Always interesting going back to basics. What I found interesting is you talked about all the important things like road position, looking ahead, safety margins, anticipating scenarios etc - but you didn't mention looking at your speedo. This is where I get so frustrated with all the police/media emphasis on not exceeding the speed limit. So many people seem to think the most important thing is constantly looking at their speedo (hey if I'm not speeding I'm perfectly safe right?) and all the good stuff you talk about is a distant second - if thought about at all. Unfortunately we now have the situation where many drivers primary focus is their speedo and this detracts from their general awareness.
We are definitely on the same page there mate. We get so fixated on watching our speedo because only a few km over the limit gets you a fine and demerit points. I'm definitely a firm believer in looking where you're going rather than at the controls. I also always tell my students that if you see me doing the "you've left your indicator on" signal, then don't look down to see if it is you, just cancel it anyway as it doesn't hurt to cancel it if it is already off! We have a module called "Crash Avoidance Space" and in that I use the example of the rider who thinks they're a safe rider because they are riding below the speed limit, but they've missed the fact that a vehicle is just about to pull out on them. A proactive rider vs a reactive rider.
@@MrAusadventure Unless of course your students are riding perhaps a Harley and they need to check which of those (L or R) they need to switch off 🙂... As a trainer/instructor myself, we were informed by the Riding School to use the phrase "look where you want to go" rather than, "look where you are going". Sometimes as riders, we look at "the thing" we don't want to run into. "Target fixation". 👍
@@nikitis13 I'm telling my students about target fixation almost daily and definitely using the words "don't look where you are going at the moment", "look where you want to go" and "look to where you want the bike to be in the near future" every day!
Great video mate, I've had the same mind set for many years, originally fostered by watching Russ and Learn2Ride giving similar advice. I remember Russ saying it's ALWAYS the rider's fault and getting flak for it - he was right though... Your commentary pieces were exactly what quietly goes through my head when I'm riding. If I'm on a long ride and I realise that commentary has stopped it pulls me up quickly and I'll start it again and find a place to rest fairly soon. It's the same with driving and I'm personally horrified and not happy with the removal of responsibility from the driver - driving assist technology is not helping - or how they keep blaming certain intersections or road conditions for spates of crashes. People have eyes and brains for a reason... That 6th sense is, I think just learned observation skills, last week (in the Van) I had a near head on with a car that mounted the concrete median strip and jumped into the lane in front of me - I had already started to react and swerve before he hit the concrete, I could see his line was not right. Scared the $hi7 out of me but I avoided a pretty serious crash. I can only thank my experience on the bike for having those observation skills.
You were in my mind as I was filming this one mate as I know we've shared this belief for a long time now that riders need to take more responsibility for their crashes instead of putting the blame solely on someone else. It's something that I talk about every day at work now. Technology is definitely taking away people's ability to think. I'm scared to imagine what the world is going to be like in another 20 years or so. Yeah, those learned observation skills can only be achieved with experience and practice. It might take effort in the beginning but after a while it just becomes habit. Bloody hell! That sounds scary, but yes, those observation skills allow you to see pretty early what is about to happen. We can predict what might happen in most cases but there's always the random ones that we cannot predict in advance but if we're paying attention we can see the signs pretty early on before it gets too late. Thanks mate! Hopefully we'll get to ride together more than just once next year!
Assuming everyone else on the road is out to kill me is exactly how I've ridden for 40+ years & so far it has served me well. In that time I've had a few close calls, but I've never had a crash as the rider. I know that they're not all out to kill me, but riding with the attitude that they are is a good way to keep yourself in a defensive mode - ie: constantly scanning around, anticipating other road users' actions, riding to the conditions & picking your spots if you get the urge to let loose a bit. A lot of people think driving & riding are passive activities - they aren't. Whenever you're on the road you need to be constantly aware of what's going on around you & putting 100% of your attention into keeping yourself safe. I watch a lot of motorcycle crash videos & the vast majority of them are due to riders either not paying attention, not riding to the conditions, or not riding within their capabilities (or a combination of all 3).
Very well said mate. That sums up the message I am trying to get across with this video perfectly. I say to some students (on courses where students already have some experience) that I know you'll want to have a bit of fun with speed from time to time, but just choose those spots wisely where you have good vision ahead. Ride to the conditions as you say.
Pretty good advice!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Been on bikes for over 50 years... One little part that plays a big part in defensive riding, MIRRORS. They're absolutely useless if they're not used. I see the Strom is still sounding good.
Having been SMIDSY’d back in 2021 on a ninja 400 at Gipps St/Barry Pde in Fortitude Valley: My collision was not my fault, but it would have been avoided if I wasn’t distracted by a car taking off from a set of lights quickly to my left. 1s looking at a silver mercedes to my left that should have been spent looking at the previously stopped car pulling through the stop sign ahead of me, and I would have been saved a world of hurt. Not going fast in the first place saved me from a long slide. Hard braking absolutely saved me from any worse injuries. ABS saved me from winding up under the car. Gear saved me from broken bones and road rash. Prevention is always better than cure however, and all it took was 1s of not paying enough attention to ***all*** of the hazards around me to end up in a bad situation. Learn the lessons forged in blood. Ride safe, stay alert, and keep the shiny side up ❤️
Sorry to hear of your incident mate. Yeah that part of Brisbane is always pretty hectic whenever I've been in that area. A lot going on that requires attention and it is hard to see everything all at once. I'm glad it wasn't as bad as it could have been for you.
One thing you really need to watch out for, bollards, really a pain in the pannier and they pop up like a genie.😂 My instructor told me back in the ancient times when earth was still young, that the only thing you cant encounter around the corner is your self. That sentence has burned itself to my brain and l live by it. I consider myself as a safe rider, but as l have commuted many years in heavy city traffic all year round, things do happens and l think you also need to be prepared for that as well. In rushouer the amount of traffic information are vast and even with good skills cell phone zombies will hit you one way ore the other. Ride safe my friend 🇧🇻☕
HaHa! Someone had to mention the bollards! It was bound to happen! That is great advice about the only thing you can't encounter around the corner is yourself. I'm going to use that one! Yeah, we can only do our best, even the safest riders can encounter a random experience in traffic. It is hard to predict everything. Especially when commuting home tired after a long day at work or something. Thanks mate, you too my friend!
Motorcycle training has come a long way since I got my learners back in 1975. We had a booklet to study then a 30 question multiple choice quiz. Then we got the learners permit. When I got my licence 3 months later I had to ride to the next town where the traffic cops were based (they did licence testing back then). I'd forgotten a form so I had to ride home to get it. When I got back the licence was all filled out and I was good to go. I think that he watched me ride off down the road when leaving the cop shop then went back inside. That was the extent of my licence training and testing. And if I could have afforded I'd have been riding a Kawasaki Z1 900 as my road bike and a Yammy XT500 as my trail bike (no dirt bikes back then). No LAMS either. My real training came after that - by having a few on-road and a lot of off-road crashes. Getting hurt was probably a better teacher than getting yelled at (or failing) from an instructor at the time. If you survived, great. If you didn't, then motorcycling wasn't for you, I guess.
Yeah, that's a common story from a lot of older riders (I'm not calling you old mate! HaHa!), just ride up the street and come back and if you look like you have some sort of a clue and make it back in one piece, then that was it! If I'd gone for my licence when I first could have, it was just a written test to get my learners and I could have been riding on the road before driving. But I waited until I was 25 and they'd introduced a basic course by then. Nowhere near as comprehensive as you get these days though.
I remember a U.S. forum guy once berating people for wearing leather gardening gloves on short in-town rides. He mentioned after being T-boned a few times he'd learned the value of protective great - yet there's me shaking my head thinking "this guy let himself get T-boned twice" .... hmmmm??
I often watch those compilations on TH-cam and have since I started riding. I must have seen hundreds of near misses, collisions and single rider crashes and can count on one hand how many were unavoidable. There are some people that appear over and over on the videos and it's always the other person's fault. It doesn't seem to cross their minds that if you are constantly getting into issues then maybe you're the problem 😀 I think as well that people don't realise that motorcycling is a skill that requires practise. I've had people tell me it's too dangerous to practise emergency stops, too dangerous to brake whilst turning and all of the other classics. I would argue it's too dangerous not to practise those thing.
And that's why you are the "Calm Biker" and not the "Stressed out, too many close calls Biker!" Yeah, I've seen too many Facebook posts over the years blaming others or road conditions for their crashes. There's definitely quite a few repeat offenders that I know of! I always tell my students when they come back for the next stage of the licence after they've had some road experience to practice everything we do in the course in a controlled and quiet environment. Empty car park or quiet industrial street on the weekend etc.
@@MrAusadventure Do you ever do any video analysis with your students? I wonder if, at first, they would be like a lot of the commenters on those videos that follow the same pattern and just agree that the biker did nothing wrong and if they would learn from those videos instead of a future bad experience, with your knowledge. I guess time is of the essence though on the training.
@@CalmBiker There's nothing related to crashing video wise in the curriculum, but I have shown students videos on social media from time to time at relevant points when it felt appropriate and I'd seen the video recently and knew where to find it quickly. There's not much time to stray from the curriculum but we do include several scenarios in diagrams on the TV in the classroom presentations.
Hmmmmm, I feel that was just a little "tacky", commenting on that accident with the loose gravel. Neither of us were there. Yes, there are lots of "what ifs" in every accident. I am sure, that they were all brought up in court, and considering the settlement, they were all examined in great detail. I have had a few "offs" in my 50 odd years on bikes, as I am sure you have as well. In the case of rider who is still recovering, I think that commenting on his ability, or lack of, is not very appropriate.
Yeah I get what you mean. But that's why I put a disclaimer on the screen stating that "I am assuming this as I weren't there" and used terms such as "He may have" and "if" and "was he?" and "I'm not saying he did" I'm just getting people to think about their riding a bit more.
Always interesting going back to basics. What I found interesting is you talked about all the important things like road position, looking ahead, safety margins, anticipating scenarios etc - but you didn't mention looking at your speedo. This is where I get so frustrated with all the police/media emphasis on not exceeding the speed limit. So many people seem to think the most important thing is constantly looking at their speedo (hey if I'm not speeding I'm perfectly safe right?) and all the good stuff you talk about is a distant second - if thought about at all. Unfortunately we now have the situation where many drivers primary focus is their speedo and this detracts from their general awareness.
We are definitely on the same page there mate. We get so fixated on watching our speedo because only a few km over the limit gets you a fine and demerit points. I'm definitely a firm believer in looking where you're going rather than at the controls. I also always tell my students that if you see me doing the "you've left your indicator on" signal, then don't look down to see if it is you, just cancel it anyway as it doesn't hurt to cancel it if it is already off!
We have a module called "Crash Avoidance Space" and in that I use the example of the rider who thinks they're a safe rider because they are riding below the speed limit, but they've missed the fact that a vehicle is just about to pull out on them. A proactive rider vs a reactive rider.
You can do both
@@MrAusadventure Unless of course your students are riding perhaps a Harley and they need to check which of those (L or R) they need to switch off 🙂... As a trainer/instructor myself, we were informed by the Riding School to use the phrase "look where you want to go" rather than, "look where you are going". Sometimes as riders, we look at "the thing" we don't want to run into. "Target fixation". 👍
@@nikitis13 I'm telling my students about target fixation almost daily and definitely using the words "don't look where you are going at the moment", "look where you want to go" and "look to where you want the bike to be in the near future" every day!
Great video mate, I've had the same mind set for many years, originally fostered by watching Russ and Learn2Ride giving similar advice. I remember Russ saying it's ALWAYS the rider's fault and getting flak for it - he was right though...
Your commentary pieces were exactly what quietly goes through my head when I'm riding. If I'm on a long ride and I realise that commentary has stopped it pulls me up quickly and I'll start it again and find a place to rest fairly soon.
It's the same with driving and I'm personally horrified and not happy with the removal of responsibility from the driver - driving assist technology is not helping - or how they keep blaming certain intersections or road conditions for spates of crashes. People have eyes and brains for a reason...
That 6th sense is, I think just learned observation skills, last week (in the Van) I had a near head on with a car that mounted the concrete median strip and jumped into the lane in front of me - I had already started to react and swerve before he hit the concrete, I could see his line was not right. Scared the $hi7 out of me but I avoided a pretty serious crash.
I can only thank my experience on the bike for having those observation skills.
You were in my mind as I was filming this one mate as I know we've shared this belief for a long time now that riders need to take more responsibility for their crashes instead of putting the blame solely on someone else. It's something that I talk about every day at work now.
Technology is definitely taking away people's ability to think. I'm scared to imagine what the world is going to be like in another 20 years or so.
Yeah, those learned observation skills can only be achieved with experience and practice. It might take effort in the beginning but after a while it just becomes habit.
Bloody hell! That sounds scary, but yes, those observation skills allow you to see pretty early what is about to happen. We can predict what might happen in most cases but there's always the random ones that we cannot predict in advance but if we're paying attention we can see the signs pretty early on before it gets too late.
Thanks mate! Hopefully we'll get to ride together more than just once next year!
Assuming everyone else on the road is out to kill me is exactly how I've ridden for 40+ years & so far it has served me well. In that time I've had a few close calls, but I've never had a crash as the rider. I know that they're not all out to kill me, but riding with the attitude that they are is a good way to keep yourself in a defensive mode - ie: constantly scanning around, anticipating other road users' actions, riding to the conditions & picking your spots if you get the urge to let loose a bit. A lot of people think driving & riding are passive activities - they aren't. Whenever you're on the road you need to be constantly aware of what's going on around you & putting 100% of your attention into keeping yourself safe. I watch a lot of motorcycle crash videos & the vast majority of them are due to riders either not paying attention, not riding to the conditions, or not riding within their capabilities (or a combination of all 3).
Very well said mate. That sums up the message I am trying to get across with this video perfectly. I say to some students (on courses where students already have some experience) that I know you'll want to have a bit of fun with speed from time to time, but just choose those spots wisely where you have good vision ahead. Ride to the conditions as you say.
Pretty good advice!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Been on bikes for over 50 years... One little part that plays a big part in defensive riding, MIRRORS. They're absolutely useless if they're not used. I see the Strom is still sounding good.
100%! I could have spoken about mirrors and a few other things that I'm always talking to students about that I missed out.
Having been SMIDSY’d back in 2021 on a ninja 400 at Gipps St/Barry Pde in Fortitude Valley:
My collision was not my fault, but it would have been avoided if I wasn’t distracted by a car taking off from a set of lights quickly to my left. 1s looking at a silver mercedes to my left that should have been spent looking at the previously stopped car pulling through the stop sign ahead of me, and I would have been saved a world of hurt.
Not going fast in the first place saved me from a long slide.
Hard braking absolutely saved me from any worse injuries.
ABS saved me from winding up under the car.
Gear saved me from broken bones and road rash.
Prevention is always better than cure however, and all it took was 1s of not paying enough attention to ***all*** of the hazards around me to end up in a bad situation.
Learn the lessons forged in blood. Ride safe, stay alert, and keep the shiny side up ❤️
Sorry to hear of your incident mate. Yeah that part of Brisbane is always pretty hectic whenever I've been in that area. A lot going on that requires attention and it is hard to see everything all at once. I'm glad it wasn't as bad as it could have been for you.
One thing you really need to watch out for, bollards, really a pain in the pannier and they pop up like a genie.😂
My instructor told me back in the ancient times when earth was still young, that the only thing you cant encounter around the corner is your self. That sentence has burned itself to my brain and l live by it.
I consider myself as a safe rider, but as l have commuted many years in heavy city traffic all year round, things do happens and l think you also need to be prepared for that as well. In rushouer the amount of traffic information are vast and even with good skills cell phone zombies will hit you one way ore the other.
Ride safe my friend 🇧🇻☕
HaHa! Someone had to mention the bollards! It was bound to happen!
That is great advice about the only thing you can't encounter around the corner is yourself. I'm going to use that one!
Yeah, we can only do our best, even the safest riders can encounter a random experience in traffic. It is hard to predict everything. Especially when commuting home tired after a long day at work or something.
Thanks mate, you too my friend!
Motorcycle training has come a long way since I got my learners back in 1975. We had a booklet to study then a 30 question multiple choice quiz. Then we got the learners permit.
When I got my licence 3 months later I had to ride to the next town where the traffic cops were based (they did licence testing back then). I'd forgotten a form so I had to ride home to get it. When I got back the licence was all filled out and I was good to go.
I think that he watched me ride off down the road when leaving the cop shop then went back inside. That was the extent of my licence training and testing. And if I could have afforded I'd have been riding a Kawasaki Z1 900 as my road bike and a Yammy XT500 as my trail bike (no dirt bikes back then). No LAMS either.
My real training came after that - by having a few on-road and a lot of off-road crashes. Getting hurt was probably a better teacher than getting yelled at (or failing) from an instructor at the time. If you survived, great. If you didn't, then motorcycling wasn't for you, I guess.
Yeah, that's a common story from a lot of older riders (I'm not calling you old mate! HaHa!), just ride up the street and come back and if you look like you have some sort of a clue and make it back in one piece, then that was it! If I'd gone for my licence when I first could have, it was just a written test to get my learners and I could have been riding on the road before driving. But I waited until I was 25 and they'd introduced a basic course by then. Nowhere near as comprehensive as you get these days though.
@ well, I am getting old. 67 isn’t really spring chicken stuff any more.
I remember a U.S. forum guy once berating people for wearing leather gardening gloves on short in-town rides. He mentioned after being T-boned a few times he'd learned the value of protective great - yet there's me shaking my head thinking "this guy let himself get T-boned twice" .... hmmmm??
On ya mate! Some good tips in this video! Keep 'em coming 🙂
@@in2ADV Thanks so much mate! 👍
My biggest fear today is encountering 20yr old me coming the other way
HaHa! I'm hearing you! I have fears for some of my young students, but most of them seem pretty sensible actually.
I often watch those compilations on TH-cam and have since I started riding. I must have seen hundreds of near misses, collisions and single rider crashes and can count on one hand how many were unavoidable. There are some people that appear over and over on the videos and it's always the other person's fault. It doesn't seem to cross their minds that if you are constantly getting into issues then maybe you're the problem 😀
I think as well that people don't realise that motorcycling is a skill that requires practise. I've had people tell me it's too dangerous to practise emergency stops, too dangerous to brake whilst turning and all of the other classics. I would argue it's too dangerous not to practise those thing.
And that's why you are the "Calm Biker" and not the "Stressed out, too many close calls Biker!"
Yeah, I've seen too many Facebook posts over the years blaming others or road conditions for their crashes. There's definitely quite a few repeat offenders that I know of! I always tell my students when they come back for the next stage of the licence after they've had some road experience to practice everything we do in the course in a controlled and quiet environment. Empty car park or quiet industrial street on the weekend etc.
@@MrAusadventure Do you ever do any video analysis with your students? I wonder if, at first, they would be like a lot of the commenters on those videos that follow the same pattern and just agree that the biker did nothing wrong and if they would learn from those videos instead of a future bad experience, with your knowledge. I guess time is of the essence though on the training.
@@CalmBiker There's nothing related to crashing video wise in the curriculum, but I have shown students videos on social media from time to time at relevant points when it felt appropriate and I'd seen the video recently and knew where to find it quickly. There's not much time to stray from the curriculum but we do include several scenarios in diagrams on the TV in the classroom presentations.
Hmmmmm, I feel that was just a little "tacky", commenting on that accident with the loose gravel. Neither of us were there. Yes, there are lots of "what ifs" in every accident. I am sure, that they were all brought up in court, and considering the settlement, they were all examined in great detail. I have had a few "offs" in my 50 odd years on bikes, as I am sure you have as well. In the case of rider who is still recovering, I think that commenting on his ability, or lack of, is not very appropriate.
Yeah I get what you mean. But that's why I put a disclaimer on the screen stating that "I am assuming this as I weren't there" and used terms such as "He may have" and "if" and "was he?" and "I'm not saying he did"
I'm just getting people to think about their riding a bit more.