Having looked over the text (which has had a mild rewrite for clarity) nothing I wrote two decades ago has changed; at least, not the advice about dealing with the freshly-load surface itself. However, what has changed, and changed significantly, is that we now have solid research evidence showing that chip seal isn’t merely an unpredictable low-speed stability problem — once fully cemented in place and when riding speeds are back to normal, it’s exceptionally destructive to rider clothing once things go wrong. It’s one of the harshest abrasion environments we’ll meet on public roads. That makes clothing choice for open-road riding to the fore. The danger is that riders who accept lighter kit because it’s “fine for ordinary road speeds” may be making assumptions that surface-dressed chip seal roads directly undermine. This shifts surface dressing and chip seal from being “a handling problem” to being “a personal protection problem” too, and that’s something all riders ought to be aware of.

‘All dressed up’ – coping with loose chippings

One worry that new riders have (and I guess a few more experienced ones too) is how to treat roads which have been ‘surface dressed’; this is the low cost repair where a new layer of chippings is simply spread on top of a layer of sticky resin sprayed on the old surface. The road is then re-opened with a temporary low speed limit and relies on the passage of vehicles to ‘roll’ the loose chips into the resin binder to form a permanent bond and create a durable surface. Eventually, a sweeper comes out and hoovers up the remaining loose chips. This surface is quite common on quieter UK roads. In France and the US, I’ve found surfaces treated this way to stretch for miles at a time, and is widely used in Australia and New Zealand where it’s known as ‘chip seal’. The locals cope, so we can too.

Most concerns focus on the loose chippings themselves, and on how each lane of traffic quickly becomes a pair of relatively clear wheel tracks with a ridge of loose stone between them, as well as another ridge along the centre line, and one more at the edge of the carriageway.

Generally speaking, riding in a wheel track makes sense since it’s usually the cleanest line and offers the most predictable grip. I’d normally pick the offside wheel track since it keeps us well clear of unexpected hazards on the nearside, and I wouldn’t attempt swapping lines on twisty road. On narrow roads where oncoming traffic could get close, I’d likely chose the nearside track though.

Either way, it avoids riding directly on the deeper ridges of loose stones, and it’s rarely as dramatic as people fear. Provided we avoid hard braking, excessive lean angles or handfuls of throttle, then we can treat the gravel in the wheel tracks much like any other low-grip surface..

If we genuinely have to ride though the deeper, loose material — maybe the road has only just been reopened to traffic — it’s still perfectly possible to ride through it. Counter-intuitively, trying to crawl along at walking pace can make the bike feel less rather than more stable. A modest, steady speed creates momentum and that helps stability. The bike may squirm slightly beneath us, but that movement is normal and self-correcting. The trick is to use the ‘brace position’ — the posture where we keep our upper body, shoulders, elbows and wrists loose to allow the bars to move around but lock onto the bike with the knees on the tank. This is the key — to stay relaxed and let the bike move under us. But keep good gaps and get braking done early and in a straight line. There’s often more grip available on loose chippings than riders expect, but sudden inputs overwhelm it quickly. Keep cornering lean angles modest, maintain a neutral or gently positive throttle, and wait until the bike is upright before accelerating.

If we need to cross a ridge of loose stones, do it deliberately. My tip here is to turn the bike as much as possible so as to cross the ridge as close to a right-angle and as upright as possible. It should go without saying, we should avoid braking or accelerating while in the deeper deposit.

Other hazards worth watching for include:

    • Piles of chippings mid-corner or at junctions, where traffic sweeps them sideways, and at downhill stops where stones fall from car wheel arches. Brake early and positively, then ease to a stop with minimal front brake pressure at walking pace.

    • Hidden potholes, sunken repairs, and speed humps, which can disappear completely under fresh stone. Visual clues are reduced, so read the wider road environment carefully.

    • Freshly laid high-friction surfaces (such as Shellgrip), which often shed loose aggregate initially. Treat them with caution until they’ve bedded in or been swept.

Finally, I’ve found that speed limits are often set unrealistically low and as a result they are widely ignored. If we ride too far below the prevailing speed, we’re simply inviting close overtakes and being sprayed with flying chippings. I’d recommend riding at something closer to the general flow, whilst leaving a generous gap to the vehicle ahead. That way we can avoid being pebble-dashed as we ride, and we’ll also have plenty of space to brake smoothly if we need to.

Surface dressing isn’t pleasant, but it isn’t a lottery either. With good observation, smooth inputs, and sensible decision-making, it’s just another surface — not a reason to tense up or tiptoe.

 

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82. Input, Processing & Output – the necessary steps within a ‘system’

A riding system exists to support decision-making, and is worth nothing without that understanding. It’s also worth pointing out that IPSGA, the Police System, is heavily weighted toward outputs which can lead some misunderstandings about where the effort should be placed. This is another article which expanded out of my investigations into ‘Spidey Sense’.

Input, Processing & Output – the necessary steps within a ‘system’

Exactly what IS a ‘riding system’? How does it work, and what is it meant to achieve? Those are sound questions because only by answering them will a riding system be an effective tool.

In short, it helps us link our answer to the “What IF…?” question we asked about what we observed to “…then THIS” response that explains what we’re going to do about it. So a system consists of three sequential phases:

INPUT
PROCESSING
OUTPUT

That’s all a riding system is; to be able to use one is not the goal in itself, since a riding system – ANY system – is only there to help us enhance our situational awareness and make better and more reliable proactive decisions to the events developing around us.

If you think about that for a moment, you may already have spotted the weakness in the Police System – ‘Information Position Speed Gear Acceleration’. Position, speed, gear and acceleration are all outputs. The equally important components of the system, the INPUT and PROCESSING stages, are all compressed into ‘information’.

By structuring the system so that it culminates in Position, Speed, Gear and Acceleration, there’s a real risk users end up placing too much emphasis on the importance of those outputs, with a consequent under-emphasis on the importance of the input “gathering information” and processing stages, and that’s likely to result in a flawed result. In computer programming terms, “garbage in, garbage out”. Our riding plan may be worth nothing if our choice is based on incomplete inputs or faulty processing.

Moreover, with IPSGA implicitly biasing riders toward action — particularly visible or measurable action — it subtly presupposes that evaluation must result in a physical intervention. That’s not surprising since the original police ‘seven point’ system from the old Blue Book version of Motorcycle Roadcraft showed how to use it to make left and right turns. Indeed, my own belief is that IPSGA was primarily designed as an ASSESSMENT tool first and foremost, to allow instructors to check whether their trainees were doing what they were supposed to do.

The fact is, a physical intervention is not always the best — or even a necessary — outcome. Two important points:

First, doing nothing can be a deliberate, skilled output. Choosing to hold speed, maintain position, keep a neutral throttle and simply observe is not a failure of decision-making; it is often the result of good evaluation. In uncertain or ambiguous situations, the safest and most information-rich response may be to delay commitment, increase vigilance, and allow the situation to resolve itself. That is still execution — just not a mechanical one.

Second, evaluation is often about buying time, not spending it. Many hazards do not demand immediate control inputs. They demand attention, patience and monitoring. For example, a vehicle edging at a junction, a pedestrian near the kerb, or an oncoming driver whose intentions are unclear may all trigger a “Spidey Sense” response — but the correct execution may simply be “watch closely, cover the controls, and wait”. This aligns perfectly with the “What if…? Then this…!” model, where the “Then this…” can legitimately be “no change yet”.

It’s important to see that the output phase of any plan can be defined as any conscious decision, including:

  • holding a stable plan,

  • maintaining space and options,

  • or deliberately postponing action until more information is available.

Whether we follow IPSGA, SEE or any other system, it’s important to realise that the goal of a riding system is not always movement, but only ever an appropriate response — and sometimes the most appropriate response is simply to keep watching and let the picture develop.

The information stage of IPSGA is sometimes divided into three sub-stages which are ‘Take’, ‘Use’ and ‘Give’, with the information element ‘stretched’ over the PSGA outputs to imply that new information is available at all times, and that plans need to remain flexible. Structurally, it’s all become a bit of a mess.

That’s why I personally prefer and teach the US Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s SEARCH EVALUATE EXECUTE approach. The three stages match the input – processing – output structure of a system far more exactly, and they can be applied cyclically; we collect information, we consider it and form a plan, we go ahead and carry it out, and then we check the results to see if they are working or if the situation calls for a revised plan.

In particular, the EVALUATE stage matches the “What if…?” “Then this…!” question and answer I talked about in the last article. We use what we see (or hear or smell or even feel) to provide the input which the “What if…?” “Then this…!” routine then processes. Only when we have the “Then this…!” answer in our head can we actually make a decision about position, speed, gear and acceleration.

Finally, here’s something else to consider – if we’re more concerned with demonstrating that we know how to use a plan – by showing off our ‘position, speed, gear and acceleration’ – then the routine has become more important than outcome. Systems are there to serve us, not to control us.

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81. Developing “What IF…?” “…then THIS!” routines

Seeing a potential hazard is only the first step. To ride safely, we must pre-plan our response and rehearse it until it becomes automatic. The brain works best when it recognises patterns and has a ready-made response, allowing split-second reactions without freezing or overthinking, and dramatically reducing the risk of panic-driven mistakes. It’s not enough to notice danger; we must know exactly what to do, and have practised doing it, particularly when under stress when decision-making speed slows and cognitive load spikes. This is supported by research into dual-task interference and real-time hazard response. Cognitive psychology research supports this principle: hazard perception without a prepared response has limited protective value. This threat-response model explains why experienced riders consistently outperform novices; it’s not because they “see more” but because they know what to do when they see it. However, while planning responses is essential, riders must retain flexibility. Hazards rarely present identically each time.

This is another article that developed from my original ‘Spidy Sense’ tip, as I investigated how we respond to hazards and was incorporated into my paperback MIND over MOTORCYCLE, which you can purchase at http://lulu.com/spotlight/SurvivalSkills.

Developing “What IF…?” “…then THIS!” routines

A fundamental part of the Survival Skills approach to riding is to develop an understanding of the risks of riding, and having a strategy to manage those risks. And an essential part of the approach is to have those strategies in mind when we detect a hazard. Here’s what I mean. Asking the “What if…?” question is a good start because we’re making some educated guesses about what will happen next.

But here’s the problem.

If we ask the “What if… the driver pulls out anyway?” question, we need to follow it up with an answer. Why? Because when things start to happen, it’s almost certainly too late to figure out the correct course of action. The situation changes very rapidly when we’re riding and we’ll almost certainly succumb to SURPRISE! and set off all the unwanted ‘Survival Reactions’ that Keith Code has talked about. We’ll freeze or we’ll panic. We need to know how we’re going to deal with the problem BEFORE we actually have to take emergency action.

I’ve talked about how we can apply sports psychology techniques to riding and this is another place they work. We need something akin to a ‘pre-shot routine’. A golf course, for example, is designed to set traps for the golfer. Bunkers are full of sand, greens slope, and the ball can vanish into water hazards and long grass. There are two ways to play hazards. We can try to get out of trouble after things go wrong. Or we can make pro-active compromises to the ideal shot that gives us the best chance of avoiding the obstacles.

That’s not too different from the road if we consider the road to be full of traps too. We too need a routine that applies a pro-active response to the next hazard once we’re aware of it. And here’s how. Asking the “What if…?” question is good, but we need to follow it with a statement about how we’ll then proceed; we extend the “What if…?” question to include a “Then this…!” answer.

Here’s a very simple example. We see a car waiting ahead of us, indicating and clearly ready to turn right into a side road on our nearside. “What if… the driver doesn’t see us and pulls across our path?”

It’s almost certainly too late to figure out the correct course of action if we wait until the car starts to move. Even if we have time (unlikely) we’ll almost certainly succumb to SURPRISE! and all the unwanted Survival Reactions that Keith Code has talked about. We need real answers in our heads, ready to apply to the problem BEFORE we actually have to take emergency action. Seeing a car about to turn across our path at a junction should trigger a veritable cascade of possible defensive responses – mirrors, reduction in speed, possibly a change of position, use of the lights and / or horn, preparing for a possible emergency stop, or getting ready for a swerve if we can see an escape route. Even, finally, if a collision is inevitable, Malcolm Palmer’s version of an ejector seat, the ‘jump’ routine.

Each and every one is a possible “Then this…!” response to the “What if… the car turns across me?” question. But none of them will be in the front of our minds unless we already understand that they are possible responses.

Here’s another example. Having seen a bend, “What if… it tightens up out of sight?” “Then this… we check mirrors because we may need to change speed or position, perhaps select a lower gear, ensure we don’t turn-in too early, and maybe even slow down mid-corner so we don’t run wide”. But if we’re to avoid a nasty SURPRISE! we have to be aware of our options and have them in our minds as we approach the corner.

In many cases the “What if…?” trigger event is a ‘visual cue’. We can use the colour and shape of road signs (which is why they are different shapes and colours), the presence or absence of vehicles in a junction or even the fact that we have a view or there’s a ‘vision blocker’ obscuring our line-of-sight. A hazard warning sign should trigger us to check mirrors and consider slowing down, whilst scanning harder for the specific hazard we’re being warned about. A vision blocker might prompt a change of speed and position, and readiness for an emergency stop.

Of course we can use other senses. “What if… we hear a siren?” “Then… start searching for the emergency vehicle!” What if… we smell diesel?” “Then… start scanning the surface for the tell-tale traces!” What if… we feel an unexpected vibration?” “Then… pull over and find out what’s wrong with the bike!”

The great thing about the “What if…?” “Then this…!” routine is that it IS a routine – and that means it is:

  • consistent

  • efficient

  • effective

  • easily repeated

Still struggling to see how extending the “What if…?” question with the “Then this…!” answer will benefit us?

How about the humble traffic light? We all know that red means stop, green means we can proceed if clear, but what about amber? It means we “should stop unless it would be dangerous to do so”. So how do we know if it would be dangerous or not? What dies dangerous mean in this context?

Well, it could mean being too close and / or too fast to brake without risking a locked wheel. Or it could mean that we’d put ourselves at risk from a following vehicle if we braked. So our third “What if…?” question is:

“What if… the lights change when we are right on top of them?” “Then we have to decide whether it’s safe to stop or safer to carry on!”

Generally speaking we don’t ride through red lights or stop at green lights unless we are completely distracted by another task. But even the best of us WILL cock-up when it changes to amber IF we haven’t already made a conscious assessment of the situation. How long has the light been green? Is it likely to change? How fast are we approaching, and how much space would we need to stop? What’s behind us?

If we haven’t asked those questions and got some answers, then getting the stop / go decision right is going to be guesswork.

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80. Cue : Response – learning to link what we see to how we react

This article came about because of questions about the original ‘Spidy Sense’ tip that investigated how we respond to hazards. I realised that the use of visual cues is absolutely fundamental to developing ‘situational awareness’ (and an integral part of my Survival Skills advanced rider training courses), and my increasing understanding of how they work together with a pre-learned but subconscious response also came from deeper research that eventually became incorporated into my MIND over MOTORCYCLE book, my first foray into publishing [which you can purchase at http://lulu.com/spotlight/SurvivalSkills.]

The core message — that linking visual cues to pre-learned subconscious responses reduces cognitive load and improves hazard management — is essentially ‘pattern recognition + motor-program automation’ remains highly relevant. Modern cognitive science confirms automaticity frees conscious attention for higher-priority tasks. This is the principle behind much aircrew instruction. The discussion of mental overload, task shedding, and attention limits is aligned with current understanding of working memory and selective attention, and the examples of overload during complex overtakes and the benefits of automated responses to hazards accurately illustrate real-world application.

Cue : Response – learning to link what we see to how we react

In a previous tip, we looked at the concept of “Spidy Sense” and how riders develop an early warning system to danger – a vague sense that something isn’t quite right somewhere – and the roles played by the various parts of the brain in avoiding harm when riding. The problem is that the rider may not know what caused that sense of unease, and so won’t know what the correct response is. We looked how the Mid-brain filters incoming information and decides whether to route it for further processing in the real-time, thinking part of the brain – the Neo-cortex – or hand it over to the subconscious Reptilian brain, which deals with responses to the threat of harm by triggering our automatic panic ‘Fight or Flight’ modes which may result in our reacting in an unwanted response.

So it might seem that so long as our thinking brain is engaged, all will be well. After all, that’s the basic concept behind the idea that if we ‘concentrate properly’ (something that crops up over and over in road safety theory and advanced riding guides), we’ll be able to cope effectively with riding hazards.

But there are two major problems.

The first is one we should really know about – human attention span. We can only concentrate on anything for short periods because our brains get tired. Twenty minutes or less is that adult attention span before our brain needs to switch gear. That’s why learning to ride and drive is so utterly exhausting. Unless we stop every ten or fifteen minutes to recharge the brain, the concept of ‘100% concentration’ is a faulty one.

The second issue is something I covered in a previous article. There’s not just a finite limit to the number of tasks that the thinking brain can handle at any one moment, but there’s active competition for the ‘channels’ that the brain uses in real-time. Any riding activity that takes up a lot of mental processing power will mean that other tasks – potentially important ones – are shed to free up attention for the most important task. This is what Keith Code is getting at when he talks about $10-worth of concentration in his ‘Twist of the Wrist’ books. Read my ‘workload’ article for more on this.

Here’s an example of the workload problem. Overtaking is a complex task. We need to search the road ahead for blind areas and junctions, watch the mirrors for vehicles attempting to overtake us, calculate how long it will take us to pass the slower vehicle and return to our side of the road, and we have to spot oncoming vehicles and work out their speed and distance, and decide if the ‘time-to-collision’ calculation allows us time to complete the pass safely.

If we’re on a dead straight road, with bare ground to either side, in fine conditions with good visibility, then the only really complicated bit is making sure we don’t pull out into the path of a vehicle approaching at a higher speed than we expected.

But what if the overtake is tricky? What if we’re trying to overtake a queue of slow-moving traffic behind a tractor, on a twisty road on a wet day with rain trickling down our visor? Now the task is considerably more complex. Guess what? We reach mental overload and begin to shed tasks. The one that goes missing most frequently, by my observation of other riders and recognising my own errors, is checking the mirrors.

So if we’re already saturated with information, how can we train ourselves to NOT to lose sight of important tasks like this? How can we process MORE information?

Well, the answer is that it can be done – aircrew have to learn to take in and process lots of information, and so do police drivers. Even riding instructors have to learn to ride safely for themselves, whilst monitoring what the trainee and other drivers are doing, plus anticipating what might happen, have a plan to cope… and at the same time as all that, we have to communicate with the trainee too! Training other riders is a much more complex task than the average rider realises.

But if we can up our game, so can a ‘normal’ rider.

The key is to learn to automate some of the less-complex tasks. Some riders – particularly those schooled in the idea that we need to concentrate 100% as we ride – have a problem with this idea that we can process information below the level of the real-time, conscious part of the brain, but we all learn just that technique – we just don’t realise it.

For example, how do we deal with traffic lights? When we first started using the roads, we all have to use our real-time, conscious brain. We look to see:

  • if there is a traffic signal at a junction

  • check what colour it is

  • remember what to do next

With a bit of practice, more and more of the task becomes automated. We simply ‘see’ the lights, and our response to a green or a red light is automatic.

What we’ve done is to learn to recognise ‘visual cues’ – the presence of the traffic signal itself, and the colour of the light, although it’s worth pointing out that many experienced riders still make a real-time decision when the light turns amber! And this automated system can break down completely when we go to France (where the light sequence is different) or the US (where the lights aren’t where we’d expect to find them). I rode straight through the first red light I encountered in the US because I wasn’t expecting it to be strung from a wire high above the road.

Another, more complex, visual task is performed by using a combination of peripheral vision and unconscious steering adjustments to steer the bike accurately within the lane. Once we’re out of the novice stage we don’t have to think about it, we just keep the bike on the tarmac. That works right up to the moment when there’s a difficult decision to make – which side of a pothole to ride, for example. We suddenly find our real-time, thinking brain is fired up to make that decision, because our subconscious system steering the bike down the lane decides it’s not got a routine to deal with the pothole.

Now, here’s the clever bit. We can train our brain to handle some of the essential visual search tasks via this subconscious subsystem. Road signs, particularly the triangular red and white hazard warning signs, provide information about hazards which we need as we ride, but searching for them consciously takes up a lot of processing power. So we do a bit of programming of the subconscious brain. All we have to do is ride the bike, and slow down a bit – because that frees up some processing power – then actively SEARCH for road signs. As soon we give ourselves this little bit of extra time, the signs start leaping out of the hedges at us. Try this out, and in a very short period indeed you’ll find that you no longer have to search for them, they simply appear in your consciousness. This is a technique I apply in my Survival Skills advanced motorcycle training courses and my trainees are usually astonished just how many road signs there are that they’d previously failed to spot.

Now, this is a big step forward but we can go one better. We can tie this ‘visual cue’ to trigger a response. Here’s what I mean. If we see a triangular warning sign telling us that there’s a junction ahead on the nearside, what might be appropriate responses? I’d suggest that a movement out towards the centre line (if safe) would be a good one. Covering the brakes is likely to be a smart move too. And we might also hold off on any acceleration too.

Well, here’s the good news. It’s entirely possible to automate those responses too. All we have to do is start by applying them as a thought-out response to seeing a junction on the left, and very quickly our brains learn that this is an appropriate response to the visual cue.

And now we have built the cue : response link. We see a side turning, and we automatically change position, get ready to brake and ensure we’re not carrying more speed into the danger zone. And having automated those responses, not only do we defeat the SURPRISE! mechanism that’s liable to trip the unplanned and unwanted ‘Survival Reactions’ identified by Keith Code, our conscious real-time attention is freed up to search for vehicles, to see whether we have a line of sight to the driver, and judge whether or not the driver is likely to turn into our path or not…

…and check for following vehicles. It’s amazing just how often mirror checks go missing in times of stress.

Hazard warning signs are particularly effective visual cues because of their distinctive shape and colour. Once catalogued in the subconscious brain’s database of important things, they will start to jump out of the background at us.

Whilst many of the cues are visual, there are cues we can hear (horns, engine noise) and smell (diesel or freshly-mown grass).

Remember – link the cue to a response. Freshly-mown grass means there might be a hedge-trimming tractor just round the bend, so we might have to slow down suddenly – losing some speed NOW would be a very good idea, as would being ready to take prompt evasive action, whilst not forgetting a mirror check.

Other cues I consciously practice spotting include dropped kerbs, broken white lines at the side of the road, gaps in hedges, direction signs and finger posts, traffic islands and islolated lamp posts. I’m sure you can guess where you’re likely to spot all these and just how I’ve trained myself to respond.

Having seen a waiting car in the junction, what kind of visual cues might set off a more significant response? How about:

  • not being able to see the driver

  • not being about to see the driver’s head behind the A pillar

  • the driver looking the other way

  • sudden left / right movements of the driver’s head

  • one hand taking up a different position on the wheel

  • the car visibly beginning to move forward

Here’s some really good news. None of this is difficult, and we can learn it quickly, as people who’ve taken my Survival Skills advanced riding courses will testify – just a few minutes working on this cue : response technique will show improvement out of all proportion to the effort put in.

But we also have to make the effort to keep the skills fresh by working on them for a few minutes every few now and again. The brain is a bit like a cluttered desk – what we use all the time is right at the front where we need it, but the bits and pieces you haven’t looked at for a while slide backwards. And what we haven’t used for ages has probably fallen clean off the back! Practicing regularly keeps techniques in the forefront of the mind. A good time to refresh is when we’re in no rush to get anywhere, or perhaps stuck on a road with a solid line for several miles. Drop back, open up some space and practice spotting visual cues and using the correct response.

It’s this cue : response pre-programming that allows us to move a significant step beyond ‘Spidy Sense’. By identifying then learning the specific cues that can be seen, it’s a relatively straightforward task to link them to a specific response to deal with the hazard.

All it needs is a little thought about the hazards we face, how we spot them, and what we do about them. And then some practice to gain – then KEEP – our subconscious defence mechanism functioning at a high level. Don’t take my word for it – after a two-day course Barbara Alam commented:

“I’ve got a lot better at that since doing your course. It really didn’t take more than a day or two of practice, with the occasional effort to “revise” by consciously doing it, to make it become an unconscious thing”.

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76. What is ‘Spidey Sense’ and how do we develop it?

This is another article which pushed boundaries at the time I wrote it — and got a lot of push-back too — but the core concept that experienced riders developing a subconscious “sixth sense” through pattern recognition is very much valid. Modern research into situational awareness, threat perception, and tacit knowledge in driving and riding supports the idea that repeated experience trains the brain to detect subtle cues. The description of Reptilian / Mid-brain / Neo-cortex interactions has turned out to be a rather over-simplified model and neuroscience today sees the brain as far more interconnected than this triune model suggests, with threat detection and decision-making distributed across multiple networks, but it works well for communicating automatic vs. conscious responses to riders and in the context of helping riders understand their reactions, it remains a clear, accessible metaphor. Experienced riders develop Spidey Sense by building a large internal database of patterns, so potential hazards trigger an early warning before the threat becomes immediate. Coupled with proactive scanning and deliberate practice, this allows us to anticipate, prepare, and respond effectively, reducing reliance on panic reactions and improving overall situational awareness.

What is ‘Spidey Sense’ and how do we develop it?

If you’re anything of a fan, you’ll know that when the bad guys are around, Spider-Man gets a “tingle” from his ‘Spidey Sense’. And experienced riders will also report how they get a sixth sense that things aren’t quite right, so they slow down, look around, just before something unpleasant happens, and thank their lucky stars for the warning. When that happens, we’re developing a kind of biking Spidey Sense. As you have probably realised by now if you’ve read some of the other related articles, the design brief for our 200,000 year-old brain never included the ability to ride motorcycles, so we have to make considerable compromises to ride motorcycles. But what exactly is this ‘sixth sense’? A quick lesson on how our brains are put together will help.

One model of the brain is the so-called ‘triune’ brain, because it consists of three parts.

At the top is the ‘Thinking Cap’, the Neo-Cortex which the most modern and largest part of the brain. In very simplistic terms it’s where conscious thinking is performed and where our reasoning skills are centered.

At the bottom – it’s directly connected to the spinal cord – is the most primitive part of our brain. It’s sometimes called the ‘Reptilian Brain’ because we share it with crocodiles. Responsible for controlling many of the basic body functions, it’s also constantly on guard for danger. It’s blisteringly quick in responding – it needs to be if we’re to duck when someone hurls a rock at our head – but it doesn’t think. It only chooses the most basic fight or flight responses.

Sitting between the two and hard-wired to both is the Mid-brain. Here the Reticular Activating System works with the Limbic System to control attention. This part of the brain works completely below the level of our awareness and acts as a filter on incoming data, attempting to pick out parts with meaning. You’ll probably know how we can hear someone mentioning our name across a crowded room, and how that perks up our conscious attention. The same process goes on to filter relevant information from the vast amount of visual data sent to the brain by the eyes.

But in certain circumstances, the Mid-brain can also route data perceived as a potential threat straight to the Reptilian brain, which goes into automatic fight or flight mode. In biking terms, that’s usually manifested as a panic grab at the brakes, freezing completely and target fixation. Recognise those reactions? You should, because these are the ‘Survival Reactions’ that Keith Code identified in Twist of the Wrist some years ago.

With the proviso that to learn, we need to survive, we can learn from emergencies. We may do some reflective thinking after the event and come up with a better option – why controlled braking is better than a panic grab, for example.

But it seems that scary incidents are also subconsciously ‘logged’ and become embedded. As we continue to ride, what seems to happen is that the Mid-brain continues to process the incoming data – remember, this is happening below the level of consciousness – but increasingly compares it against a database of stored memories, trying to find a match. The more riding experience we have, the bigger the database of past experiences and the more likely the Mid-brain is to find a match. If the past event had unpleasant consequences, then a “things aren’t right” message gets sent to wake up the Neo-cortex. Just as hearing our name across the room flicks us into full-on attention, we’re suddenly on full alert with Spidy Sense triggered.

Of course, it’s not foolproof.

For starters, inexperienced riders don’t have much experience to call on. So in novel circumstances, there is nothing alarming enough to trigger the Mid-brain to wake up the Neo-Cortex. We ride, totally oblivious, into danger. Only when the threat of personal harm becomes obvious enough is control turned over to the Reptilian brain – and that’s when the panic responses kick in.

For a more experienced rider, there’s a second issue. Although we are now on high alert, we’re still only aware that things aren’t quite right. That may help us to take some pro-active action – slowing down is nearly always a good first step – but it’s no guarantee we’ll respond appropriately.

Worse, we may be out of time before we finally identify the source of our anxiety. Analyses of accidents and in the laboratory suggest that it can take us two to three seconds to consciously turn our attention towards a developing threat, to analyse the situation and figure out what’s happening, and come up with a solution. 200,000 years ago, that might have been acceptable, but on modern roads and travelling at a very modest 30mph, it’s an age. We’ve covered forty metres in three seconds. So out of time, the Mid-brain may hand over control to the Reptilian brain. We’re no better off than the novice rider who never saw the threat coming.

A partial solution is to create ‘muscle memory’ pathways to defeat the Survival Reactions. Despite the name, the links we build are really in the brain, but they do control muscles. For example we can learn to overcome the instinctive front brake grab when a car pulls out, or the frozen steering when we’re running wide on a corner, by ‘burning’ learned responses. And we do that by mastering, then regularly practising, techniques such as progressively squeezing the brakes and controlled swerves. The idea is that even when the Reptilian brain tries to take over, we don’t let it totally control our reactions.

But there’s one more thing to think about. The trigger for the Reptilian brain to kick in is often motion detection in our peripheral vision, which is incredibly sensitive to movement. If we suddenly detect movement close at hand, swerving the other way can save the day. But it’s essentially a ‘reactive’ response, after the problem has developed.

The clearly-focussed, colour cone of vision which allows us to see sharp detail is a very narrow, just a few degrees wide. If we only look at the road ahead of us, we won’t gain information about hazards left or right of our path. So we need to be PRO-ACTIVE with our observation, keeping our eyes moving so we are actively searching out potential hazards before they become bigger threats that tingle our Spidey Sense.

By developing ‘situational awareness’ we reduce the chances of having to rely on Spidey Sense too often. And then we give ourselves a MUCH better chance of avoiding triggering the Reptilian brain’s panic reactions. Find out how to develop situational awareness of a Survival Skills advanced motorcycle training course.

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64. The (Ride on the) Right Stuff

I’ve nothing much to add to this except to watch for dynamic speed limits and the increasing use of speed traps where you may be hit with an on-the-spot fine. Riders caught by cameras on autoroutes in France have been stopped the next toll.

The (Ride on the) Right Stuff

If you are venturing to Europe for the first time, you’ll probably be a little nervous. Don’t be. It’s actually much simpler than most riders realise so long as you understand that there are different laws, things like traffic lights work differently, and there are different driving habits. Motoring organisations usually cover most of the technical stuff so check before leaving, but also – and I’ll stress this – watch was the locals do. Don’t try riding the same way you do at home and don’t get upset that the local drivers don’t drive the same way we do at home. Blend it, don’t stand out. But let’s start with the ferry crossing – don’t forget to take a tie-down. You’ll see why.

Although Eurotunnel is quick and convenient, many of us will make our first trip on a ferry. The decks are metal, they get wet and they are slippery!

When board, it may be necessary to ride up or down a ramp. Be cautious if it’s steep either way. Try to do it in one hit. If necessary, wait for other vehicles to get out of the way. If you’re not feeling too confident two-up, you can always get a passenger to walk. Once on board, some ferry companies will secure the bike for you. On some ferries it’s entirely up to you, and some only provide lengths of oily rope. If knots are not your thing, the tie-down will be very useful. I’d recommend placing the bike on the side stand rather than the centre stand. Whilst most crossings on the bigger ferries are quite smooth, in very rough weather, secured bikes do move and it’s possible for the bike

  • to roll forwards off the centre stand

  • to rock sideway off the centre stand

If the machine is on the side stand there are three points of contact (the centre stand is too narrow to count as more than one) and if the bike’s in gear, you have parking brake to help prevent it moving. I wrap a silicone wrist band over the front brake lever and handlebar, which now locks the front brake on. If you use the tie-down to secure the bike downward on the stand, you can get a pretty secure position. If you can secure the wheels front and rear too, you’re pretty secure. Use gloves and / or waterproofs to protect panels and paintwork from ropes and straps. DON’T secure a strap to or over anything plastic or bendy – it WILL snap.

Leaving the ferry involves the ramp again, and there will probably be a queue. Don’t do what one rider did. As we were on an upper deck, I’d paused at the top to make sure I had a safe flat area to stop down on the main car deck. But he got impatient to follow the queue of cars which were stopped halfway down. He pushed past me, and had to brake. Down went the bike which slid to the bottom. Once off the ferry, watch out for slippery surfaces and trucks moving around the dockside, but once on the open road you’ll find driving on the right is surprisingly easy. Basically, we’re following everyone else!

The time to watch out is after a stop. It’s incredibly easy to ride off on the wrong side of the road. The sort of places we get this wrong are:

  • first thing in the morning

  • after any stop that involves leaving the road

  • leaving a filling station, particularly if we’ve ridden in the ‘wrong’ way and are at the pumps facing oncoming traffic – it’s easy to exit onto the wrong side of the road. Turn in so you’re facing the direction of traffic at the pumps – you’re far more likely to come out riding on the correct side again

  • turning out of a one-way street

Take a moment to hit a mental ‘reset’ button. Some people attach some kind of reminder to the key fob, or put a sticker on the bike somewhere. When moving, a good clue we’re on the wrong side of the road (apart from finding a car coming towards us) is to find that we’re looking at the reverse side of road signs. Don’t ask me how I found that out.

In terms of where to be careful when riding, my experience is that the biggest chance of error (after pulling off on the wrong side) is at a T-junction, yet I never actually see this mentioned as an issue. We’re so heavily cued to looking to the FAR side of the road when we look left and to the NEARSIDE when looking right that abroad we forget we MUST reverse this. If we don’t we’re looking on the WRONG SIDES of the road. This is a major cause of collisions for UK drivers abroad (and for Europeans in the UK too). Until we used to looking in the ‘wrong’ place, my advice is always stop, even at a Give Way junction, and take much longer to look both ways.

Here’s another problem which is totally underestimated. Much of Europe operates under the Priority to the Right system – it’s called ‘priorite a droit’ in France. DON’T BELIEVE internet articles or any ‘experienced traveller’ saying “it’s disappearing” or “it’s rare”. It’s real, it’s common in rural areas and urban centres, and drivers DO drive straight out of what appear to be side roads because it IS in operation.

So it’s absolutely essential to understand how it operates and how to recognise it.

In simple terms, when priority to the right is in operation, we MUST give way to a vehicle to our right, even if we appear to be on the ‘main’ road and the other driver seems to be emerging from a ‘side’ road.

On the open road priority is fairly easy to spot. Firstly we need to know if WE have priority. As soon as we turn onto a new road or leave a town look for a yellow and black diamond-shaped sign – this means that WE are on the priority road. At ALL the junctions ahead until our priority is cancelled, we WILL have priority. Whilst major routes often have these priority signs, it’s easy to overlook the fact that most less-important roads DO NOT, and so if we DON’T see this sign, priority to the right will be in operation.

If we are on a priority road, then the sign that CANCELS our priority is a similar yellow and black diamond-shaped sign but with a diagonal stripe through it. From this point on, we MAY have to give way somewhere ahead:

  • we may be coming up to a major road – look for a STOP or GIVE WAY (Cedez le Passage in French-speaking countries) and either SOLID or DOUBLE-DASHED LINES across the end of the road – so the signs and markings are the same as they are in the UK.

  • we may be entering a zone where we have to give way to the right.

Once we know we’re in a town or in a rural area where priority to the right operates, we MUST assess EVERY junction for priority. It’s easy enough. The clue is in the design of red and white triangular junction warning signs:

  • if the sign is a + shape, then we HAVE priority. Double-check by looking for the paint markings at the end of the joining road – we should see the SOLID or DOUBLE-DASHED LINES

  • if the sign is an X shape, then we do NOT HAVE priority over vehicles emerging from our right (although we do over vehicles to our left). And checking the ‘side road’, we’ll also see there are NO PAINT MARKINGS ACROSS IT. This means priority to the right, and we MUST give way to an emerging vehicle. Whilst relatively few drivers simply drive straight out – most emerge cautiously – every now and again someone does pull straight out.

  • in town there probably won’t be a warning sign. Check any road ahead to the right and if we can see either double dashed lines (Give Way) or a solid line (STOP) across the road, then the road WE are riding on has priority. If there are NO markings, then it’s priorite a droit – we must be ready to give way.

The good news is that priority to the right roads are often blind or awkwardly angled – that’s why the driver has priority. Most UK motorcyclists are either blissfully unaware of this system. I took a group ride over to France for a day trip some years back, and carefully briefed all the riders on the train. There was some sceptical looks, and one or two outright didn’t believe what I was telling them.

We were only about thirty minutes out of Calais when a tractor pulled straight out in front of the rider behind me, who had fortunately slowed down. Over lunch he told me that despite many years of riding in Europe he’d never given much thought about priority to the right and was one of those who thought it didn’t exist anymore, thanks to inaccurate internet articles. But having listened to my briefing, he’d spotted the sign, noticed junction was blind and was looking for emerging vehicles when the tractor pulled out. He confessed he would have expected the tractor to stop if I hadn’t covered the issue on the train.

What about roundabouts? Whilst they often worry riders, as the lane feeds us in to the right side of the island, it’s actually very difficult to go the wrong way round.

But we do need to watch other drivers – particularly in France and Belgium – who may be turning left and crossing our path. They will go 270 degrees around the island with NO signal and they WILL make this manoeuvre from the outer lane on the island. In the UK, we’d probably assume the driver’s going straight on, but not abroad. We risk being wiped out. For the same reason, don’t use the INNER lane to go straight ahead to pass slower vehicles on the island. You’ll liable to find the car on your right turning left straight across you. I nearly got taken out this way many years ago. And be on the alert for cycle lanes that go outside the roundabout – cycles and mopeds often have right-of-way.

Motorways are reasonably straightforward, but watch out for confusing on- and off-ramp designs (I’ve left an autoroute only to find myself riding straight back on again) and in Germany, some are very tight corners indeed – they were built before the Second World War. Fly into them at UK speeds and they’re trouble.

Keep your eyes peeled for traffic lights. Firstly, they’re not always in the same place as we’d expect to see them in the UK, and it’s possible to ride straight through a red light. Traffic lights in France and Belgium are dim and often difficult to see in bright sun. Learn the sequences too. French lights go straight from red to green and drivers DO stop on amber, whilst a flashing amber light means they are switched off with no priority. In Italy there’s a green/amber combination, and drivers often turn right on a red when they shouldn’t. But in Germany this is legal IF other signs allow. In France, a flashing pedestrian sign means pedestrians are crossing even though we have a green light – we should give way. French rules on zebra-style crossings changed some years back and now cars DO stop for pedestrians.

Find out what the speed limits are. Whilst urban limits are usually well-signed, in France anywhere where you pass into a village with a red bordered sign, the urban 50 kph applies. There ARE speed cameras around and in Germany they often enforce limits in very odd places – I got flashed turning a corner on a 100 kph road, where a cycle lane crossed the road. Going back up the hill an hour later, the speed limit was 30 kph but I’d not seen the signs. Whilst it’s unlikely you’ll be pursued back to the UK (although increasingly there are stories of debts for unpaid fines being placed in the hands of UK bailiffs), if you get stopped by a police patrol and it’s found there are outstanding fines, you could be arrested. Be aware that roadblocks are employed on autoroutes in France and you could be clocked on average speed over a section. And if you are way over the limit, fines are huge and the bike could even be seized and crushed.

Road surfaces are generally good in the dry, but in my experience the further south we go, the more slippery the surface is when wet. Watch out for:

  • white paint – often slippery in the dry and like glass in the wet

  • gravel – particularly in the mountains – icy roads in winter are often dressed with gravel

  • polished surfaces, slippery dry, lethal wet

  • bevelled kerbs – round traffic islands and traffic-calmed areas and very difficult to spot at night

  • speed bumps – can be vicious

Finally, learn a few common words that you’ll find on signs. ‘Umleitung’ and ‘Route barree’ are useful, as you’ll find out. Have fun!

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61. Before you overtake, do you…?

The central lesson — never assume left-hand junctions are clear when overtaking — is often overlooked, even by experienced motorcyclists. The scenarios you describe illustrate a classic cognitive trap: tunnel vision on the manoeuvre past the target vehicle while failing to account for other hazards.

Before you overtake, do you…?

…check for junctions on the left?

Whenever I’m giving one of my Survival Skills presentations about avoiding overtaking collisions, it takes a few minutes to work through all the places we have to look out for. Most riders are aware of the hazards posed by junctions and other openings to the right, where the vehicle we’re overtaking might turn right, or another in the side turning might emerge from. But way down the list is the fact that a junction or driveway on the left is just as much of a hazard. Why?

Here’s what often happens. We see a vehicle ahead slow, and indicate left. “Good, that’ll make it easier to pass” we think. And so we do all our other checks, swing wide and commit to the pass.

But as always with the Survival Skills approach to advanced riding, let’s not assume things will go right, but think about what might go wrong.

What if the driver swings out to the right to make the turn easy? It’s highly likely if the vehicle we’re trying to pass is an articulated lorry or a bus, but cars do it too, and not always because the driver’s being lazy, as we’re all too quick to assume. The manoeuvre might be very awkward, maybe because the entrance is narrow or because it turns right back on itself.

What if there’s a second vehicle actually in the side turning waiting to turn right? What’s the driver of that vehicle likely to do as he sees the approaching car slowing with the left indicator on? There’s a significant risk he will pull out, straight into our path and now we’re set up for a head-on collision. Why does the driver go? Because he’s seen the same as us, that there’s nothing coming from his left (that’s why we’re overtaking), but he also thinks it’s clear from his right, because of our position. Wide out to the right, we’re blindsided by the car we’re moving out to pass. We might well be able to see over the roof of the slowing car, but from where the driver is sat, all that’s likely to be visible is the top of our helmet.

Or maybe that second vehicle plans on turning left. Exactly the same line-of-sight problem applies, only this time the driver pulls out and turns in the same direction we’re headed. And maybe that takes away the gap we were planning on moving back into before encountering oncoming traffic.

So even if we back out of the overtake, what if the driver turning left cannot complete the turn? What if he’s turning into a single track road and there’s a vehicle coming the other way? Will the turning vehicle have to stop? And can we stop before we run into the back of it? A surprising number of crashes at junctions on fast roads happen when motorcycles collide with the back of vehicles that have slowed or stopped to make a turn.

And of course, there may be more than one vehicle involved. We may look at a pair of cars travelling relatively slowly, and decide we can hop into the gap between them. And then we realise the leading vehicle is slowing to turning left (or right). What will the vehicle we are passing do? The chances are the driver will be braking but aiming to slow or halt just behind the turning vehicle, bunching up close together. Where is our ‘out’ from the overtake now? It’s probably vanished.

All these scenarios we should be able to spot developing, even if we haven’t spotted where the vehicle will turn. We should see slowing vehicles, brake lights and probably indicators. We should be able to put two and two together and figure out what’s happening.

But there’s a final Worst Case Scenario which is not nearly so easy to detect. And that’s when the vehicle we’re about to overtake is NOT turning left but going straight on, but there’s also a second vehicle waiting in the junction ahead, intending to turn right. Here’s what happens. The driver looks left, sees the road is clear (our ahead – which is why we’re about to overtake too), and pulls out across the vehicle we’re just moving out to pass, straight into our path. The problem is that the emerging car doesn’t need a big gap – the driver just needs enough space to get across the centre line and into the other lane.

That led to one of the very few genuine brown trouser moments I’ve had on a training course. The trainee set up an overtake past an HGV well. He’s spotted we were about to exit a left-hand bend onto a long clear straight, moved wide to take a final check ahead, then started to accelerate…

…just as a Ferrari pulled out from the left, right in front of the truck and nailed it towards him. Fortunately, he wasn’t totally committed and was able to hit the brakes and bail out of the overtake. But it was a scary moment.

Of course, it’s not always easy to spot junctions and entrances on the left, but sometimes it’s a simple failure of observation. One of the problems with overtaking is that it’s such a complex speed / distance computation that we can get fixated on whether the road ahead is clear, and totally forget the job of scanning laterally for hazards. I’ve made this mistake myself, most recently on a BikeSafe assessment – I only spotted the entranceway after moving wide.

But very often, the most dangerous locations are flagged up good and early for us, but we still miss the warnings; a hazard line, triangular warning signs, road direction signs, finger posts, traffic islands and cross-hatched right-turn refuges, white paint in the throat of the junction, dropped kerbs, openings in hedges, gaps in lines of parked cars, even the roof of a cottage visible over the hedge – it WILL have a drive.

[A few days after I originally wrote this article, I added the following first-hand experience.]

Well… deja vu moment or what…

Having written this, there I was, zipping down a nice bit of road, slower car ahead, good straight coming up just around the next right-hand corner… I open up the view, it’s clear… but…

I catch a glimpse of something silver to the left just as I move out to start the pass… and abort…

Just as well, because right in front of the car I was about to pass, out pulls a driver in a powerful Mercedes from a well-hedged driveway. He turns right and accelerates hard into what would have been my path had I continued with the manoeuvre.

I’m glad I was out of the way!

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60. Sit back, close your eyes, relax… and hope for the best

I still remember that drive, and how the roundabout incident was followed almost immediately by the petrol station event. The lesson is simple but crucial: never assume other road users will do what you expect. Right-of-way is a legal concept, not a guarantee of safety, and mistakes on both sides — the driver failing to see the bike, the rider failing to anticipate “what happens next” — continue to have serious consequences for the rider. Junction collisions and overtaking errors are still among the most common causes of motorcycle accidents, and rider behaviour that overestimates their own skill or underestimates risk continues to be a major factor.

Sit back, close your eyes, relax… and hope for the best

“We can learn a lot by watching other riders”. Someone told me that a few years back, whilst suggesting that we don’t really need rider coaches like me, nor programmes like my Survival Skills advanced training courses. All we have to do, he told me, is watch how other riders deal with situations and then copy them. Unfortunately, there’s a major assumption built into that particular plan; that the rider we’re watching is actually a role model from whom we should actually be learning.

It was a lovely warm evening in early April, so I took the (t)rusty old Nissan Serena people-carrier down to Eastbourne to watch the Eagles take on the Poole Pirates at speedway. There were plenty of riders out taking advantage of the warm evening sunshine too.

And plenty of examples of poor riding.

Poor positioning on right handers, hugging the white line through a curve so I had to keep moving left to avoid decapitating oncoming riders was a favourite, as were the obligatory duff overtakes.

I saw plenty of the latter, but one in particular was a cracker. Rider 1 begins to overtake and Rider 2 follows. But Rider 1 decides NOT to go for the two car pass that Rider 2 is clearly expecting and slides into a one bike-sized gap between the vehicles. Rider 2 is of course left hung out to dry. Fortunately, there was plenty of room for rider 2 to complete the overtake. Except Rider 2 didn’t, and decided to try to squeeze into the same gap.

But we should know that junction collisions are the most common crash of all, and it was two incidents at junctions that particularly stuck out.

Here’s the first. I’m in the Serena, waiting to turn right at a mini-roundabout, with a stream of traffic approaching from the left who would have to give way to me when I move forward. Unfortunately, the view to my right – the direction where I have to give way to traffic – is partially obscured.

Now, put your biking hat on, and imagine you’re approaching from that direction, where I’m searching for vehicles to my right. So my Serena is ahead and sitting on your left.

Here’s the problem. You’re approaching the junction around a bit of a kink which means your view only opens up quite late. And what you see is my Serena, and a big gap in that stream of traffic that’s been coming the other way.

Let’s hit PAUSE.

What could we anticipate? Firstly, as our machine’s appeared around that kink, does the driver of the Serena know what’s approaching from his right? If he didn’t spot us on his last check to the right, what’s likely to happen?

It’s not difficult, is it? With nothing apparently coming from his right, he can pull out, but now the Serena driver’s attention is almost certainly to his left, to make sure that vehicles approaching from THAT direction give way to him.

So back on the bike, what can we do?

Slowing down would be a good starting point. Covering the brakes would be a second. Watching the vehicle to see if it begins to move would be a third. Being prepared to sound the horn and hit the brakes hard would be a fourth and fifth.

Fortunately I DID spot the bike just as I was about to pull out, and I watched him as he approached and passed through the junction. He did none of these things. In fact, he approached (I guess) at around 10 mph over the 30 speed limit, and straight-lined the mini-roundabout riding straight over the paint blob. He didn’t slow, he didn’t look once in my direction, and I could see he wasn’t covering the brakes or the horn.

Not only would he have been in big trouble had I emerged, but had the last car in the opposing stream turned right across his path, he would have been hard-pressed to avoid a collision. This guy was oblivious to the very real danger posed by the road layout. Why? Lack of knowledge? Or an assumption that he had right-of-way and that other drivers should signal their turns? My guess is the latter.

Two lessons. Just because an oncoming vehicle isn’t signalling to turn right doesn’t mean it won’t turn right across your path. Just because you have right of way over a vehicle on the left, it doesn’t mean a driver won’t pull out across your path. Don’t assume!

Just a mile up the road, I had to fill up before heading to Eastbourne. The filling station is on the other side of the road, so it meant that I had to turn turning right to get back onto the road – that direction happens to be to the west, and we’ll see why that’s important in just a moment.

Once gain, there’s a slight kink just where the filling station is, so now I can’t see left OR right. So like most drivers, I wait for a nice big gap in the traffic stream coming from my right. And when I get one, I pull forward to the centre line, and wait till a gap or some kind soul lets me complete my turn. Predictably, after I’ve sat there for a couple of seconds, a car driver hangs back and flashes me out.

Fortunately for Larry Lackwit on the bike approaching from my right, I’ve already clocked him at a distance, and double-check back to my right to see where he is before acting on the headlight flash.

Because Larry decides that he can make a point about him having right-of-way by aiming his bike for the metre-wide gap in front of my Serena.

If I’d just started to move as I double-checked, I would have punted him straight into the front of the car that had stopped to let me out, and we’d have been calling the emergency services. If I’d already gone without looking, he’d would have buried himself in my driver’s door at 30 mph. He probably wouldn’t have needed an ambulance.

Doubly-fortunate for him, the reason I knew he was there was because I’d been double-checking back to the right even when sat blocking the lane. And I’d looked VERY CAREFULLY because the light of the setting sun was right behind him. Even with his headlight on, he wasn’t easy to spot.

Lesson? Another simple one about being impatient. Why put ourselves into dangerous situations simply to show off our right-of-way? It wouldn’t have saved more than ten seconds – he could have just rolled off the gas, waited for me to complete the manoeuvre, and been on his way with barely a moment lost.

And remember, if the sun is behind us, we have a lovely clear view ahead with everything picked out in the evening light. Check the angle of shadows of the bike. If we’re running over our own shadow, the driver ahead is looking straight into the sun.

Final point… neither of these incidents took place on the local roads where I know riders go hooning on summer evenings. The chances are both riders were locals, and almost certainly know that the mini-roundabout and the petrol station were there. My feeling was that both were making a very deliberate choice to enforce their own right-of-way, and would blame the other road user if things went wrong.

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58. Euphoria – when our riding is just too good to be true

Looking back, I think a good subtitle might have been — “when we are having too much fun!” It conveys the psychological angle to the reader and hints at the subtle danger: it’s not anger, panic, or incompetence, but a state of overconfidence. It signals that the article is about a mental state as much as a riding technique and touches on a psychological state that is increasingly recognised in traffic psychology: a subtle form of overconfidence or “flow-induced risk” rather than outright anger or recklessness. Skill and routine mask the creeping erosion of safety margins — a state that can be more dangerous than obvious adrenaline-fuelled risk-taking because the rider believes everything is under control. The danger is that we don’t notice the shrinking safety margin until something jolts us out of the flow. Awareness of this state, deliberate self-checks, and the willingness to slow down or take a break remain crucial safeguards — even for the most experienced riders.

Euphoria – when our riding is just too good to be true

I got thinking after I got an email from one of my regular correspondents:

“Riding home after work, I felt in the mood for ‘pushing on’ a bit. I was congratulating myself on the swift progress I was making through the traffic, some drivers seemed a bit more aggressive than usual, but, what the hell, that was all part of the fun. The prat who pushed in too close to me and got a stare in return was just that, a prat. The close-ish encounters with traffic islands were just good timing, as was the manoeuvre to avoid the cyclist I spotted a bit late as I filtered rather wide and swiftly along the road.

“However, when I went through the red light I realised maybe I wasn’t riding quite as well as I thought. Didn’t realise, in fact, that the light was against me until half way across the junction. Luckily it was clear, because if it hadn’t been I’m not at all sure I’d have realised.”

He went on to say that perhaps after a stressful day at work he was a bit wound up.

Anyone recognise the symptoms? I have to admit to having days like that when I was a courier, and occasionally on other rides too.

It used to hit me towards the end of a long day. Partly tiredness, partly boredom with doing what became as routine as any other job. I’d get into a groove. In town I’d find myself slicing through rush hour traffic, filtering at high speed, overtaking through small gaps, running amber lights. Out of town I’d be zooming through bends, using big lean angles and engaging in heavy braking. It wasn’t as if I was in a rush to get somewhere either, in fact I’d feel more relaxed than normal. As the risky manoeuvre came off, I’d try them again for fun. It felt all so easy.

All TOO easy.

This state of euphoria is a close cousin to, but not the same as, red mist. The problem is that what’s happening to us usually only becomes evident after something scary or an obvious mistake snaps us out of it. Whilst red mist is characterised by obviously irrational behaviour – usually massive risk taking – in this euphoric state, we really believe we’re doing our normal thing, but in reality we are eating much deeper into our safety margin – maybe even exceeding it.

The bad news is that it’s almost addictive. And there’s a massive temptation to push towards the limits and enjoy the buzz as nothing seems to go wrong whilst we ride quicker and quicker, closer and closer to the edge. But sooner or later we WILL push too hard and cross the line. So riding in this way and waiting for the big mistake to tell us that we were actually in over our heads isn’t such a great idea.

Personally, I got to recognise the symptoms on those despatch jobs, and have been able to rein myself in before things get too out of control. I’d make a conscious decision to slow down, take a break or even turn off the radio and go home early!

One of the questions I ask myself as I ride is: “did that look dangerous to other road users?” If I have to say to myself: “yes, it probably did” then it’s time to dial down the fun and head, rather more slowly, for home.

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55. Workload – the reason to Keep it Simple, Stupid

When this article was first written, the idea that rider and driver errors were often the result of cognitive overload rather than poor attitude or insufficient commitment was not widely accepted in motorcycling. Even now, there is still pushback in certain sectors framing errors as a simple deficiency in attitude or technique.

Since then, the same conclusions this article draws have been repeatedly confirmed in aviation, medicine and other safety-critical industries: human attention is finite, workload is cumulative, and once capacity is exceeded, performance degrades in predictable ways. This article reads, in hindsight, like a bridge between disciplines — translating human factors research into rider language well before that became fashionable. I could legitimately position it as an early application of systems safety thinking to motorcycling rather than simply an “advanced riding” piece.

Is it still relevant? Absolutely. Modern motorcycles may be more capable and modern riders more skilled, but the human brain — whether that’s the rider’s or the driver’s — has not changed. If anything, increased traffic density, in-helmet communications, information-rich dash panels and navigation systems, and ever-more complex riding environments make workload management more important than ever. The principles that follow were not speculative then — and they are even more relevant now.

Workload – the reason to Keep it Simple, Stupid

Over the years, one of my areas of fascination in researching the background for my Survival Skills advanced rider training courses has been the human brain and how it copes with riding. Our brains reached their current form with the appearance of Homo Sapiens around 200,000 years ago. But many components that make up our modern brain have their origins in the lower branches of the evolutionary tree. It’s always been a bit of a puzzle to me how something that evolved when man had a top speed of something over 20 mph should be able to function rapidly enough to deal with riding at speeds well above that. I initially wrote this article with half an eye on the claims that using a hands-free mobile phone was safer than using a hand-held device, and with the other half on claims that skilled riders can safely use more complicated skills and techniques. It’s been rewritten somewhat, but the essential thinking about our ability to process limited amounts of information remains unchanged, as is the conclusion that we should use the simplest technique that is effective. Eventually, all this reading around the topic produced my book ‘MIND over MOTORCYCLE’ which you can find on my publisher page at http://lulu.com/spotlight/SurvivalSkills. The book covers all this and more.

In the mid-80s a series of studies were carried out to evaluate a proposed one-man attack helicopter. The cockpit systems used a significant amount of automation. Neverthelss, it was determined that a single crew member could not adequately perform all the required tasks. As a result, the Comanche helicopter uses a two-person crew.

The term workload refers to the total demand placed on an individual as a task is performed. And even experienced and expert riders have a finite limit to the mental workload they can handle.

Now, if you want to, you can skip forward to how we cope on the road, but if you want more detail about the demands workload places on the brain, carry on reading.

The theory of competing resource channels

One explanation is that workload does not make demands on a single ‘central’ processing resource but instead uses several channels which compete for processing resources.

This theory was propopsed because we can easily walk and chew gum at the same time, but we cannot talk and listen at the same time – one explanation is that there must be multiple resources for information processing. These processing resources are usually described by four components; visual, auditory, cognitive and psychomotor, and any task can be broken down into the demands it places on each resource channel. The visual and auditory components refer to the external stimuli that are attended to, the cognitive component refers to the level of information processing required and the psychomotor component refers to the physical actions.

Rating scales have been developed for each component. The scales provide a relative rating of the degree to which each resource component is used. They were developed by providing surveys containing matched pairs of task descriptions to a range of human factors experts who were asked to indicate, for each pairing, which one required a higher level of effort. The higher the scale value the greater the degree of use of the resource component.

Scale – Value Description of Activity

  • Visual

0.0 – No Visual Activity

1.0 – Visually Register/Detect (detect occurrence of image)

3.7 – Visually Discriminate (detect visual differences)

4.0 – Visually Inspect/Check (discrete inspection/static condition)

5.0 – Visually Locate/Align (selective orientation)

5.4 – Visually Track/Follow (maintain orientation)

5.9 – Visually Read (symbol)

7.0 – Visually Scan/Search/Monitor (continuous/serial inspection, multiple conditions)

  • Auditory

0.0 – No Auditory Activity

1.0 – Detect/Register Sound (detect occurrence of sound)

2.0 – Orient to Sound (general orientation/attention)

4.2 – Orient to Sound (selective orientation/attention)

4.3 – Verify Auditory Feedback (detect occurrence of anticipated sound)

4.9 – Interpret Semantic Content (speech)

6.6 – Discriminate Sound Characteristics (detect auditory differences)

7.0 – Interpret Sound Patterns (pulse rates, etc.)

  • Cognitive

0.0 – No Cognitive Activity

1.0 – Automatic (simple association)

1.2 – Alternative Selection

3.7 – Sign/Signal Recognition

4.6 – Evaluation/Judgment (consider single aspect)

5.3 – Encoding/Decoding, Recall

6.8 – Evaluation/Judgment (consider several aspects)

7.0 – Estimation, Calculation, Conversion

  • Psychomotor

0.0 – No Psychomotor Activity

1.0 – Speech

2.2 – Discrete Actuation (button, toggle, trigger)

2.6 – Continuous Adjustive (flight control, sensor control)

4.6 – Manipulative

5.8 – Discrete Adjustive (rotary, vertical thumbwheel, lever position)

6.5 – Symbolic Production (writing)

7.0 – Serial Discrete Manipulation (keyboard entries)

Generally speaking, we have enough mental resources to carry out the most demanding tasks in any one of these categories or to carry out multiple but undemanding tasks that engage different channels.

But…

if we’re performing more than one task at the same time and those tasks make demands on similar components, the result is likely to be excess workload – we simply run out of brainpower to perform both tasks effectively. Any cumulative workload value of 8 or more was defined as an unacceptable workload level. Once we exceed the acceptable workload, the result is likely to be errors in our performance of those tasks. This includes a general slowing-down of the performance (it takes longer to process data and respond), task shedding (where we forget to do something completely), or rapid task switching (we hop back and forth ineffectually from one task to the other).

The component scale has been applied to model the tasks of driving whilst making a call on a mobile phone.

Task: Vis. Aud. Cog. Psy-M.

Driving: 6 1 3.7 2.6

Stopped at Light: 3 1 3.7 0

Start after stop: 6 1 4.6 2.6

Dial and Press Send: 5 4.3 5.3 7

Wait to connect: 0 4.3 3.7 2.6

Talk: 0 6 6.8 2.6

The model can therefore predict the individual component and total workload of the combined driving and cell phone tasks at any point during the execution of the combined tasks.

Workload Maximum Mean

Visual 11.00 6.26

Auditory 7.00 6.62

Cognitive 10.50 10.02

Psychomotor 9.60 5.43

From these figures it’s clear that the combined Cognitive tasks of driving whilst talking on the phone exceed the acceptable workload figures at all times. It’s not just when dialling to make a call when the task also makes demands of our visual and psychomotor resources which exceed the acceptable workload. And so drivers attempting to hold a conversation on a hands-free phone whilst behind the wheel are prone to make mistakes that a driver focused solely on driving would be highly unlikely to make.

What about on two wheels? The resources required to ride the bike would include all four components; the visual resource of looking at the road ahead, the cognitive resource as we interprete the visual data, the psychomotor resource which refers to the movement of arms, hands and feet to control the machine and even the auditory resource which would monitor from the sound of the engine.

So, how does this impact on real riding?

There is a limit to the amount of ‘mental processing power’ we have to ride a motorcycle. It would sound like riding would be difficult, if not impossible, in complex riding situations because we would exceed the workload limit. So we’d expect to see errors in performance of various tasks, a slowing-down of the performance of those tasks, task-shedding where we lose track of one part of the overall task, or rapid task switching where we ineffectually hop back and forth from one part of task to the another.

And in fact, that’s exactly what an instructor will see with a novice rider. A complex task such as a right turn (which involves making visual checks, a change of gear and the movement of the indicator switch, the cognitive element of judging speed and distance of the machine and other vehicles, plus the steering of the machine itself) might be performed perfectly off-road. But as soon as the novice rider attempts the same task on-road, it’s often poorly performed; visual checks go missing, the bike ends up in the wrong gear or the clutch control goes out the window, and indicators get forgotten.

So how do we ever overcome the problem?

The answer is that we ‘automate’ routine tasks – for example, the clutch / gear / throttle manipulation soon becomes so deeply embedded we no longer think about it, it just ‘happens’. And we can also learn to have a pre-planned response to specific ‘cue’ which also occurs below the level of consciousness. People have trouble believing this but our response to a red traffic light is a good example. Once out of the novice stage where we’re still actively scanning around for traffic signals, we don’t really ‘see’ the red light, we just drop into the routine of judging speed and distance, and slowing down effectively.

So, with experience, we become able to handle many straightforward tasks without having to process the incoming data in the real-time conscious ‘thinking’ brain. And that frees up attention for effective mirror checks, checking the surface ahead of us where we’re going to brake, and wondering whether the light might change back to green before we have to stop.

But the more complicated the task, the less attention we have to spare. Maybe we’re attempting to negotiate not just a single set of lights, but a complex road layout with multiple lanes in busy traffic, whilst trying to read road signs. Now, there’s a good chance we start to task-shed and skip steps – because our eyes are scanning the scene ahead, mirror checks often go missing.

And this brings me back to the helicopter. We don’t have the luxury of a second crew member. We have to get everything right alone, and that means the simpler we make riding, the less likely we are to hit the workload limit, and where something has to give.

I’ve written about overtaking, and gone through all the many points at which an overtake can go wrong – this article should give you a better idea why. The workload processing required to decide whether an overtake is ‘on’ or not takes even highly-experienced riders to the limit or even beyond their ability to mentally process all the data. So it’s incredibly easy to miss something, and it’s usually something obvious when we look at what went wrong retrospectively. Something as simple as the vehicle being overtaken indicating to turn right. Because of the demands on our processing resources, the flashing indicator never made it into the rider’s conscious awareness. And that’s why I suggest that we always keep things as simple as possible. If there are two ways to perform a task, the simplest method is nearly always the most reliable way.

And don’t forget the problem of talking on a mobile phone. But what do some instructors ask trainees to do – talk into a radio whilst riding in the form of a verbal commentary. Asking even an experienced rider to make a verbal commentary on a ride isn’t a good idea because it pushes the rider into ‘workload overload’ condition – check out the values from the first table:

Searching the road ahead: 7.0 – (Visually Scan/Search/Monitor (continuous/serial inspection, multiple conditions) )

Think what to say: 6.8 – (Evaluation/Judgment (consider several aspects) )

Say it: 1.0 – (Speech)

TOTAL WORKLOAD: 14:8

That’s way over our workload limit and we’ve not even talked about riding the bike! So that is why I don’t ask riders to perform a commentary ride.

“But the police do it all the time” I hear you say.

Indeed. Now, listen to HOW they talk. They have learned a very stilted, formalised language. They’ve essentially removed the need to THINK how to express what they see. And this brings workload down significantly. They also learn commentary riding and driving as part of a much longer course than a civvie rider will ever experience.

So this is why I do NOT require anyone to perform a commentary AS they ride. What I do is find places to stop, and let them perform their commentary at the side of the road. We’ve removed the workload connected with riding the machine and they can turn all their faculties towards identifying hazards. Even when I perform a commentary ride for the trainee, I’m aware that they have to listen, consider what I’ve just said, and visually search the scene to see what I’m talking about. So I only ever perform a commentary ride at a nice gentle pace that minimises the other workload demands on my trainee.

And finally, the workload overload issue is one of the reasons I use a building block approach to training, and why speeds are kept low when applying those new techniques. Covering new techniques one at a time is less-demanding and keeping speed down allows for correction when (not if!) mistakes are made.