Motorcycle Roadcraft - new edition?

[Hot_Air]

Who's that aimed at?

Motorcycle Roadcraft is aimed at police and emergency services riders (I know because I’ve chatted with one of the contributors). But I agree with you entirely that the text varies in how it’s pitched. Nowadays, a lot is taught to riders on the route from CBT to ‘big bike’ license, and this stuff is no longer necessary to include in Motorcycle Roadcraft. It should be cut. Unfortunately, it’s always easier for a gaggle of co-authors to add bits than to remove them!

[Horse]

Who's that aimed at?

Motorcycle Roadcraft is aimed at police and emergency services riders (I know because I’ve chatted with one of the contributors).

Interesting variation on the safety viewpoint of 'Work as imagined' Vs 'Work as done'.

First, if it's for police riders, why does it have 'L' level content? There seems a mismatch between what they intend and what they have done. I'll leave it for those who really know to confirm, but I doubt that police schools do much of that these days. Not to say they never did (I did some Part One tests at Hendon!).

Second, as I posted before, what they are writing and how it's sold are totally at odds.

[The Spin Doctor]

If we didn't progress, it could lead to long tailbacks. A vehicle doing 10mph under speed limit needs to be overtaken for the sake of following traffic. Imo.

Why? If the vehicle you're looking at is just 10 mph under the limit, it's entirely likely the rest of the traffic will also be 10 mph under the limit! Sitting in a flow of traffic isn't an issue. I see far too many riders hedge-hopping along a queue of cars and trucks, all moving at a few mph under the limit, because "I'm on a bike and I need to make progress". Overtaking is by far and away the most dangerous manoeuvre we overtake (based on crash / exposure) and so cutting out overtaking makes life less risky.

There are very few 'must-do' overtakes - even tractors these days can hit 40 mph on a rural road!

[Wossname]

What distinguishes a 3-stage O/T from any other sort, as it's described, is the move from following (2 secs?) to overtaking position (1 sec?)

No, not how I was taught. What distinguishes a 3-stage overtake is the move offside prior to accelerating. It means I make my final decision offside, which I find safer because the world can look different from the offside.

However, I’ll re-emphasise what I mentioned earlier:-

But overtaking is tricky to discuss in words, and better conveyed on the road.

I was going to leave this, but....

Going back to the 1996 version (I can't find one between then and the new 2020 one),the 3 stage overtake is quite clearly defined (p129 et seq):
Stage 1: the following position(say 2 secs);
Stage 2: the overtaking position (say 1 sec);
Stage 3: overtaking (a composite made up of moving R and accelerating, in that order).
In the 2020 edition (p197 et seq), the only difference is that it is no longer labelled "The 3-Stage Overtake". However, exactly the same 3 stages are described. The wording for the "overtaking position" has been expanded with waffle, seemingly in an attempt to justify its continued inclusion (IMO,obv).

My disagreement with this, Hot_Air, just to be clear, is that I see no helpful purpose in Stage 2, and I can't see how you, or those who have taught you, can interpret the thing as you do. The "move offside prior to accelerating" (your Stage 3) quite obviously has to be carried out no matter where you start from, so that stage is present in any O/T. The one which is disposable is Stage 2, the move to the unnecessarily risky "overtaking posititon". I think it should be disposed of.

That's all.

[Dodgy69]

Traffic travelling 10mph or more under already steady limits can cause frustration, then forceful overtakes, then nasty accidents. Ride/drive to the limit where safe to do so makes sense to me.

[Horse]

Traffic travelling 10mph or more under already steady limits can cause frustration, then forceful overtakes, then nasty accidents. Ride/drive to the limit where safe to do so makes sense to me.

define 'safe'

[Hot_Air]

@Wossname This example (three-stage overtaking) exemplifies why we should take the book as it was intended: it’s merely an aid to on-road tuition by police instructors.

The 1- or 2-second following distance vary by circumstance. For example, behind a long heavy-goods vehicle, I may be further than two seconds back to improve my view of what’s coming up in front. Also, as circumstances ahead change, I’ll change my following distance in response. It’s hard to explain in writing – I could only learn it from days with a police instructor talking in my earpiece, not reading a book.

However, I agree with you about the risk of only having a 1-second gap. Police riders gain a lot of safety from training to enhance their observation and anticipation, but ‘making progress’ can take away some of these safety gains.

[Dodgy69]

Traffic travelling 10mph or more under already steady limits can cause frustration, then forceful overtakes, then nasty accidents. Ride/drive to the limit where safe to do so makes sense to me.

define 'safe'

Safe in the context of easy to achieve and within your vehicles capability.

Its 60 for a reason, otherwise it would be 50.

[Horse]

Traffic travelling 10mph or more under already steady limits can cause frustration, then forceful overtakes, then nasty accidents. Ride/drive to the limit where safe to do so makes sense to me.

define 'safe'

Safe in the context of easy to achieve and within your vehicles capability.

Its 60 for a reason, otherwise it would be 50.

I meant 'safe to overtake', as per Wossname's bit about high risk.

With a 10mph speed differential, you'll need a lot of road to complete an overtake.

[The Spin Doctor]

Police riders gain a lot of safety from training to enhance their observation and anticipation, but ‘making progress’ can take away some of these safety gains.

No training can compensate for lack of space to stop in an emergency. It's either there... or it isn't. Not even Roadcraft can break (brake?) the laws of physics.

The point I've already made is that you can always plan the overtake from further back - you might miss a few that you could JUST have squeaked through from closer up, but if adding in that extra distance limits our overtaking, then the overtakes we are making from the overtaking position are lacking any real margin for error.

[Dodgy69]

Arr, fair point, I meant speed limit as a minimum, definitely not a max.

[Dodgy69]

I would imagine, improving your obs and anticipation would automatically improve your progress.

[The Spin Doctor]

Traffic travelling 10mph or more under already steady limits can cause frustration, then forceful overtakes, then nasty accidents. Ride/drive to the limit where safe to do so makes sense to me.

It's odd... but the frustration, forceful overtakes and nasty accidents are more likely to involve the motorcyclists trying to barrel through traffic that's going "too slowly" for their liking.

Open road overtakes that go wrong account for a significant number of fatalities. Rural roads account for 40% of motorcycle traffic, but 68% of motorcyclist fatalities (2013 figures) and a good proportion of the fatalities happen when overtakes go wrong - two in five on some roads.

As a group we motorcyclists are good at arguments that obscure the facts!

[Horse]

I would imagine, improving your obs and anticipation would automatically improve your progress.

Converse, in some ways. If you can identify where you need to go slower, what's left is the places where you may be able to travel faster.

But people rarely crash through going too slowly (manoeuvring at walking speed excluded).

[Dodgy69]

Bloody farmers...

[Cousin Jack]

With a 10mph speed differential, you'll need a lot of road to complete an overtake.

Unless you do the 'usually safer but illegal' bit of accelerating HARD (and to hell with the speed limit) until you are clear and can safely slow to the limit again.

I do.

And those who are honest will admit they do too.

[Horse]

With a 10mph speed differential, you'll need a lot of road to complete an overtake.

Unless you do the 'usually safer but illegal' bit of accelerating HARD (and to hell with the speed limit) until you are clear and can safely slow to the limit again.

I do.

And those who are honest will admit they do too.

The context was DN saying "Ride/drive to the limit where safe to do so makes sense to me."

FWIW, in ye olden days, you might have passed an IAM test with a bit of 'flexibility' like that. However, I've heard that's no longer acceptable.

[Wossname]

Bloody farmers...

"Bloody motorcyclists" are more likely.....

[Wossname]

With a 10mph speed differential, you'll need a lot of road to complete an overtake.

Unless you do the 'usually safer but illegal' bit of accelerating HARD (and to hell with the speed limit) until you are clear and can safely slow to the limit again.

I do.

And those who are honest will admit they do too.

I have a theory that I feel more in control of my situation in traffic, especially on D/Cs and M/ways, if I'm going a bit faster than everybody else, instead of sitting in a line of traffic at 70 or whatever. That's fine until everybody else takes the same view, that it's better to be going a bit faster.....

It's a bit like getting closer to the car tail lights in front in fog so you can "see" him. That's OK as long as everybody isn't doing it - whoops bangbangbangbang.....

[The Spin Doctor]

With a 10mph speed differential, you'll need a lot of road to complete an overtake.

Unless you do the 'usually safer but illegal' bit of accelerating HARD (and to hell with the speed limit) until you are clear and can safely slow to the limit again.

I do.

And those who are honest will admit they do too.

The trouble is that speed differential - too fast into the overtake and you have no bail-out option if things start to go wrong. Someone I knew applied exactly that technique to get into a gap in a line of cars against an oncoming vehicle. The driver of the car he was planning on diving in behind hard on the brakes saw him coming...

...and thought the bike was trying to get past HIM too...

...and braked to help the rider out!

It didn't end well.

If you are having to 'accelerate hard', you don't have a margin for error... or you wouldn't need to accelerate hard, would you?