Tag: judgement

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07. What’s the goal of post-test training?

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?

 

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01. Rider Competence: Who’s Truly Ready for the Road?

I’ve been directly involved in rider training for just over three decades as I write. Even before that, I was writing about riding technique, based on what I’d personally learned via the usual mix of theory from books like ‘Motorcycle Roadcraft’, and how I had interpreted what I’d read in those books via my own experience as a motorcycle courier, a job I enjoyed for sixteen years. And I was doing a bit of informal coaching with a university bike club too. It was that role that pushed me towards getting some formal qualifications. This article explores the question of rider competence and how to judge it.

As I write this short note, the UK government is holding consultations on reforming rider training. Whether anything will happen, who knows? If it does, I’ll update this particular article.

Rider Competence: Who’s Truly Ready for the Road?

Back in 1995, I was just starting out on my journey to become a qualified rider coach by starting at the bottom – as a CBT instructor. Along with three other novice instructors, I took a very intensive and thorough training course with CSM – at that time the biggest rider training school in the country. The course was very hard work, and as I was to discover over the next couple of years, an excellent foundation for working with riders at all levels – I learned more about teaching in six days than I had in six months on a post-grad education course.

But at the end I still didn’t have an answer to a crucial question:

“How do you know if a trainee rider is at an adequate standard to issue a CBT certificate?”

Rider Competence and CBT

So I asked our trainer. Here was his answer:

“Is he or she likely to kill themselves as soon as they ride out of the training school gate? If yes, then they’re not at the CBT standard. If no, then give them the certificate.”

That was pretty brutal but it answered the question. If the rider could cope out on the road, being aware of the most likely hazards and having the necessary skills to change speed and direction to negotiate those threats, then that was good enough. Scary, really. It certainly doesn’t demonstrate rider competence.

And that brings me to a question that anyone involved in coaching riders, whether directly via a training course, or even when writing articles online:

“Rider competence – what is it, what level should it be set at, and who qualifies as competent?”

Rider Competence – who qualifies?

Here’s my answer.

Competency is about being to move beyond rigid context-free rules. My favourite example of a rigid routine that is often followed without thinking about WHY we’re applying it is the basic routine taught to all new drivers (*) in the UK:

‘Mirror – Signal – Manoeuvre’.

Condensed to MSM to help us remember, it’s all too often followed by “oops!”

It’s taught to new riders too – just substitute ‘Observation’ for Mirror and you have the OSM routine.

Using mirrors and indicators competently requires us to understand the limitations of mirrors and why a blind spot check may be needed, how our signals will be interpreted by other road uses and why it’s still necessary to double-check all the way through the manoeuvre to ensure that it’s still going the way we planned it.

This is one measure of competence – being able to assign importance to particular activities and events, and thus being able to prioritise our responses to situations by analysing what matters most, rather than following a routine we learned by rote.

CBT routes are carefully chosen to take the new riders around a range of hazards, but at the end of the two hour road ride, the trainees have only learned ‘by rote’ routines for a very limited number of traffic situations. And of course, the instructor is there all the time at the end of the radio link, ready to stop in with help and advice at any moment.

Learning by rote doesn’t allow for thinking application, and learner riders straight out of CBT may not even remember the OSM routine at the end of the long day. So, if you ask me, a rider straight out of CBT definitely isn’t about to demonstrate rider competence – far from it. CBT really doesn’t equip a new rider to cope with the roads. It offers the barest selection of survival tools. And that’s why the DVSA always intended CBT to be the lead-in to training for the full motorcycle test.

But what about riders who’ve passed that full bike test?

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Rider Competence and the DVSA bike test

One thing I’ve heard many times is that trainees carry their trainer’s voice in their heads, sometimes for years after taking the UK motorcycle test, but out their on the road in front of the examiner, there’s a crucial difference when compared with CBT.

Candidates have to make their own decisions.

They don’t have the comfort zone of their instructor and the radio link to keep them out of trouble, though the examiner will step in when there’s clear danger, though of course that’s an instant test fail.

And since on test a candidate can end up anywhere, those riders cannot apply fixed rules – they have to be able to use their knowledge to solve problems. They may need to negotiate an unfamiliar roundabout or junction by using reason and analogy, thus applying what they already know to a novel situation.

This ability to move beyond rules and and rote learning, and to apply what’s already known flexibly to new challenges is the first of our measures of competence.

This is exactly why practice must be structured — something I explore in my piece on the Salami Principle and why practice makes permanent.

So by this measure, I’d say that a rider who passes the bike test – or at least, passes it without racking up a dozen minor faults – qualifies as competent. Since riders who manage a test pass must have managed to ride the test route without putting themselves at risk, I’d say most riders with a full licence are by these measures competent. Not necessarily ‘proficient’,  note, and definitely not ‘expert’. But most are competent enough to deal with the the majority of the challenges they will encounter on the roads in the next year or two…

…with one major proviso. The DVSA test creates rider competence within the context of the riding environment they are tested in. And given the limitation of the the basic DVSA motorcycle test, that’s urban riding with a bit of country road and dual carriageway thrown in. The test simply isn’t in-depth enough to cover much ground physically – the candidate is on the bike for not much more than half-an-hour. Thirty minutes doesn’t allow for much riding outside town centres so basic training rarely covers cornering or single carriageway overtaking, for the simple reason neither are likely to be severely tested on the DVSA test.

In reality, both of which are actually pretty essential skills. Nor do most learners get to tackle heavy city-centre congestion or mountain roads. And none ever ride on motorways. So by these measures, whilst a newly-qualified rider should be capable of coping with standard town traffic, they would not likely be competent in all areas.

I’ve written elsewhere about how cognitive load and fatigue limit learning — see my article on how far is too far for a training day.

What about riders who’ve taken post-test training, maybe gaining an advanced riding qualification along the way?

Rider Competence and post-test training

Well, even with their gong, some riders continue to dodge big cities. Others still avoid motorways. Many actively stay away from narrow country roads. Many a time I’ve been told “I don’t enjoy riding in those conditions so I avoid them”. We may not enjoy all riding environments, but when there are places we actively avoid, then we can’t claim to be fully competent either, regardless of having demonstrated an ‘advanced’ level of riding skills on test.

There’s also a mental element to rider competence which I believe is very much ignored at both basic and post-test level, And that’s the acceptance of responsibility for our choices.

And that starts with understand that we actually MADE choices and that we weren’t forced into a course of action by unavoidable circumstances. A driver didn’t pull out on us “from nowhere” – the car came from somewhere. The bend didn’t “tighten up on us” – we didn’t read it correctly. Most dangerously of all, if an overtake goes wrong, it wasn’t “the driver’s fault for not checking his mirrors”, it was our responsibility not to put ourselves into the position where we could end up in difficulties. In short, if we’re still blaming other road users when we end up in a potentially-dangerous situation, then we’re not demonstrating competence either.

So here’s what I do when I’m training; I apply a cascade of questions:

1. did we arrive in one piece at the end of the journey? If we didn’t then we’re obviously not competent. If we did, we can move to the next question…

2. did we force other road users to change speed or direction to avoid us? If we did, then it’s the actions of others keeping us safe on the road, not our own riding behaviour – we’re still not competent.

3. did we scare ourselves and have to take serious evasive action along the way? If we did, then clearly there was an element of luck involved in keeping us out of trouble, and we’re not competent yet. If we got there with no frights, then the next question…

4. did we arrive by gliding around other road users without impacting their choices, did we arrive without any sudden scares or evasive manoeuvres on our part? If we did, then it’s likely we are competent enough.

If you want to check your own riding for competence, you can try answering  these questions based on your own riding. But naturally, those answers lead to another series of questions. What are the skills and knowledge that are absolutely NECESSARY for a rider to know and to be able to perform to reach competency? What SHOULD a rider know? And what’s just NICE – the superficial gloss which looks good but doesn’t actually add any particular value to our riding? Next time, I’ll try to answer that.

Final point. We are unlikely to be competent at every area of riding. But the more areas we can tick off, the safer we’re likely to be out on the roads.