As a general rule, I tend to avoid petitions. Usually they achieve nothing – their only real benefit being to vent one’s spleen publicly. From time to time I am exhorted to take part. As I have been today via email from Bennetts. At some point I sought an insurance quote from them, so I’m on a list. Anyway, the email:
Dear Longrider,
Motorcyclists account for 1% of all road traffic in the UK, but shockingly account for 20% of fatalities.
What is even scarier is that prospective car drivers can currently pass their test without answering a single motorbike-related question.
Bennetts have launched a Government petition to ensure bike-related questions are made compulsory in all UK driving tests.
To have this matter raised in the House of Commons 100,000 signatures are required. We need your help.
Please sign the petition now: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/26272 and share this link with your family and friends.
Quite apart from my reason given above, I won’t be signing this petition. The theory part of the driving test is of limited use, frankly – although probably not quite as utterly useless as the dire hazard perception test. If every vested interest decided to have a section covering them – cyclists, truckers, bus drivers, pedestrians, skateboarders and so on, where would we end? The point of the exercise is to make a rudimentary decision about the basic grasp the candidate has of the Highway Code – and it is basic. They may or may not get a question on motorcycles. So what? What matters, what really matters, is that it is picked up during the live environment training. When people are out on the road and get to see real bikes in real situations where they can be obscured by road furniture or missed during a cursory glance, is when they will gain their knowledge; knowledge that with the benefit of a real example is more likely to take root in the consciousness.
We don’t need a change in the law. We do need to see improvements in driver and rider education and possibly the quality of assessment in the live environment, but the theory test is little more than rote learning followed by a crude multiple-choice* computerised examination and is of little practical value if it is not translated into real live road experience and the best person to do this is the driving instructor.
So, no, I’ll not be signing. More law we do not need.
*You may surmise from my disdain that I dislike multiple-choice tests. You would surmise correctly.
As an ex Motorcycle instructor and IAM member I would disagree, anything that can put the idea that not only are there vunerable groups of road users out there but also that as a car driver they may also be vunerable to LGVs or large machinery on the roads is a positive thing. As an ex LGV driver ( because of Medical reasons ) I unfortunately was involved in incidents with young drivers who had absolutely NO idea of the consequenses of trying to undertake 40 tonne lorries with 500 horse power. On one occasion in Hayes Middlesex I was in a tractor unit and an Asian driving instuctor of a young Asian pupil deliberately encouraged his student to out accelerate me from my right so as to cut in front of me so to be able to turn left towards Southall on the large roundabout north of junction 3 of the M4, rather than be in the correct lane in the first place; as there are many traffic lights on this roundabout I pulled up alongside 40 yards further at the next set of lights on the roundabout after he had cut me up because he did not have any road experience in how to drive a car at speed and his knackerd Nissan did not have the power to out accelerate the 570 HP Volvo I was driving and remonstrated with the insructor, who just waved his arms at me in an effort to brush off my comments at his dangerous incompetance. Sadly there are more and more erosions in the proffesional proficiency of many driving instructors, let alone the lack of understanding of roadcraft at the DSA, so ANY positive addition to the Highway Code is to be encouraged.
My background is the same as yours.
Bennetts are not asking for a change in the Highway Code. If they were, I’d be supporting them. They are asking for this set of questions to be compulsory in the test. Sorry, but I vigorously disagree. Training and subsequent questioning should draw across the whole of the road safety spectrum. If one special interest group has a set of compulsory questions, then why not others (as mentioned ATL). It would be getting silly. This idea if indulged in will make no difference whatsoever to motorcycle casualties as candidates will simply gen up for the test and do what most drivers do once it is passed – forget it. What matters is that vulnerable users are covered in training in such a manner that it is retained by the candidate.
One bad driving instructor does not a summer make. While I am critical of the DSA’s methods when it comes to assessment, the vast majority of instructors are doing the best they can with the candidates they have. Having done the job – as well as teaching bikes – I know from experience that the vast majority of students simply want a driving licence and much of what they are taught is forgotten. Indeed, only around 40% of what trainers teach is retained. The trick is to make sure that it is the important 40%.
This proposal is frippery, frankly.
How is the race of the instructor and student of any value to your post?
I’d like to ask Bennets how the benefit of including bike related questions as part of the theory test has been proven to reduce fatalities.
I suspect it would be better to explain to motorcyclists that they need to ride somewhat more defensively and less aggressively on the occasional sunny summer weekends they squeeze their middle aged bellies into their leathers and pretend they could be just like Rossi.
It won’t.
The broader point about riders taking personal responsibility for their own safety is pertinent. We cannot control the actions of others, we can control our own – and the best defence against careless drivers is defensive riding. The way I teach it is; you are under no obligation to be involved in someone else’s accident – if that means you taking avoiding action, you take it. Better still, anticipate it before it happens 😉
My bad, I mis-understood your post, I thought Bennets were asking for a change in the test that would also be included in the Highway code. As to middle aged bikers and modern sports bikes, having been involved in the mechaniching side of international motorcycle racing for many years ( sadly it never paid well hence the Lorry driving ) with some very well known riders, Spike Edwards, Alex Buckingham, to name two I quickly came to the conclusion that, especially with bikes from the mid nineties on, the engineering is so good they allow fools to ride like heroes who labour under the impression they can ride with the same skill as international level race pilots and the vast majority of middle aged men taking up biking who have only ridden the latest wonder bike (BMW GS1200 spings to mind with ABS, traction control, etc.) and others with different fuel mapping for different road conditions would be terrified if they had to ride a seventies Kawasaki Z1 at any sort of speed in the dry, let alone the rain. I may sound snobbish but the problem nowadays is that modern tecnology allows people to ride and drive well past their level of competence and any instructor who tries to advise them of their limitations tends to be ignored, after all it is SO easy to ride fast, what could go wrong? Ride a tired early series ZX9R and you will soon find out……
Or my old TR1, now that had some interesting handling characteristics… Give me the R1150RT any day.
Yes I agree, the 1150 GS is a lovely bike at the moment my ‘modern’ machine is an early series TDM 850, the others are ‘classics’ with the BSA proving to have the least competent chassis, with the possible exception of the Z900 of course…….