Considering mechanical failure accounts for so few accidents nowadays you would have thought that the way bikes are built and the way they are ridden wouldn’t have much of a connection. You would be wrong in this assumption however because bikes are built and bikes are ridden in what are commonly known as ‘systems’ and how systems work and sometimes fail to work is critical to our understanding of accident causation. Continue reading
Why do riders crash in corners?
Why do riders crash in corners? After all, had they not successfully negotiated a lot of other corners before they reached the one that got them? Was there something about certain corners that made them more likely to be accident sites? Why did these riders select a particular corner entry speed that proved to be so spectacularly incorrect? What is the process that we use for judging the severity of a corner and selecting a suitable entry speed? Do we all use the same method, or are there a number of ways in which we can analyse a corner before we reach it? Continue reading
The Adjustment Bureau
Abstract
The ability to make control adjustments is critical to the riding task, but the range of adjustment available will always be limited. Most riders will be uncertain of where exactly those limits lie. They set personal limits which eventually become the actual limits. Continue reading
GAPS = TRAPS
GAPS = TRAPS
It’s the prediction that wherever there is space & time for something hazardous to occur, then there is a potential that it will actually happen. Knowing this and being prepared minimises the likelihood of being surprised in the event of it actually happening.
Whether it is a vehicle waiting at a junction, vehicles in moving or stationary traffic or vehicles moving towards you or away from you on straight roads or bends…knowing there is a gap means that gap can possibly be filled by something else. If you are aiming to occupy the same space at the same time then there has been a prediction failure and the result will be a collision. Continue reading
No Surprise makes the Road Safety GB front page!
What’s No Surprise? No Accident! all about?
Motorcycle crashes are frequently blamed on human error and often linked to ‘attitude’ and ‘behaviour’. However, most crashes do not involve ‘bad apples’ with an extensive history of law-breaking and driving violations. Most crashes happen to ‘ordinary’ riders doing what they thought was an everyday thing. Continue reading
Going To The Polls!
As part of the ongoing engagement process I have developed an initial poll of six questions to gauge rider opinions on some riding rights & safety issues. The polls have been designed to reflect the possible opinion variance and offer balanced options to choose from.
The poll shall be ongoing for the foreseeable future with the current results being easily viewable and you will be able to measure your own responses with the rest of the response pool. Continue reading
What do I do in the meantime?
So often is the case, we lie in wait until a solution to a problem is discovered or more so until the solution is implemented and is working.
If we look at motorcycle safety as an overarching concern, then it is with merit to identify certain issues that do or may cause motorcycle accidents…in fact we could extend this further into general road safety or any other area of concern and apply the same principles.
There are of course certain triggers that we may perceive as being the main causes and we may even campaign to effect changes to improve our position. Continue reading
Naturalist Motorcycling Study
If you’ve read the transcript of our ‘Bikers aren’t Bad People’ presention you’ll know that one thing that’s missing for motorcyclists is much in the way of ‘naturalistic’ riding data – studies nearly always focus on crashes, and usually crashes that result in injury or death at that. So we are very interested to see that The Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) from the USA have just released the following press release:
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IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 11, 2014 – Now that the data-acquisition phase of the MSF 100 Motorcyclists Naturalistic Study is complete, preliminary results are being shared at various transportation safety venues, including the upcoming 10th International ifz-MSF Motorcycle Safety Conference, sponsored by the MSF and Germany’s Institute for Motorcycle Safety (ifz), in Cologne, Germany, on September 29 and 30. Continue reading
Cango? Willgo!
SUMMARY
Collisions involve two road users attempting to occupy the same space on the road at the same time. Many accidents involving motorcycles are collisions with other road users, where the rider was taken by surprise but the collision was otherwise both commonplace and avoidable. The Cango?-Willgo! concept explains collisions in terms of prediction failure rather than the commonly-accepted explanation of rule-breaking or judgment failure. Cango?-Willgo! further extends the basic principle of No Surprise: No Accident. Continue reading
Letter of the Week – from Dan Carter, California
The No Surprise: No Accident rider safety initiative has been getting some interesting mail, by no means restricted to the UK either. Here’s a mail received a couple of days ago from Dan Carter of San Luis Obispo, California, USA. Dan says:
“I came across your website via discussion in a US forum here: ttp://www.msgroup.org/forums/mtt/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15141
“Your theme–no surprise, no accident–resonates with me because my own view of crashes is the same: Most occur when an ordinary situation takes an unexpected turn. But why does the rider fail to anticipate it? Crashes are a relatively common occurrence, so we’re not talking about a meteor falling from the sky. Rather, the trigger is usually something that motorists are familiar with–a bend tightens, a driver fails to yield right of way, etc. Continue reading
