Motorcycle Safety Advice
Improve your chances of being seen
Remember that motorists often have trouble seeing motorcycles and reacting in time.
Make sure your headlight works and is on both day and night.
Can you see the motorcycle in this photo?
Do everything you can to help motorists see you !
Know Your Bike and How To Use It:
Get formal training and regularly take refresher courses. You Never stop learning
Practice. Develop your riding techniques before going into heavy traffic.
Know how to handle your bike in conditions such as wet or sandy roads, high winds and uneven surfaces.
Practice your emergency braking procedure, so you know how to do it instinctively ! You don't want to find out that your emergency braking skills are inadequate in an emergency situation !
Dress For Safety:
Wear a quality helmet and eye protection.
Wear bright clothing and a light-coloured helmet.
Wear leather or other thick, protective clothing.
Apply Effective Mental Strategies:
Constantly search the road for changing conditions.
Give yourself space and time to respond to other motorists’ actions.
Give other motorists time and space to respond to you.
Use lane positioning to be seen; ride in the part of a lane where you are most visible to other road users .
Always ride to suit the conditions, and NEVER push the boundaries of your experience.
Never try and keep up with the rider in front , he may have far more experience than you !
Always look where you want the bike to go !
Remember to constantly Scan, Evaluate and Execute (SEE) so that you can enjoy lifelong Safe Riding !
Motorcyle Safety and How to stay alive on our roads
When riding a motorcycle on the road , we as riders have to take ownership of our own safety , and not rely on other road users or the road laws to keep us safe . Our safety as motorcycle riders is in our hands . I often tell new motorcycle riders that if i thought my safety was dependant on other road users that i would probably not choose to ride a motorcycle !
The the good news is that by learning the art of defensive riding (RoadCraft), and then adopting these skills when riding , our chances of having an accident are greatly diminished . In simple terms there are two things that we as motorcycle riders are able to control that will improve our safety on the road and they are Speed and Road Position
The Wrong speed and the wrong road position at the same time can be a recipe for disaster,that is why its so important for new riders or even riders with some years of experience, to learn the art of defensive riding
Move Away from Hazards
It is not difficult to understand that the further you are away from something that can harm you is a good thing , for example your neighbour has a viscious dog that sticks his head through the front fence and attempts to bite unsuspecting people as they walk by. If you were aware of the dogs existence would you not move away from the fence when walking past ? It is no different on the road , there will always be bad drivers on the road and other potential hazards that we as motorcycle riders need to manage , whether they be parked vehicles, oncoming vehicles, pedestrians , cyclists , even blind intersections and concealed driveways . There are literally hundreds of potential hazards on our roads that we need to be aware of, so that we can modify our riding technique to protect us from these hazards and not leave our safety to chance !
Speed
It may surprise you to know that more than 60% of all motorcycle fatalities occur in 60KPH speed zones or less !
The most dangerous place to ride a motorcycle is in a built up area , simple really, more hazards more danger . so when riding in a built up area it is imperative we learn to manage our speed and road position to reduce the danger of colliding with anything they may move into our path by moving away and reducing our speed in hazardous situations .
At 60 Kph we are travelling at almost 17 metres per second ! Think of this,on average how much distance does it require to stop a motorcycle from 60Kph ? Answer 14 meters , well that not far is it ?
What we need to understand is that it may take only 14meters to stop a motorcycle fom 60Kph however , if you needed to stop your motorcycle from 60Kph due to an unexpected situation on the road , like a car pulling out in fron of you at an intersection, you would need to add your reaction distance to your braking distance . So what is reaction distance ?
Reaction distance is the distance you would travel from when you saw the car pull out in front of you until you actually did something about it , like apply the brakes, or roll off the throttle or even swerve !
To work out your reaction distance is pretty easy . The average reaction time for a motorcyclist is .70 of one second, this is the time you would need to process the information and decide on a response and them implement your decision . The distance you would travel during this time is 20% of your speed in meters , so at 60Kph you would travel 12 meters before you even applied the brakes !
So we now know its going to take us a Minimum of 26 meters to stop our motorcycle due to a car pulling out in front of us !
NOW THAT’S A LONG WAY !
Summary
When you are in a hazardous environment, eg lots of potential hazards , reduce your speed and move away from potential hazards.
Dont ride past a hazard on the left in the left hand wheel track , move to the ride hand wheel track !
Dont ride past an oncoming vehicle in the ride hand wheel track , move to the left hand wheel track !
And if you have hazards on both side at the same time a good idea would be to split the danger and move to the centre of your lane and reduce your speed !
Scan the environment for potential hazards and move away from them early
No Surprises No Accidents !