Inevitable new bike thread

[The Spin Doctor]

Sorry to hear about the crash... Maybe time for a Science Of Being Seen presentation

[The Spin Doctor]

What's so depressing about these responses is the general theme is "nothing he could do about it".

I'm sorry but that's just not right.

The problem is in the way we teach people to ride. We teach them the basic mechanics of how to get the bike moving, but we teach them nothing about how to manage situations like this.

We've been having this crash since Gottlieb Daimler first stuck a petrol engine between two wheels, and we've done nothing to help new riders recognise the warning signs, then take some evasive action themselves.

[Yorick]

What's so depressing about these responses is the general theme is "nothing he could do about it".

I'm sorry but that's just not right.

The problem is in the way we teach people to ride. We teach them the basic mechanics of how to get the bike moving, but we teach them nothing about how to manage situations like this.

We've been having this crash since Gottlieb Daimler first stuck a petrol engine between two wheels, and we've done nothing to help new riders recognise the warning signs, then take some evasive action themselves.

I've taught you well, Spin San.

[Asian Boss]

What's so depressing about these responses is the general theme is "nothing he could do about it".

I'm sorry but that's just not right.

The problem is in the way we teach people to ride. We teach them the basic mechanics of how to get the bike moving, but we teach them nothing about how to manage situations like this.

We've been having this crash since Gottlieb Daimler first stuck a petrol engine between two wheels, and we've done nothing to help new riders recognise the warning signs, then take some evasive action themselves.

I always suggest observing all hazards well in advance and applying the brakes in good time.

Glad he's ok Iccy.

[The Spin Doctor]

The thing is to observe a hazard well in advance, you have to know WHY something's a hazard and WHERE you're looking for it, then WHEN it changes from being a potential hazard to a developing hazard, you have to know WHAT you're going to do about it... and HOW to do that.

But we simply don't teach new riders this.

And even experienced riders are happy to blame everyone else. I've been talking strategies for avoiding SMIDSYs for 30 years online... and still people say "just one of those things". It isn't... it takes two to tangle... it may be the driver to set the crash up, but it only happens if the rider rides into it... like this unfortunately lad.

[Dodgy69]

Unless we crawl passed these "car waiting " potential hazard type junctions, these incidents will continue. You can cover the brakes, get ready, but if car pulls out into your path at the last minute, you've got no chance. Poor obs from driver, simple.

[Whysub]

The other side of the coin though Spin, is no matter what we do as riders, and no matter how much training you have had, no matter how much you are aware of a hazard and how it can develop, the other driver will still be a dick and pull out giving the rider no chance at all, irrespective of what precautions they have taken.

It was just this scenario that took me out, absolutely nothing I could do to avoid it.

[Noggin]

I totally get what you're saying Spin and teaching should be different and include more of what you are saying

That said - Iccy has already mentioned what he does in that sort of situation and maybe that had been spoken about at home

Sometimes we don't realise just how important it is until something happens. I had a car pull out on me when I was wearing a yellow motorway jacket and riding a pink blackbird. At no point did he stop pulling out and I only avoided hitting him by riding with my tyres rubbing the pavement on the right side of the road and accelerating a little to get through that gap before he did actually hit me. HTF did he not see me when we were that close????


I'm pretty sure Iccy will do the necessary on advice/training, but might appreciate some Science Of Being Seen!


Also - some of the 'nothing he could do about it' is probably being appreciative of the lack of experience/mileage. I'm sure most of us have had these sort of experiences through out our riding time but as we get more experienced, we handle things differently - through awareness, training, experience, knowledge

[The Spin Doctor]

Unless we crawl passed these "car waiting " potential hazard type junctions, these incidents will continue. You can cover the brakes, get ready, but if car pulls out into your path at the last minute, you've got no chance. Poor obs from driver, simple.

No, that's wrong too.

Do the sums. Stopping distance from 30 mph on a modern motorcycle? Six or seven metres. Go try it.

How far out can you see a driver start to pull into your path. It's the wetwear on the seat that hasn't improved.

I managed 500,000 miles of despatching, mostly round London. Plenty of heavy braking incidents, not one SMIDSY.

But let's carry on with the old "Poor obs from driver" line, and carry on having the same crashes... over and over and over.

[The Spin Doctor]

The other side of the coin though Spin, is no matter what we do as riders, and no matter how much training you have had, no matter how much you are aware of a hazard and how it can develop, the other driver will still be a dick and pull out giving the rider no chance at all, irrespective of what precautions they have taken.

It was just this scenario that took me out, absolutely nothing I could do to avoid it.

At urban speeds there's actually a remarkably small window in which the collision is unavoidable.

This isn't me saying this, it's James Ouellet (who worked on the Hurt report with Harry Hurt) and remains one of the foremost researchers into PTW crash factors.

If the vehicle pulls out at JUST the wrong moment when you can't brake, swerve or accelerate clear, then it'll 'get' you, no matter what you do.

But that's not how the majority of crashes in these situations happen. Inexperienced riders simply fail to use a much broader window of opportunity to react at all / to react correctly / to react positively enough.

This at-risk zone extends around 3 second out from the crash site. His studies found the outside of three seconds, there were very few collisions, if the rider had less than three seconds then collisions were almost inevitable.

But how FAR is three seconds at 30 mph? 13 m / s gives you 39 metres. Check the Highway Code stopping distance - that says 23 metres. So there's my first observation - most riders in emergencies don't manage to match the Highway Code's numbers.

And how far does a bike travelling at 30 mph actually TAKE to stop? As I said, any half-competent rider should manage under 10 metres without difficulty.

And now throw in the little tweaks that experienced riders learn, either by experience or through training...

1) move away from danger - the car has to move further to get you so you have more time to see it moving and can begin braking earlier

2) slow down - exploit physics, which tells us that if we double our speed, we QUADRUPLE our stopping distance. The maths works the other way too - if we halve our speed, our stopping distance is now around ONE QUARTER of what it was. What that means is not that we have to creep around everywhere but that surprising modest reductions in speed have more significant reductions in stopping distance than riders realise

3) set up the bike and the brain - and if there's a real sense of hazard, start braking. You only need to do this very lightly - barely taking the slack out of the system - but the moment you do this you 'set up' the brain to move straight into hard braking. And if nothing happens? It's cost almost nothing - you just release and off you go again. But if the vehicle DOES move, then you'll spot it instantly and go straight into hard braking... and stop in under 10 metres. The evidence from crash studies and police reports is that the vast majority of riders involved in this kind of collision DID have the distance to stop, weren't riding too fast to pull up, and the bike could have done it too. But they simply didn't mentally react quickly to the threat - they froze for a second or two. And that's why in crash studies riders don't get close to the Highway Code stopping distances.

It's this latter step which was probably the most important one I learned as a courier... I always assume every car was going to pull out until I was past it... and still do.

[The Spin Doctor]

I totally get what you're saying Spin and teaching should be different and include more of what you are saying

That said - Iccy has already mentioned what he does in that sort of situation and maybe that had been spoken about at home

Sometimes we don't realise just how important it is until something happens.

Now THAT is a perceptive observation and something I have also been banging on about for decades.

And there is something we can do about that too... it's called simulator training! Not a big f@ck-off flight simulator costing millions but a simple desktop PC with three screens arranged as a simple wrap-around - the whole set-up would cost less than a new bike for a training school.

But how do we use PCs in training at the moment? To deliver the awful and flawed hazard perception test that trains people not to look for 'potential hazards' - that is, things that could in a few seconds begin to pose at threat to health... but to click on 'developing hazards' which are threats which are already forming.

If you get the Haz Per test scenario that features a car coming along a side turning, and you click on it whilst it's still 20 metres back from the GIVE WAY line you'll score nowt... because it's not yet a developing hazard. Nope you have to wait to click till it actually starts to move OUT of the junction, at which point it's a developing hazard... about one second before it becomes an actual hazard (too late for a click and you'll score nul points again) when it's blocking your path and forcing you to brake...

...except that nothing ever ends in a crash on the DVSA hazard perception test... the car will start to move... but it'll stop again...

So riders not only are actually TAUGHT to look for hazards too late to do much about it, they are taught that the driver WILL see them and stop!

I had a car pull out on me when I was wearing a yellow motorway jacket and riding a pink blackbird. At no point did he stop pulling out and I only avoided hitting him by riding with my tyres rubbing the pavement on the right side of the road and accelerating a little to get through that gap before he did actually hit me. HTF did he not see me when we were that close????

Science Of Being Seen. Do you know how big the foveal zone of clear vision actually is? Just a couple of degrees across. And ONLY in that zone do we have clear, focused, full colour vision. And the optic nerve can't actually handle all the visual data that the eye is capable of receiving, so what reaches the brain is a subset of what's in our field of vision. And then there's workload - we can't focus on more than five or six objects at the same time. And there's a short term visual memory buffer - first in, first out - we actually forget what we saw first if there are just a few other things around us.

The wonder is that the vast majority of drivers see the vast majority of bikes the vast majority of the time. If they didn't, know of us would get much beyond the end of our own road.

I'm pretty sure Iccy will do the necessary on advice/training, but might appreciate some Science Of Being Seen!


Also - some of the 'nothing he could do about it' is probably being appreciative of the lack of experience/mileage. I'm sure most of us have had these sort of experiences through out our riding time but as we get more experienced, we handle things differently - through awareness, training, experience, knowledge

I'm more than happy to do a presentation to the forum - I did suggest it to Weeksy a while back but then lockdown eased and we could ride our bikes again.

I'm absolutely appreciative of the issues of lack of experience, and unfortunately it's very difficult to learn some of the lessons riding has to teach us until there is someone standing over us telling us "I told you so". I certainly ignored a few lessons and learned them the hard way myself. But the reason I picked junction collisions for my work with Biker Down was because it's the most common urban collision and causes more injuries than any other, but it relatively easy to see coming - IF you accept that it's the rider who has to take responsibility for avoiding the driver's error. There's no benefit to be gained from being right when you're flat on your back.

[Dodgy69]

But knowing the exact moment to grab the brake is the magic bit in a real situation, as opposed to brake tests.

[Rockburner]

The other side of the coin though Spin, is no matter what we do as riders, and no matter how much training you have had, no matter how much you are aware of a hazard and how it can develop, the other driver will still be a dick and pull out giving the rider no chance at all, irrespective of what precautions they have taken.

It was just this scenario that took me out, absolutely nothing I could do to avoid it.

The only option is not to play. Stay at home, life is dangerous enough as it is.

[The Spin Doctor]

But knowing the exact moment to grab the brake is the magic bit in a real situation, as opposed to brake tests.

The right moment is simple enough - it's the moment your Spidey Sense tingles. But right now, there's nothing in conventional bike training that trains up Spidey Sense. IAM and RoSPA riders have the same crash (usually faster, though).

As a basic instructor I spent bloody hours training riders HOW to do e-stops hard enough to loft the back wheel. And I'd talk about WHY we were doing that training. The problem is teaching riders to look for the clues. I spent my early days finding inventive ways to fall off, simply because I didn't know better. But each crash I had taught me something, I tried to avoid having the same crash again and mostly that worked. More recently, I've spent years trying to change other riders perceptions of crashes, and to get them to accept few crashes are unavoidable.

I always feel sorry for new riders because I remember how much some of my crashes hurt (physically and in the wallet) but if I'd had access to some of the information that's available now, I might not have been caught out quite so often. But we won't help new riders get better by having more experienced riders crying into their milk "there was nothing I could do".

[The Spin Doctor]

The only option is not to play. Stay at home, life is dangerous enough as it is.

There are levels of risk... but understanding the hazard and the threat it poses allows us to manage that risk.

I'm out training tomorrow. I won't be riding slowly. But I will be riding to manage the threat level to something I think is acceptable. There's a difference.

[Horse]

The only option is not to play.

Apart from the other option of trying not to get involved in others' crashes. The difference, that Spin is talking about, is taking action before it gets health-threatening. You know all this, but I'll post it anyway.


It's no secret that drivers often pull out in front of bikes, so if you can see a car then there's a chance it might happen.

- Taking just a couple of mph off your speed will shorten your braking distance.

- Covering the brakes will reduce your reaction time.

- Simply expecting the car to emerge, so having mentally prepared, you can potentially (no guarantees, of course) shorten or eliminate the "Oh ****!" reaction. That reaction takes time, it means you travel on towards the car, without slowing at all then, if you do react, you have less time and space to brake.

- What else? Move across the lane width. This moves you against the background, so might attract the driver's attention, also moving away from the car means it has to go further to get you - giving you more reaction time.

- Of course, focus shouldn't just be on braking, to the exclusion of any others. If you're really close, you might need to accelerate away.

- And there's swerving. That's more likely to succeed if you have reduced your speed. Also, you will need to know how to swerve and where you want to go. Again, they both need mental preparation.

- Finally, if Avoid, Escape and Evade haven't worked, or weren't ever an option, then Survive is the last chance. Jump or, if you're going to be hit on the side, stand and move your knee onto the seat.

[Rockburner]

The only option is not to play.

Apart from the other option of trying not to get involved in others' crashes. The difference, that Spin is talking about, is taking action before it gets health-threatening. You know all this, but I'll post it anyway.


It's no secret that drivers often pull out in front of bikes, so if you can see a car then there's a chance it might happen.

- Taking just a couple of mph off your speed will shorten your braking distance.

- Covering the brakes will reduce your reaction time.

- Simply expecting the car to emerge, so having mentally prepared, you can potentially (no guarantees, of course) shorten or eliminate the "Oh ****!" reaction. That reaction takes time, it means you travel on towards the car, without slowing at all then, if you do react, you have less time and space to brake.

- What else? Move across the lane width. This moves you against the background, so might attract the driver's attention, also moving away from the car means it has to go further to get you - giving you more reaction time.

- Of course, focus shouldn't just be on braking, to the exclusion of any others. If you're really close, you might need to accelerate away.

- And there's swerving. That's more likely to succeed if you have reduced your speed. Also, you will need to know how to swerve and where you want to go. Again, they both need mental preparation.

- Finally, if Avoid, Escape and Evade haven't worked, or weren't ever an option, then Survive is the last chance. Jump or, if you're going to be hit on the side, stand and move your knee onto the seat.

You've missed out "Slow down so much that you're a hazard to following traffic", "Stop completely and block traffic", "Turn around and go another way".

All valid options...

[The Spin Doctor]

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You've missed out "Slow down so much that you're a hazard to following traffic", "Stop completely and block traffic", "Turn around and go another way".

All valid options...

As your irony implies, you know full-well they aren't.

But that doesn't mean there are sensible steps you can take... and the thing is they are cumulative... a better 'see and be seen' position to open up the DRIVER'S view and help him / her see us, a wider line nearer the junction itself, a wider approach putting the bike further from the turning vehicle, bit knocked off the speed, getting the brain into defensive mode to speed up reactions... none of this 'costs' much... but the potential benefits in a developing emergency can be the difference between "there was nothing I could do" and "well, actually - I realised there was".

[Horse]

You've missed out "Slow down so much that you're a hazard to following traffic", "Stop completely and block traffic", "Turn around and go another way".

All valid options...

Actually, you missed them.

But if you believe those are the only alternatives to merrily riding into a car, then carry on. But I don't think you actually believe that.

[Horse]

"Turn around and go another way".

I can think of one occasion when I have done that. Walking across a car park and slipped on an icy puddle.

There were two access roads. I knew there had been water running across on the way in, so took the other one out.

Perfectly valid option.