Tag: positioning

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71. Off-siding – a technique that crosses the line?

The crucial decision here is to balance risk versus benefit, the potential gain in situational awareness versus the real possibility of putting ourselves in a dangerous position. The perception of our manoeuvre from the other driver’s perspective is all-too-often completely overlooked. However, that doesn’t mean we should never consider taking up a position on the other side of the centre line and hazards such as narrow single-lane bridges can create real vision problems if we don’t exploit the full width of the road.

Off-siding – a technique that crosses the line?

I originally wrote this tip as an expanded response incorporating questions being asked by a nearly-new rider. With a year’s experience since passing the bike test, he was shown the technique of ‘offsiding’ on a riding assessment. If you’re not familiar with the term, offsiding is positioning to the RIGHT of the centre line (here in the UK) to improve the view ahead, rather keeping within our own lane. I remember being told many years ago that “you’ve paid to use all the road – so do so”. I’m not implying he was being encouraged to use this position but many riders do, myself included on rare occasions – I’ll explain the limited circumstances in a moment. In the time I’ve been involved in rider training offsiding seems to have gone from a technique that was generally accepted “but do it carefully” to one that’s generally frowned upon as “controversial and we really shouldn’t”. So what’s the right answer? Is there ever a time when it’s a good idea to cross the centre line to gain a view?

Before we go any further, we need to sort out if it’s legal. So long as the centre line is broken – that is, we’re looking at crossing either the short lane divider markings or the longer hazard line, it’s not illegal – we can cross a broken centre line. But we could end up on the wrong side of the law if we’re seen to be riding carelessly or even dangerously – in the case of a longer hazard line, the Highway Code says we can cross the line “if safe and necessary to do so”. Much will depend on who is interpreting ‘safe and necessary’. My view may not be the same as that of a policeman or magistrate.

If we can say “yes, it’s legal”, my approach on Survival Skills advanced motorcycle rider training courses is always to get trainees to ask two questions in order to perform a basic cost / benefit analysis:

  1. what are the benefits

  2. what are the risks?

The usual benefit that is proposed is extra vision – the further right we move:

  • the further we can see ahead around a blind bend to the left

  • the more we can open up a view into a blind area on the left

  • if we can see further, we may also be seen from further away

Let’s start with the the blind bend, and the idea that we can open up the view from riding right of the centre line. What about the risks? The most obvious one is in riding along the ‘wrong’ side of the carriageway, sooner or later we WILL meet someone coming the other way. As we’re on the same side of the road, we’re on a collision course.

It should be fairly obvious we need to be able to return to our side of the road WELL BEFORE the other vehicle gets anywhere near us. But if we have this kind of clear space, isn’t it likely we’re already seeing a long way ahead? What exactly are we adding? As I’ve said elsewhere, the practical reason for extending “the distance we can see to be clear and expect to remain clear” is nearly always to carry more speed. Whilst speed might be essential as part of a police rider’s pursuit activities, it’s NOT part of the remit for an ordinary civvie rider.

If there’s a bit of a question about the advantage, what about the disadvantages? A bit more thinking should reveal some real problems:

  • the shock experienced by the oncoming driver who finds a motorcycle on the wrong side of the road in front of him

  • the need not just to get back left of the centre line, but to shed any extra speed too

Let’s reverse the position. If we were rounding a right-hand bend and suddenly found a car approaching on the wrong side of the centre line, how would WE respond? Would we be thinking calmly: “ah, advanced driver doing a bit of off-siding”? Would we be thinking at all? What’s the chance we’d respond with a WTF and a panic grab of the brakes? I rather think it would be the latter. And what if we panic-swerved too, to our right into the other lane and away from the car? What happens next? This confusion alone is a very good reason to avoid offsiding into a blind corner – we should always avoid putting ourselves into situations where our safety depends on other road users behaving reliably. Even if we don’t scare the bejasus out of the driver, we still have to return to our side of the centre line. A typical response is along the lines of: “I only off-side at a speed that allows me to return to my side of the road in time”. But what if the other driver is going a bit quicker than usual? What if the oncoming driver has cut the corner to straighten it out? Check out the worn paint on the middle of a lot of fast kinks – the reason it’s worn is vehicles straight-lining that bend.

And if we were carrying more speed towards the corner to exploit the better view, we now have to get rid of it. Have we got enough space to do so? And if we’ve had to cut back to the left closer to the bend, does that means we’ve just turned into the corner too early? And is there a risk we’ll now run wide later in the bend? ‘Turn-in too early, run wide later’ is a classic bike cornering crash accident so why take a line that could actually precipitate this error? About the daftest ‘benefit’ to offsiding I’ve heard is that “you get a longer braking distance because you’re not directly behind the vehicle in front”. Eh? Have a think about that for a moment. What if something comes the other way? Could we now safely return to our side of the road and slow down before running into that vehicle going the same way? I’m baffled by the thinking here, and if I feel my braking distance is being compromised by the vehicle ahead, I’ll open up space ahead, and probably slow down too.

If the argument FOR offsiding towards a blind left-hand bend is that we have plenty of space to deal with the above problems, then we can make an argument AGAINST offsiding that our view around the left-hander probably isn’t that bad in the first place. And the sharper the left-hander, the less the benefit but the greater the risks.

However, there is a time I will CONSIDER offsiding approaching a left-hand bend, and that is where an off-side position will MAINTAIN a view that I already have – that is, I can already see clearly and by crossing the centre line I avoid losing the view ahead. It’s sometimes possible that as we exit one corner – typically but not always a right-hander, we can see round the following left-hander, usually because it’s a gentle kink.

For example, on one of my training routes we encounter a narrow single lane bridge. As we exit the previous right-hand bend, we actually have a long view ahead, across the bridge and for around 400 metres further down the road. So if we turn IMMEDIATELY onto the ‘wrong’ side of the road we MAINTAIN the view that we already had, as we ride up to and over the bridge, and we can see if there are oncoming vehicles we might have to give way to.

But if we don’t offside, and do the conventional thing and remain in the left-hand lane, the view ahead gets cut off by the hedge. Now the bridge is blind, and we have to ‘pop out’ from behind it to GAIN the view over the bridge at the last second. In this case, the long forward view beyond the bridge more than compensates for any potential hazards from oncoming vehicles – we have ample time to ‘see and be seen’ and we can move back if necessary – there’s also a chance the driver coming the other way will give way to us.

So if by moving to the right of it we can MAINTAIN the view we already have, then there is an argument for offsiding. But early planning is essential. What I nearly always see in this kind of situation is that riders take too long to work out the lines-of-sight, then move too late, often only when they realise they have lost the view. Now we are attempting to REGAIN it. It’s risky because even if it’s only takes a couple of seconds, that’s a couple of seconds we’ve been riding blind. Sometimes, riders will anticipate a right of the centre line position could open up a view and move to GAIN it, but move far too late. Now the risk is we might gain a close-up view of the front of a Scania – something we didn’t really want to see.

There’s one last case. I mentioned that crossing the centre line can open up a view into a blind area on the left, and that may help someone see us coming:

a driver about to pull out of the blind area to see us coming. The roads are littered with blind driveways, entrances and side turnings, and sometimes I will spot a particularly risky one. I could slow right down just in case a vehicle started to emerge, but I could also slow down AND move to the right if the view ahead and behind shows the road is free of traffic

approaching a left-hand bend with a car parked on my side of the road on the corner. It’s a situation not dissimilar to the bridge I mentioned earlier – by moving right early, I MAINTAIN the best possible view around the parked car, and give the oncoming driver the best chance of spotting me coming. What I don’t want to do is pop out jack-in-the-box style, and GAIN a view only to meet someone head-on

So, to sum up…

…there are some occasions when I will cross the centre line. But it’s always tempered by the realisation that whilst I am in control of my own speed and position, I cannot control how the driver coming the other way reacts. I also have to distinguish between the advantages of ‘maintaining’ a view and the risks of attempting to ‘gain’ a view.

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70. Overtaking, lifesavers and following distances

Crash stats don’t lie. Overtaking continues to be one of the most hazardous manoeuvres a rider can perform. The core message that mirror checks alone are insufficient and that well-timed blind spot checks can provide critical and complementary information remains an important one. The coming trend towards technology such as blind spot warning systems may assist us, but I very much doubt they can fully replace these fundamental techniques. Since overtaking is inherently high-risk, anything that reduces the threat should be considered.

Overtaking, lifesavers and following distances

My position on ANY technique that we use whilst on the bike is that it should IMPROVE safety by reducing risk. Or to put it another way, if a technique increases our exposure to risk it’s worth asking if we should be using it. Overtaking is inherently high risk. However good we are, we can only reduce those risks, we cannot make overtaking ‘safe’. Think about it. It’s about the only accident we’d ever accelerate into. But we’re also involving other human beings, and humans don’t always behave predictably. Ovetakes often go wrong when the driver we’re planning on passing does something we didn’t expect. And now we’re carrying a lot of speed. And of course, no matter how fast we think we are, there’s always someone quicker. And they might just possibly be planning on ovetaking too. We need up to date situational awareness before we commit ourselves to an overtake.

A regular ‘advanced riding’ debate is: “should the rider perform a ‘lifesaver’ before pulling out to pass another vehicle?”

As with any question like that, the answer revolves around what we’re attempting to achieve. As explained in another article, the ‘lifesaver’ is a final over-the-shoulder blind spot check that we make before moving sideways into a position where there might possibly be another vehicle.

The debate hinges on whether or not we can rely fully on what is sometimes called ‘mirror history’. The theory is that if we check our mirrors often enough, we’ll have spotted another vehicle catching us, and we’ll know that there is nothing in our blindspot.

Here’s the issue as I see it. Here’s the upside. If we DO check, and there’s something there, we can abort our manoeuvre. And if there’s nothing there, we’ve taken our eyes off the road ahead for a second or so to take the look. Does that really matter? Not unless we’re very close to the vehicle ahead, or we’re trying to squeeze the pass into the tightest possible opportunity.

But what if we’re relying on the mirrors? However often we look in the mirror it can only tell us what’s behind us, not what’s alongside in the blind spot.If we spotted something in the mirrors, then we abort the manoeuvre. But if we didn’t spot the vehicle in one or more of our mirror checks, WE DON’T KNOW IT’S THERE. Now the danger is that we commit ourselves into the overtake and put ourselves at risk.

The real problem is that we have limited attention, and the busier the road gets, the less likely we are to make our mirror checks frequent enough to fill in information about what’s catching us from behind. As one contributor put it:

“I find there are some situations where I think a shoulder check is essential and some where they aren’t needed. It all depends on the complexity of predicting the future. If you have gathered a stable but dynamic, developing ‘picture’ of the space around you from the information gathered in the period before the manouevre – other traffic, behaviour, speeds – and can confidently predict that nothing will adversely affect the manoeuvre… then you make the move without a shoulder check. If the situation is one of high complexity then you make the check.”

In essence, I agree. But given the human propensity for making mistakes, I’d have to be very, VERY certain there was nothing around me NOT to do one. Positions of vehicles change very fast and we need up-to-the-minute situational awareness, and it’s debateable whether mirrors alone can ever provide this.

Look at it this way. We wouldn’t rely on three or four glimpes of the road through a tall hedge before deciding it was safe to drive straight out of a minor road. We’d take a final look before committing ourselves. Mirror checks give us the rearward equivalent of these glimpses. Only a shoulder check can show us directly what is actually IN the blind spot.

On a single carriageway, at least we know where the danger’s coming from – behind us. But on multilane roads, it could be from either side. In the middle lane, a vehicle will come up fast on the nearside, then swoop across behind us, switching to the outside lane. There’s a significant risk that any checks in the right mirror will not have spotted this vehicle. Even if we’ve made mirror checks to the nearside, it’s unlikely we’ve spotted what’s happening unless we look at just the right moment. This can also happen as we pass the ‘on ramp’ on a motorway or dual carriageway. And drivers also move up into, then sit in the blind spot so we can’t see them either in the mirror or peripheral vision. The only way to see is via a blind spot check. In either case, all that’s needed is a quick ‘chin-to-shoulder’ glance into the blind spot before we commit ourselves.

So if looking into the blind spot can only have positive effects on our situational awareness, what’s the objection?

“It’s potentially dangerous if the car ahead suddenly slows down.”

That’s easily answered. If the car ahead slowing down instantly puts us at risk, we’re too close. No arguments. No “if’s”, “but’s” or “maybe’s”. If the car ahead slows and we are instantly put at risk, it doesn’t matter where we’re looking – it could have been in the mirror. We should have been further back, no matter we’re looking to be in the ‘overtaking’ position. If we can’t look away from the car’s brake lights, we are too close. And what’s less obvious is that if we’re in the least bit worried about running into the car ahead, we’re not going to be giving our overtaking planning full attention! It’s a form of target fixation.

“A lifesaver takes too long.”

Someone once quoted two seconds as “the time it takes to look behind”. That shows a bit of a misunderstanding about WHERE we’re looking. There’s more about this in another tip, but we’re only looking into the blind area, not ‘behind’. If we combine our final mirror check (and you ARE going to make one, aren’t you?) with the over-the-shoulder lifesaver, it doesn’t actually take all that much longer than the mirror check alone – try it.

You may see it as a ‘belt and braces’ approach, and you might argue that if we’ve got a good belt, we don’t need braces. Maybe, but belts do slip and then we might be very glad to have the braces to hold our trousers up.

One of my least favourite expressions is “if I didn’t overtake, I might as well be driving a car”, as if a motorcycle is an automatic licence to overtake.

It’s hard to Personally, I believe that there’s nothing more dangerous that we do on a bike than overtaking.

So I tend to think that everything we do that decreases risk when overtaking is a good idea. And one of those good ideas is knowing what’s behind you, which is probably the area that most riders forget to check! “After all”, they reason – “if you are overtaking you’re going faster so the hazard must be in front of you, no?”

Well, actually, no! If you’re thinking about an overtake, so will someone else be. The most obvious candidate is another bike but there are plenty of cars out there these days with stunning acceleration – ask Jeremy Clarkson!

Given the ever-more crowded state of the roads, the chances of an overtake being completely free of oncoming traffic is going down every day – you need more attention AHEAD of the vehicle you’re planning to pass and behind you too, not less by worrying about running into it.

It’s been claimed that looking behind takes too long. Some quoted two seconds

Half the reason for this argument on the issue is that many riders still think that a lifesaver is a long look behind. That was what riders were supposed to do until fairly recently, thanks to the DSA’s reluctance to acknowledge bikes had mirrors till the late 90s, but it’s really not necessary. A lifesaver is simply a chin-to-shoulder blind spot check timed before an important change of position, into a potentially dangerous position. In other words, it’s the timing rather than the action.

It’s simple enough to combine a mirror check and follow through straight into a blind spot glance. Your head check has now filled in the entire picture alongside and behind. I really cannot see why people are so against the idea of doing them. If it’s timed correctly it’s no more dangerous than looking in the mirror.

Whilst I’m on overtakes, I’ll comment on the habit of moving up to a very close “overtaking” position behind the vehicle ahead when looking for an overtake. It’s recommended by police instructors and can be seen demonstrated on the Bikesafe 2000 video. For my liking, that position is far too close – at one point on that otherwise excellent video, there is barely a single hazard line between the bike and the car ahead. Even their safer “following” position is about half the distance I’d like to keep between me and another vehicle.

So, I’d double the distances shown in that video – my following position would be around the 2 second minimum safe distance, and my closer up overtaking position around 1 second back.

Whilst it’s true that the holding a more distant 1 second “overtaking” position means you are accelerating from a greater distance, with good timing you don’t need to twist the throttle so hard because you can get something of a “run” at the overtake. Hanging back further allows you to catch up in the final part of the corner, and often makes it easier to pass without excessive speed or any wasted time. If you are too close, it’s hard to accelerate before you are wide and clear, which tends to lead to big throttle openings.

In reality, if you overtake from further back, what you have to avoid is carrying too much speed into the overtake. If a situation starts to develop that looks awkward, you may have to pull back in. If you can’t pull back in, you are passing with too much speed. You should pass slowly enough that you can bail out if you need to. I can’t begin to say how many times I’ve been in the middle of a pass and something goes wrong that I’ve had to brake to avoid, and I don’t just mean misjudgements on my part – but brain out manoeuvres by the other driver.

If you yo-yo between the close “overtaking” position and the more laid back “following” position, you need to think how incredibly distracting that can be to the driver you are trying to pass, particularly if you have lights on. And something else that’s rarely mentioned is that as soon as you move up, the car behind YOU maintains their own “is that a fly on that bike’s numberplate?” following position, so dropping back becomes problematic, if not potentially dangerous – another reason for not getting too close in the “overtaking position” and finding yourself the meat in a sandwich.

Following too close through a bend is a mistake too, as most drivers decelerate until they can see their way out of a corner – if you’re too close, that means you decelerate too and end up at lower revs than you meant to.

Slow + high gear = longer time to make the pass when you finally go.

Another factor which is frequently ignored is that cars are massively more powerful than they were even 10 years ago. Even something that looks like it ought to trundle out of a corner like a massive 4×4 can often accelerate pretty quickly. Yes bikes are faster too, so we end up using ever higher speeds to make up the pass.

Even a good overtake is potentially dangerous – so it makes sense to make them as safe as we can, not to risk all on a hurried and botched pass.

There are two problems, if you discount the obvious one of failing to look often enough. Working out speed and distance – and then deciding when that vehicle will arrive along side you. to do this

You’ll need to look into the blind spot to see the bike or car that comes up so quickly that you don’t spot it between regular checks. Do some sums. At 60mph you’re travelling around 27 metres per second. Say you check your mirrors every 5 seconds (and that’s pretty enthusiastic mirror checking, too) – in that distance you’ve travelled around 130m.

Now, what if there is a bike (or possibly even a police car) doing 120mph coming up behind you? If you check your mirrors four times at 5 second intervals, with the final check when it’s along side you, the first time you check it’ll be over 500m back – more than a quarter of a mile. There’s not that much chance you’ll spot it – think about how mirrors make things look further away!

Second check and it’s now 270m back – that’s still more than the length of two football pitches – there’s a pretty good chance you still won’t see it if there is a lot of other traffic in the lane.

Next check will be when it’s 135m behind you. Sounds easy enough to spot, but if it’s in the same lane, and there is another vehicle close behind you, will you see it? And even if you do, if you didn’t see it in either of the two earlier checks then what you don’t know is how fast it’s going.

On your fourth check, the car/bike is alongside you. Scary.

Another problem with mirror history that you may find on a

So, things can change very fast indeed on motorways. Even if you think you know what’s there and it’s going to stay there, you might be wrong. Read this:

“The dangers of the assumption above were brought home to me when I was being observed a few years ago. We were on our way back and it was getting dark; my observer was riding a Pan and another Pan had caught up with us which I hadn’t seen; this second Pan had gone past the observer who had moved over accordingly, so the lights I saw in my mirror weren’t his at all; thus there was very nearly a meeting of fairings when I pulled out to overtake, thinking that my observer had anticipated the overtake and was ready to follow me through, when, in fact, it was the “foreign” Pan overtaking me.”

So, given the safety benefits, why are some riders and instructors so dead-set against them?

 

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65. Seven reasons SMIDSYs happen

This is another early article which seeks to understand the ‘Sorry Mate I Didn’t See You’ SMIDSY collision between a motorcycle and a car, and to go beyond the simplistic “the driver didn’t look / didn’t look properly” ‘explanation’ relied on by road safety. SMIDSYs remain the leading cause of motorcycle crashes at junctions. The focus on human perception limits, positioning, and proactive riding is fully consistent with modern collision research and advanced rider training. A few years back I gave it a mild re-write to make it a little clearer, fixed some typos and added some extra comments based on my more recent investigations on motion camouflage, peripheral blindness, saccadic masking, size-arrival effect, and workload. The analysis remains accurate and supported by contemporary cognitive science and traffic psychology. As I explained in the earlier article, it’s important for us motorcyclists to realise that the SMIDSY is a ‘Two to Tangle’ collision. That is, if the driver SETS UP the conditions in which a crash CAN happen, the motorcyclist still has to RIDE INTO IT to complete it. That means most junction collisions are avoidable.

Seven reasons SMIDSYs happen

Another day, another ‘biker down’ forum thread. What happened? The rider is minding his own business on a main road, a car pulls out from left, the rider doesn’t manage to take evasive action and takes a trip to hospital in the back of an ambulance. It’s so common, it’s something that virtually all riders are aware of.

Unfortunately, along with the ‘get well soon’ messages, it also generated the usual non-thinking “drivers kill bikers” responses. So, let’s drag ourselves out of the blame culture the entire country seems to be slipping into, and see if we can work out why the “Sorry Mate, I Didn’t See You” SMIDSY crash is still happening, one hundred years after the first intrepid riders powered off on two wheels.

One of the common factors revealed by accident analyses by expert collision investigators is that many of these crashes COULD be avoided IF the rider:

  • saw it coming

  • responded in time

But looking at crash stats we’re no better at avoiding them than motorcyclists back in the 1950s. Collisions at junctions remain the most common collision between a car and a bike. So here are SEVEN REASONS SMIDSYs HAPPEN.

There are some pretty well-documented problems.

1 – the ‘See and Be Seen’ issue – we have to be where the driver can physically see us for him to have a chance.

This is still one of the toughest concepts for riders to get their heads round, not least because so many safety campaigns are aimed at drivers and telling them to ‘look twice’ or ‘look harder’ for bikes. But it’s no good the driver looking harder if we’re in the wrong place. If the driver’s to have a chance of making the right decision, we have to open up a line of sight to the driver’s eyes. Before anything else, we need to do is to LOOK for places where vehicles pull out. If we do that, then we can work out what the driver can and can’t see, and POSITION our bikes where the driver has a chance of seeing it. It’s no good knowing the junction is there if we’re in the wrong place; unless Superman is driving we’re invisible.

[Recent stats suggest that around 1 in 5 junction collisions happen when the rider isn’t where the driver could see the bike. It’s not just roadside furniture but also the internal structures of the car too. We NEED that line of sight to the driver.]

2 – the ‘camouflage’ effects of lights and multi-coloured bike/clothing – riding lights, hi-vis and bright clothing don’t necessarily help you be seen.

Ever since the 1970s, it’s been assumed that if bikes are hard to see, then using day riding lights (DRLs) and hi-vis or light-colour clothing would drivers spot them. Early laboratory research appeared to support that theory. In fact, when we look at accident statistics, there’s little evidence for a significant change – we have just as many ‘looked but failed to see’ collisions at junctions as we ever did.

First of all, hi-vis clothing depends on making a contrast with the background. Ever looked at a yellow hi-vis vest against spring foliage? Almost the same colour. An orange bib will be invisible if you happen to be outlined against autumn leaves or an RAC van. Oddly enough, the colour that probably stands out best is pink – ask yourself how often do you see something pink as you ride? Nothing in nature and few buildings or vehicles!

Meanwhile, Multicolour clothing and paint schemes tend to break up the solid shape that the brain detects as ‘bike and rider’. It’s known as dazzle camouflage and has been used to hide targets by disguising their outline. The visual recognition system in the brain works by recognising shapes the brain has memorised and ‘flagging’ them for more attention (think vintage car owners waving at each other!). Break up the outline and there’s a risk that the a bike doesn’t leap out amongst other traffic and shout “BIKE”, and you can vanish from the driver’s perception. I well remember a tale told by a friend of jumping out of her skin when confronted with two ghosts in the local churchyard, one with no legs, the other headless. It was only when they greeted her that she realized it was two locals from the village. The woman’s shock of grey hair vanished against the grey stonework of the church and the man was wearing dark grey trousers that were invisible against the sloping path behind them. There’s also evidence that lights can actually hide the bike behind them, particularly if you are one of those riders who ride on main beam. The blur of light makes it difficult to pick out size (and thus distance) and speed.

3 – the difficulty of picking up an object headed directly towards us – a motorcycle approaching a driver at a junction isn’t moving across the background because it’s on a near-collision course until the last couple of seconds. ‘Motion camouflage’ – our difficulty in detecting something that is moving straight towards us – and the consequent ‘peripheral blindness’ were known about decades ago in the biological sciences and are behind the hunting patterns of many animals. But only recently has the issue been recognised as applying to humans attempting to detect other vehicles. The suggestion about a positive change of line came originally from an instructor buddy of mine. The eye IS sensitive to lateral movement in peripheral vision, and he develop the idea further into the Z Line, which I talk about in my Science Of Being Seen (SOBS) presentations, and also on the SOBS blog at http://scienceofbeingseen.wordpress.com

And that assumes we’re looking in the right place. The eye only has a very narrow cone of clear focus. The rest is blurry peripheral vision. When searching around a scene, we aim this focused vision at specific points which attract attention (see the comment on shapes above). By jumping from point to point, these ‘fixations’ create a picture of what’s around us. But not everything attracts attention. So our bike could be missed as we move our eyes and fall into a ‘saccade’. It’s known as saccadic masking.

4 – experienced drivers fail to scan the whole distance between where they are and the gap they are about to emerge into – it appears they subconsciously assess the kind of road they are emerging onto and look straight into the distance – a bike CLOSER than that gap will be out of the central focus and thus will be invisible until the movement across the background is noticed in peripheral vision which will only happen when the bike is right on top of the viewer (see 3)

This is a learned ‘energy-saving’ phenomenon. The brain consumes huge amounts of the body’s energy supplies so it employs techniques that reduce energy consumption, and one of those techniques is learning short-cuts that have the same effect. We’re taught to look for vehicles when we are waiting to emerge at junctions, but it’s not a very effective strategy on a busy road, because what we need to spot are the gaps! Research initially suggested this was a problem for experienced car drivers who learned by experience, but other studies have suggested ALL road users – motorcyclists included – learn very rapidly indeed that a strategy of ‘looking for other vehicles’ fails at busy junctions, so that we switch to searching for gaps. In nearly every case, it works (if it didn’t, every single junction would be littered with smashed cars) but occasionally it doesn’t. The risk now is that a vehicle close up to us goes missing because we’ve focused behind it on the gap. And we pull out, unaware there is a vehicle between us and the gap. It’s often a motorcycle but whilst some research suggests that whilst drivers make just as many SMIDSY errors in front of other cars (which we might expect), other research indicates that – adjusted for exposure – motorcyclists also pull out in front of other motorcyclists almost as often.

5 – the emerging driver has to look two ways at once… this automatically much more than halves the amount of time he has to see you (think about it – he has to turn his head then refocus in your direction!). Just because you’ve had the driver in clear sight for 10 seconds and thus have had plenty of time YOURSELF to identify and assess the risk, doesn’t mean the driver has had more than a couple of seconds to spot you – and if he looked in the wrong place….

This comment highlights the ‘Two to Tangle’ issue – the rider caught out by the SMIDSY crash can normally see it coming for several seconds before things start to go wrong, but doesn’t use this time effective to prepare. It also hinted at the driver’s problem of ‘saccadic masking’, which is an effect where our vision shuts down when we’re turning our heads quickly – it’s to help preserve balance and prevent the nausea caused by the background rushing past our eyes – think travel sickness. The very latest research – in September 2019 – also suggests that when traffic gets heavy, drivers don’t just lose track of motorcycles, they forgot they saw one. It’s another weakess of the brain – it has a limited ‘buffer’ in which these short-term visial memories can be held ready for processing.

6 – the effect of size – Even when we do spot a motorcycle approaching, it’s difficult to judge speed and distance correctly when it’s heading straightwards us. Viewers overestimate distance and underestimate speed of small objects. Drivers have trouble spotting bikes, and then even more trouble working out where they are and how much time the driver has to make the manoeuvre. Known as the size-arrival effect, which leads to drivers under-estimating speed and over-estimating distance of bikes compared with cars and vans.

7 – the emerging driver has a very complex set of tasks – they have to engage the right gear/slow/stop/steer on the final approach, check both ways, make sense of the information being gathered and plan their own manoeuvre.

By comparison, the approaching rider has a much more simple set of tasks – spot the vehicle at the junction, decide if they can be seen/have good clearance/are on a good bit of surface, decide if they need to slow. This led me to look more indepth at the concept known as ‘workload’, which I’ve talked about in another article. It’s significant – the driver looking to turn out of a junction has a LOT more to monitor than the rider approaching the junction.

FINALLY…

Whatever the reason for a SMIDSY, it makes sense to be proactive – to make preparations for things going wrong – check behind, cover the brakes (possibly even set them up by applying them lightly) and prepare to brake or swerve. Then we’re much less likely to be taken by SURPRISE! and require our own ambulance trip to hospital.

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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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56. Wide lines, tight lines, right lines – the law of Diminishing Returns

This article challenges the idea that “positioning for view” is ‘necessary’ to be seen as an advanced rider. Whilst it’s accepted that “positioning for safety” should always be first in the hierarchy of ‘safety — stability — view’, as an absolute rather than a trade-off. As I’ve said elsewhere, “safety” is an abstract goal, as in “more view must be safer”, but risk is a trade-off between exposure and benefit. Riders often accept a large increase in exposure (to oncoming traffic or hidden hazards) in exchange for a very small gain in information (measured in metres or fractions of a second), without consciously evaluating whether that trade is favourable. The extra metres of visibility only have real value we intend to act on them, and in practice that usually means carrying more speed through the bend, which magnifies the consequences of any mistake. That’s the paradox; more view doesn’t automatically make us safer if we simply use it to ride faster — and that’s where risk creeps back in. The safest line is not the widest or the tightest, but the one that leaves the greatest margin for error when something goes wrong — including our mistakes as well as the mistakes of others.

Wide lines, tight lines, right lines – the law of Diminishing Returns

Years ago, I went along to one of the very first BikeSafe courses run by the Met Police, and had a good day, picking up a couple of useful tips and generally being impressed with the comments. One of my few negative observations on the day was the way the police rider taking us out held a wide line, right out on the white line, around left-hand bends even when there was traffic coming the other way*. I felt the position was too extreme, and when writing up my day out, I made this comment on my regular bike forum. The ensuing discussion surprised me.

One forum member, a former bike cop himself, took me to task and insisted that if the rider gained an extra half-second view ahead, then the wide position was worth it.

I thought about the cornering crash stats, and just how many riders are killed on left-hand corners. It’s pretty obvious that seeing the spiky thing on the front of the tractor half a second sooner if it’s about to impale us doesn’t really help much. A second trainer :

“There are times when position for view is the last thing (but not ‘final’) to be considered. Narrow lanes, tight blind corners? Forget ‘progress’, hug the left verge.”

Then up popped a third instructor with:

“Seeing something half a second earlier CAN make a difference. What is important is that your speed is right such that you are able to deal with any situations as they occur.

“Very often people are simply carrying too much speed as opposed to being in the wrong position. The two combined are a lethal combination, 2 mph can be too much, just lose it and manage the problem.”

So which is it? Should we hold that wider line and get a slightly better view around a left-hander? Or should we tuck in a little closer to the nearside and sacrifice a bit of view for some extra clearance to oncoming vehicles?

The answer, to my mind, usually lies with the simpler option.

If we hold the wide line out alongside the centre line, and we DO see something we need to avoid, then we need to move – and pretty rapidly too – to the left to get out of the way.

If on the same corner we hold a slightly tighter line, we have slightly less view around the corner, but the chances of meeting a vehicle cutting the corner and requiring some evasive action are lessened. And we’ll probably not have to move so far for that evasive manoeuvre.

But there’s another consideration. The only real reason for holding a wide line around a corner is to carry more speed. Think about it – we need to be able to ‘stop in the distance we can see to be clear on our side of the road’ etc. That’s the instruction from ‘Motorcycle Roadcraft’, the police manual. If we move left, we can still apply the rule, just at a slightly slower speed because we can see a little less far.

How much is our view restricted? Well, mid-corner it’s not nearly as much as is generally believed. The diagrams in Roadcraft are massively exaggerated in terms of width of the road, simply to make the point clear. But on real roads which are much narrower, the extra distances we can see by taking up wide positions is just a few metres. If you’re sceptical, you can easily see for yourself. Stop near a left-hand bend, and walk to the centre of the lane – look up the road and see where the limit point is. Now walk out to the centre line, and have a second look. You won’t be seeing much further around the corner. If you don’t fancy getting round down, you can achieve much the same result by using the satellite view on Googlemaps and zooming in on a bend. Lay a straight edge over the screen and move it around to simulate the different lines of sight. I think you’ll be surprised how little extra the view moves forward as you shift from a centre-of-the-lane position to the extreme right.

The real benefit of the wide-right position on a left-hander is not what we can see of the the road ahead, it’s actually an earlier view – and more separation from – the other big threat on any twisty road; blind driveways, entrances to fields, and side turnings on the inside of the corner…

…and if we DO find something pulling out from the left or turning into the entrance across our path, we better be able to stop in short order.

Suddenly, the benefits of carrying more speed around the bend don’t look quite so important as the ability to stop when we find the road blocked.

  • I repeated BikeSafe in 2018 and am happy to report that the police rider was taking up rather less extreme positions!

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52. The Lurker, the Drifter and the Trimmer

These three road users have not disappeared, even in an era of driver-assist technology. Modern cars may have cameras, sensors and warning systems, but they do not change human behaviour, and in some cases they encourage complacency. The key lesson remains the same: it is not the vehicle that creates risk, but predictable patterns of human behaviour. If there was a major omission, it was that I failed to acknowledge that these behaviours are not confined to car drivers. Motorcyclists can lurk in blind spots, drift between lanes without clear signals, or trim corners and roundabouts just as readily. Recognising these traits in ourselves is as important as spotting them in others, because the habits we tolerate in our own riding are often the ones that place us at greatest risk.

The Lurker, the Drifter and the Trimmer

Every now and again someone sets me a challenge. On this occasion it was to find three types of driver that riders need to keep their eyes open for. Of course, the article actually focuses on three drivers OR riders to on the be alert for. Yes, bikers are just as guilty of these thoughtless bits of riding as car drivers!

The Lurker finds places to hide, concealed spots from which he can leap out and surprise us. If there’s a truck coming the other way is there a lurker behind it? He’ll be right up the tailgate where we can’t see him, and he’ll pop out like a Jack-in-the-box. Our response? Move left, gain some buffer space and a better view. What about that side turning? The Lurker will sit too far back where we can’t see him and he can’t see us, and he’ll lunge forward. Move away, to the right, to gain clearance and a better view. If there are bends ahead with blind areas, then the Lurker will hug the hedge and appear just when we think the road is clear.

The Drifter is a different animal. He expects us to devine his intentions by telepathy. On a multiple lane road, he’ll change lanes by sliding slowly from one to the other, oblivious of traffic, no looks, no signals. Avoid the Drifter by sitting staggered in the adjacent lane, rather than alongside the other vehicle. Keep an eye open for movement, and we mustn’t for a moment assume that the Drifter knows we’re there. The Drifter is a hazard at side roads. He’ll turn across our path oh so slowly. And if he’s going our way, then having blocked our path, he slowly accumulate pace rather than accelerate to match the speed of the traffic flow. Back off and be prepared to match to his. Watch out for the Drifter behind. Keep an eye on the mirrors if he’s following. When we ride into a lower limit and decelerate, the Drifter won’t change his speed, not until he’s trying to ride pillion. Use the brakes to slow so there’s a warning light, and use them very lightly too – that way we’ll only slow down gradually.

The Trimmer thinks that using a bit of our side of the road is perfectly fine because it makes life a bit easier for him, it cuts down the effort needed to steer accurately around bends, roundabouts and into and out of junctions. Watch for the Trimmer coming the other way on left-handers. He’ll cut across the central line so we have to be prepared to tighten our own line by moving to the nearside. Faced with a left-turn into a side road, the Trimmer will swing wide to the right to make the manoeuvre easy, even though we’re coming the other way. If we’re in the side turning, the Trimmer will take a lazy line turning in on our side of the road by cutting across the centre line. The Trimmer will straight-line roundabouts. Even when traffic is busy, he’ll take the straight-line short cut when going straight ahead. Our defence is not to try to overtake across the island.

If you want to learn more about understanding how to manage the risks of riding on the road, why not check out the website and find out about Survival Skills advanced motorcycle training courses?

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50. A time to live…

Not long ago, I heard a rider raving about his new bike. His LED lights enabled him to ride faster at night, his high-tech semi-active suspension allowed him to corner faster, and his cornering ABS would sort out the problems… at least, that’s what he believed. The problem he hadn’t spotted is that no-one had upgraded the ‘wetware’ behind the bars. Despite these undoubted advances, a major cause of serious motorcycle crashes remains late perception — by the rider, by other road users, or both. This article’s central thesis is that time is a fundamental survival currency, and the more of it we have, the better-off we are. It’s just is as valid today as it ever was. Nothing here has yet been invalidated by technology.

A time to live…

Have you ever been floored by an unexpected question? I have. I’m not a quick thinker on my feet. It’s why I’m not great at interviews – I like to have someone give me a question and then have time to think about the answer. The same applies out on the road. Putting ourselves in a position where we need to come up with a quick response to an unexpected question, a riding problem that requires a rapid solution causes many of us difficulties. Not surprisingly, what happens unexpectedly is a prime cause of crashes.

So let’s take some time to think about a question for you. What do:

  1. “See and be seen”

  2. “Only a fool breaks the two second rule”

  3. “Position wide for view in a bend”

…all have in common?

The first is straight from basic training, the second is from a road safety campaign, and the third is a general axiom any advanced rider will recognise.

Answer – they all give us time on the road.

What is so important about time? It’s a window of opportunity to see potential danger, and offers time to think what to do. The earlier we spot danger and the more time we have, the more likely we are to make the right decision.

Given enough time, we’d never over-cook it in bends, never be surprised when someone pulls out in front of us, never be caught out by a poor surface.

So gaining space and time is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.

But it doesn’t just work for the rider. We have to be in the right place to seen by other road users so that they too have time to understand what they are seeing, and how they can respond to our presence.

And that’s where ‘See and Be Seen’ must be applied. It’s something we try to hammer into new riders on basic training courses, but so often experienced riders – even those with post-test credentials – seem to have forgotten the basic lessons, and ride as if they are unaware of the risks posed by blind areas and ‘Surprise Horizons’ which may conceal a vehicle. Unless we put ourselves in a place where we CAN be seen, then there’s little chance that driver will consider the possibility that there might be a motorcycle approaching. And when we appear and SURPRISE! other drivers and they are unlikely to react predictably!

An awful lot of “Sorry Mate, I didn’t see you” SMIDSY collisions happen when the biker is hidden in traffic or behind road furniture, or behind the car’s own bodywork. Some studies have estimated it’s around one in five of all ‘Looked But Failed To See’ collisions.

Our lack of width on two wheel is both a disadvantage (it makes us harder to spot) and an advantage (it allows us to change position).

Use the one to compensate for the other. See and be seen. Find some time and use it to live.

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34. Roundabouts routines – straight lines, wide lines, stability, view, advantage and risk

This is likely one of my most contentious posts as my position is very far from the ‘straight lines are stable lines’ approach to riding roundabout followed by many advanced riders and regularly promoted by advanced trainers. Roundabouts are junctions first and foremost, and the dominant risks are not loss of grip or any other issues caused by steering the bike but the potential for misunderstanding, misjudgement, and conflict with other road users. In that sense, a line that reduces lean angle but potentially hides the approaching bike from turning traffic and makes emerging vehicles harder to see at the same time, then increases ambiguity about the rider’s intent is not inherently safer simply because an upright line feels more stable, particularly if the rider then uses the straight line to carry more speed. In the Survival Skills approach, stability is a secondary benefit; predictability, defence, and escape options come first.

Roundabouts routines – straight lines, wide lines, stability, view, advantage and risk

A recurring topic is how to deal with roundabouts. Essentially, the problem is that there is a head-on collision between the DVSA approach as taught to new riders which follows the advice in the Highway Code, and advice from advanced sources which often talks about ‘straightening out’ roundabouts. I’ve even seen one highly dubious article which advocated turning left from the right-hand side and turning right from the left-hand side race track style. The justification was ‘more progress’ and you can probably guess by now that I thought that was extremely poor advice because roundabouts are junctions. My first (and last) question to anyone advocating a roundabout as a suitable place to be making progress is “would you speed up through a crossroads?” I think you can guess the answer to that. Here’s my own Survival Skills thinking.

Roundabouts are a kind of junction. And anywhere traffic flows cross each other are potentially dangerous places, particularly where the flow – as is the case at most roundabouts – is regulated by ‘Give Way’ markings. Like any other junction, the point of highest risk is where vehicles on conflicting courses merge and separate again.

Drivers have problems with motorcycles at junctions. Sometimes they look and cannot see the motorcycle because something blocks their view. Sometimes they look and fail to see – there are a number of well-defined reasons for this. And sometimes they see the bike, but misjudge its speed and distance, and commit to a potentially dangerous manoeuvre.

And roundabouts are also places where drivers and riders get confused about each others’ intentions. It’s not always immediately obvious where another vehicle is going.

I didn’t learn any of that from a book. I learned it all by bitter experience as a courier. Put it all together, and my experience tells me that manoeuvres that aim for us to get out the other side a second or two earlier really aren’t very sound ones.

The article in question suggested :

“If you wish to turn left or right at the roundabout then (again assuming there is no other traffic about) you will need to maximise the radius of the turn within the constraints of the road-layout”.

The diagram shows a left-turn line with a far right approach, clipping the inside kerb and exiting near the centre white line, and the mirror image for a right-turn line – a far left approach, clipping the island and exiting close to the left hand kerb.

Need? Do we NEED to maximise the radius of the turn? Of course not.

But beyond whether it’s ‘nice’ or ‘necessary’, let’s have a think about some genuine concerns with this approach.

Let’s start by pointing out that it’s entirely the opposite of the ‘keep left to turn left, keep right to turn right’ approach taught to every new driver. The standard approach is taught for a pair of very good reasons. The first is that our position sends a signal to other road users, just as much as the use of an indicator. So if we’re approaching wide left with a right indicator showing, what’s the driver to think? Maybe that we’ve forgotten to cancel the signal. And maybe he or she will believe the position rather than the signal, and pull out. The biggest plus for following the same Highway Code lines around roundabouts as we teach on basic training is that it sends clear and unambiguous signals to other road users – including pedestrians or cyclists who might be crossing the side roads, let us not forget – about our intentions. If everyone stuck to the Highway Code approach, none of us would ever be confused as to what anyone else intended. The moment we start using a non-standard approach, there’s a significant risk of confusion – other drivers won’t anticipate the manoeuvre. That’s when things go pearshaped!

The second reason is defensive. Anyone who’s ever watched a race, car or motorcycle, will know that a wide approach to a corner leaves a big gap that anyone wanting to overtake will attempt to exploit. Turning left or right from a wide position opens up a huge hole. We’re liable to find a following vehicle attempting to fill it, and if that vehicle’s going straight ahead, we have a major problem.

Someone pointed out that the statement about “assuming there is no other traffic about” means we don’t need to factor in these issues. But how often can we be ABSOLUTELY certain the junction is completely clear? Few roundabouts have perfect views to the left or right, and many have the ahead view OVER the top of the island deliberately obscured, precisely to make us more circumspect about zooming around the roundabout just as someone coming the other way turns right across our path. And did YOU think of pedestrians and cyclists?

And how far back does “no other traffic” have to extend? What if another vehicle appears just as we commit ourselves to this confusing path? When I see riders exploiting these kind of lines on roundabouts, it’s often taken to mean “no other traffic already in my path”. Hmm.

But thirdly, I’d have a concern even on a totally deserted roundabout. What should be our biggest concern after conflicts with other traffic? How about the surface? We could find a change of surface, potholes, poorly-finished repairs, gravel and bits of debris just out of sight. And where could any forward-thinking rider reasonably expect to find a diesel or fuel spill? I’d be looking for it on the wide exit to a left turn and a wide exit to a right turn – right where this article suggests we should plan to head.

And my fourth concern would be changing line if a problem emerges. Does this maximum radius line make it easier or more difficult to change direction if we need to take evasive action? If we use the line to carry more speed, the answer’s fairly obvous. And if we slow down in case we encounter a problem, what’s the benefit of maximising the radius of the turn in the first place? None that I can see.

So I would stick to the ‘keep left to turn left, keep right to turn right’ approach. But what about going straight ahead? Isn’t it safe enough to straighten out a roundabout if it’s clear? Isn’t it possible to approach on on the left, then clip the island mid-roundabout, then exit back on the left?

This is sometimes called the kerb-kerb-kerb (KKK) line and the “if it’s clear” statement is the crucial one.

Some years back, I nearly had two riders – judging by the bibs they were a pair from the local advanced group – buried in the side of my people carrier. I was emerging from a junction, the road was clear to my right so I started to pull forward. Fortunately, I was still checking right because this pair were cutting over the cross-hatched zone designed to force vehicles to the right where they can be seen. The road layout was modified precisely because emerging vehicles cannot see around the hedge belonging to a cottage that’s right on the corner to the emerging vehicle’s right. If I had been less cautious, I doubt they would have avoided me as I pulled out. We would never keep tight to the left passing a side turning on the left because it restricts our view, but that’s what this KKK approach implies. And if you think about it, it also restricts our view of traffic coming around the island from the opposite direction, traffic that might be turning across our path.

On another occasion, it was me using the KKK line and I nearly got taken out by a following Kawasaki rider. Having followed me on my KKK line through the previous three roundabouts, for some reason he tried to out-brake me into the fourth. Fortunately for both of us, I was watching my mirrors and was able to give him room, but had I held my line across the island, he would have speared me. So we don’t just need to think about wringing advantage from a roundabout, but to think how we can use our lines to defend our position.

As you can see, I ride with different priorities on roundabouts.

So on Survival: SKILLS two-day course or my one-day Survival: URBAN course?

I look for defensive approaches, not wringing out some marginal ‘advantage’. The Highway Code approach line, keeping left when we intend to turn left, or keeping right when we plan on turning right, is a ‘blocking’ line with respect to following vehicles, and also helps confirm our indicators by sending a clear signal to other road users about where we want to go. The slower, tighter turn may mean less speed around the corner itself, but keeps us away from the likely location of a diesel spill or gravel accumulations, and also makes it easier to change direction – or even stop – if needed. Avoiding a maximum radius line means less speed mid-corner but gets us upright sooner, just like the Survival Skills ‘Point and Squirt’ – that means we’re back on the throttle sooner, and quicker away from the roundabout.

But I have created a variation on the KKK approach – and it works within the Highway Code instructions.

Let’s start with self-defence. I’ll take the usual Survival Skills approach by analysing what can go wrong. Although we tend to worry about traffic coming round the island from our right, that’s not actually the biggest threat because WE choose whether or not to pull out. What we CANNOT control is the driver of a vehicle emerging from our LEFT once we’re on the roundabout. It’s not a problem if we turning left at the first exit, and it’s not too much of an issue when turning right, because we’re over by the island and relatively far away. But the recommended Highway Code approach to going straight on – keeping left all the way around the outside of the island – puts us at considerable risk from drivers pulling out in front of us. There’s are secondary risk that vehicles may try to overtake or cut the corner on the way off the island. To monitor BOTH threats, we’re looking left and over our right shoulder. And finally, if a vehicle does emerge from the left AND we have another alongside on the right, we’ve no escape route – our only option is an emergency stop.

So here’s the Survival Skills approach. Instead of keeping left to go ahead, keep RIGHT. If there’s a single approach lane, keep right-of-centre. If there are two or more lanes, use the right-hand lane. Arriving at the island, the first thing that does is give us a slightly better view to our RIGHT, to search for oncoming vehicles turning across our path. This makes pulling onto the island slightly easier. But the big benefits happen once we’re on the island. Now ALL the danger is to our LEFT whether a vehicle in the adjacent lane, or a driver who might pull out from the exit ahead of us. That means we only have to look one way until we’re off the roundabout. We’re also further away from the exit to the left – the driver will have to move a long way to get into our path. And there’s one final bonus – if a driver DOES pull out and block our own path, we have an escape route – we can simply do a lap of the island. And if nothing goes wrong, and if our route ahead is clear, we can exit off into the left-hand lane as in the second half of the KKK line. All we have sacrificed is the straightest line onto the island, but if all’s clear we can take the straightest line off. And the right-hand lane approach to go straight ahead IS in the Highway Code so there’s a lowered risk of confusion.

Understanding risk THEN ACTIVELY SEEKING TO REDUCE IT is at the heart of the Survival Skills approach to riding. ‘Progress’ comes as a result of having eliminated risk. We should never seek ‘advantage’ in ways that increase risk. And if we can keep things simple at the same time, then so much the better.

Final point. The impression we make on others matters. If drivers see us ignoring the Highway Code lines, it simply reinforces the negative impressions most other road users hold about motorcyclists, however much we might impress our mates with our lines. Doesn’t advanced riding consider ‘the other fellow’ too?