“ I DON’T NEED TRAINING” “I’ve been driving for 30 years and have never had an accident. I’m a careful driver in a car or on a bike. I don’t need all this training just to be safe.”

Sound familiar? We’ve all heard it before. This kind of false security will get you hurt someday. The laws of physics are against you. Accident avoidance in a car is a matter of alertness, reaction time and hard breaking if required. As long as you don’t make contact with another car or some other object, you’re usually going to be OK.

On a motorcycle, it’s a different story. Loose control of your bike and it’s going to go down and you and the bike are going to part company. And to top it off, there is going to be precious little time to get all right.

The are many skills that need to be mastered:

• the ability to spot a hazard early, as it is developing, determining an escape route,
• bike handling and control under difficult conditions,
• early execution of an avoidance maneuver and more.

You’re not going to have enough time to think about these things, it has to come naturally.

How do you get to this level of skill mastery? TRAINING AND PRACTICE!

• Take the ERC every three years. Even if you’ve taken it many times before, you’ll learn something new or reinforce vital skills.

• Take advantage of other training opportunities such as the Parking Lot Practice (PLP), Trailering Course or Trike Course if applicable, Road Captain Course and many others. You will find them useful and packed with life saving tips.

• Practice these skills as you ride. For instance, as you approach an off ramp on a highway, consider what you need to do if a car doesn’t see you as he is running down the following on ramp. When you approach an intersection, think of what your actions will be if that car, waiting to turn left, actually turns in front of you.

Law enforcement officers and combat soldiers stay alive through constant training and practice. Their actions, in the face of danger, are instinctual. This is a level of skill mastery I would like to see in all our riders. So please, keep working on it.

RIDE SAFE – RIDE OFTEN

Submitted by Tom Scully
NC-E Chapter Educator