Motorcycle Roadcraft - new edition?

[The Spin Doctor]

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.

Since I first figured that out in the 1990s when I was having disagreements with my IAM observer, it's been the principle that separates Survival Skills from Roadcraft.

[Scootabout]

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.

I believe the party line is something like, "Advanced riders do not plan to break the speed limit". Which is quite a nice Catch 22: if you plan to break it, you're not advanced; if you break it but didn't plan to, you're obviously not advanced either

[Wossname]

@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.

At the risk of labouring the point, that is exactly what I disagree with. In my opinion, it might be mentioned in police tuition as a technique that used to be recommended, but is now recognised as unnecessarily dangerous for "these" reasons, so DON'T do it. As the "2-sec" police riders you mentioned have obviously decided already, without my help!

[Dodgy69]

At what speed does a filter become an overtake.??? Just a thought.

[Horse]

In my opinion, it might be mentioned in police tuition as a technique that used to be recommended, but is now recognised as unnecessarily dangerous for "these" reasons, so DON'T do it. As the "2-sec" police riders you mentioned have obviously decided already, without my help!

On another board I use, another member put up a series of 'reports' from his advanced police car course. No use of 1s following position at all.

[Wossname]

Yet it still occupies several pages of their Brand New 2020 Manual. The police are traditionally slow to change their published dogma, and IAM obv follow their example. Don't know about ROSPA but I expect they'll be the same. I don't think we can expect advice to change in the near future.

[The Spin Doctor]

At what speed does a filter become an overtake.??? Just a thought.

It's not the speed, so much as the proximity that defines filtering as a subset of overtaking.

[Dodgy69]

ye, its a different manoeuvre I suppose. More going in-between than outside. Although, I do see more high speed manoeuvreing of this sort on motorways these days, due to congested r/h Lane.

[Horse]

High speed / narrow gaps, with no certainty that gap won't narrow or disappear before you get there?

Not a great recipe for success. It's the same as drivers in side roads, we know that - sooner or later - it will happen.

[Cousin Jack]

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?

I am not going to disagree that too fast = no options. But neither am I going to creep past a vehicle doing 65 with one eye on my speedo to make sure I don't go over 70.

The IAM used to accept that 'speeding' during the actual overtake was OK, as long as you dropped back to the limit immediately afterwards. I understand that is no longer true, break the speed limit anywhere and it is a fail.

[Wossname]

You can creep past a 65mph vehicle at 70 if you like, as you'll only be doing it on a D/C or Mway, Shirley? If you're worried about being legal...

[Scootabout]

You can creep past a 65mph vehicle at 70 if you like, as you'll only be doing it on a D/C or Mway, Shirley? If you're worried about being legal...

Yes, but then there's the pragmatic question of whether it's safer to maintain 70 when you're being tailgated by a car that's tailgating you because it wants to do 90, or to speed up a bit. Think Italy. Oh, maybe don't think Italy, because speed limits don't apply there

[The Spin Doctor]

I am not going to disagree that too fast = no options. But neither am I going to creep past a vehicle doing 65 with one eye on my speedo to make sure I don't go over 70.

The IAM used to accept that 'speeding' during the actual overtake was OK, as long as you dropped back to the limit immediately afterwards. I understand that is no longer true, break the speed limit anywhere and it is a fail.

I certainly don't mess around clock-watching either. ONCE COMMITTED then it's reasonable not to hang about too much, although you don't need nearly as much of a speed differential as people seem to think. A car is 5 metres long. With a 10 mph speed differential it takes just a bit more than a second to pass it. Most of the delay with overtaking is making the decision - watching trainees phaff about for 10 seconds after a clear overtake presents itself is common - and that's why they need to accelerate hard. In ten seconds at 50 mph, they've covered over 200 metres - that's a lot of straight wasted. In fact it's more than enough to have completed the pass and be back on the right side of the centre line.

And interestingly, the DVSA examiner wouldn't - in my experience at least - fail you for a few mph over the limit in an overtake if you got a safe distance ahead then dropped the speed back. It used to be a problem when a driver suddenly spotted a bike with L plates pulling past on a dual and started to accelerate - my advice at that point was go for it and complete the overtake safely. Someone else has put you at risk, it's not YOUR mistake.

But people think that they should be overtaking "as fast as possible". A mate of mine who'd been out with an IAM group showed me how that worked when he passed three cars in one go - he took off like a bat out of hell and told me that was the way the IAM do it - he admitted to hitting 120. I said "what if the third car hadn't seen you coming and had turned right into that driveway you went past?" He went a bit white and said "I couldn't have stopped, could I?" Seems no-one in the 'fast as possible' group had thought about that either.

[The Spin Doctor]

Yes, but then there's the pragmatic question of whether it's safer to maintain 70 when you're being tailgated by a car that's tailgating you because it wants to do 90, or to speed up a bit. Think Italy. Oh, maybe don't think Italy, because speed limits don't apply there

Let the driver pass.

I do that quite a lot.

Particularly in the camper which doesn't speed up at 70.

[Scootabout]

Most of the delay with overtaking is making the decision

One of the most helpful realisations for me, in relation to overtaking, was getting the idea that the decision point is not until I'm (a) out in the opposite carriageway, (b) close (ish) to the 'target' vehicle. That is the point at which I can make a final judgement about whether it's go or no go. If it's no-go I can still bail out.

[Dodgy69]

I'd rather decide before I'm in opposite lane. Someone might be following.. Quicker to stick head out/in and look. Got stopped by an unmarked bike cop , max speed on film was 92 mph, which did surprise me. He said, because they were safe overtakes, I'll let you go. In a 60 limit.

I like nice policeman.

[Wossname]

You can creep past a 65mph vehicle at 70 if you like, as you'll only be doing it on a D/C or Mway, Shirley? If you're worried about being legal...

Yes, but then there's the pragmatic question of whether it's safer to maintain 70 when you're being tailgated by a car that's tailgating you because it wants to do 90, or to speed up a bit. Think Italy. Oh, maybe don't think Italy, because speed limits don't apply there

That sort of driver will still be tailgating you at 90. What are you going to do then? 100? Let him pass at 70 - it's not a competition, and losing is messy.

[The Spin Doctor]

One of the most helpful realisations for me, in relation to overtaking, was getting the idea that the decision point is not until I'm (a) out in the opposite carriageway, (b) close (ish) to the 'target' vehicle. That is the point at which I can make a final judgement about whether it's go or no go. If it's no-go I can still bail out.

So long as you're not closing too quickly...

Some years back, on one of my on-tour courses in Wales we were on the last stretch at the end of quite a long day, back to the inn where we were staying in Montgomery. The trainee lined up an overtake coming out of a right-hand bend and was just about to commit himself when he spotted a policeman pointing a speed camera at him from a bit further up the road... so he didn't go.

No problem.

We got all the way down the straight, then turned the next corner onto the next straight which was about half a mile long. He continued behind the car until we were a couple of hundred metres from the next bend... then suddenly he decided to go for the overtake... which caught me by surprise

So I made a snap decision to go, and was just at the go / no go point when a car came round the bend ahead... so I hit the brakes...

...which would have been great if the driver had just carried on, but he tried to help me out by braking himself... I ended up doing a rolling stoppie alongside him.

[The Spin Doctor]

I'd rather decide before I'm in opposite lane. Someone might be following.. Quicker to stick head out/in and look. Got stopped by an unmarked bike cop , max speed on film was 92 mph, which did surprise me. He said, because they were safe overtakes, I'll let you go. In a 60 limit.

I like nice policeman.

If you set an overtake up out of a right-hander you usually get a clear view without having to do the jack-in-the-box impersonation.

[Dodgy69]

Acceleration points on the road are good opportunities for bike overtakes... Whats the forums view on multiple vehicle overtakes, now these can be very risky, as many will probably know.