I got tipped off yesterday that there was something in the latest edition of Bike about training, so as I was in the supermarket, I grabbed one off the shelf and parted with an extra £4 over and above the groceries.
I got home, made a cuppa and settled down for a read. I found the article on page 14, and started reading.
About one minute later, I got to the end of the second page, I got to the end of the second page and turned over and…….. news story about a Morini. What? That’s IT??
The first page has a huge 95% header taking half the page and the second half a page advertising chains! So there’s actually about one page of article.
Anyway, what’s it all about?
It seems there was a meeting at Mallory Park between the DSA, Rupert Paul of ‘Bike’, four police accident investigators (and riders) including Gary Baldwin who regularly writes riding technique articles for ‘Bike’, and Sean Hayes of Circuit Based Training, who runs a school based at Mallory.
The basis for the article is the statement that “the motorcycle test – and the government-approved syllabus that leads up to it – makes no serious examination of braking and cornering. Second, most of the 700 rider deaths that occur each year are due to poor braking and cornering skills”.
So, ‘Bike’ went out and asked the great unwashed what they thought was the problem. Apparently “almost every reader agreed strongly that the current CBT and DAS test are profoundly inadequate, that much of the motorcycle training industry operates to abysmal standards – and that the tests are no test of riding ability”.
The group put forward some proposals to the DSA:
CBT
1. Overall Structure
The client to get a written description of what CBT should feel like and what it should cover. To include the idea that riding a bike safely is about lifelong learning, not hitting a minimal standard in the test then relaxing.
CBT to cover existing syllabus plus hard braking from 30mph, cornering at 30mph, and classroom training in planning ahead, where to look, using the vanishing point, counter-steering, hazard perception and how the five most common crashes happen. Braking and counter-steering principles to be further explained to all new riders with a static bike demonstration.
Rather than done in a day, CBT to be a competency-based process that takes as long (or short) as needs to for each client. All progress is verified and signed for by the rider who only goes out on the road when they agree they are ready.
New riders must complete all off-road and classroom on a separate day to their road ride to reduce the possibility of accidents through fatigue. Only experienced riders, who are already competent in all off-road elements, can complete their accompanied road ride on the same day.
Instructors must explain and demonstrate that riding a bike safely requires lifelong learning.
Training bodies must keep customers’ itemised progress forms for three years. The DSA can inspect them without notice whenever it wishes.
2. Theory Test
Alter the Theory Test to include the causes of the five most common crashes; the need to ride for a minimum of two hours to pass CBT; the need to countersteer when cornering above 30mph.
Riders must pass the Theory Test before taking CBT.
3. Training Area
Increase the minimum area for CBT training from 80ft x 30ft to 200×40ft, based on the need to brake hard from 30mph and corner realistically.
Direct Access
DSA to regulate the syllabus (currently unregulated).
The syllabus should include a minimum of six hours urban riding over two separate days and another minimum of six hours of national speed limit A-road and B-road riding over two separate days. It should cover specific teaching for junctions, overtaking, filtering and riding in bad weather, plus comprehensive cornering and braking, and the causes of the five main types of crash.
Clients must sign an itemised progress form to show competency and satisfaction with the training.
Training bodies must keep customers’ itemised progress forms for three years. The DSA can inspect them without notice whenever it wishes.
Instructors must explain and demonstrate that riding a bike safely requires lifelong learning. All clients to be given at least three options to improve their skills (such as track instruction, a trackday or high-quality road training).
Police
Local police to be encouraged to help enforce pupil/instructor rations, and improve standards by dropping in on training bodies whenever they are training.
Hmmm.
Aside from the rather bizarre idea that the police should start feeling the collars of instructors out trying to do a job – how often have you seen CBT being conducted at an illegal training ratio on the road? I never have – most of it looks common sense, indeed laudable stuff at first sight.
But let’s put the rhetoric away in the cupboard and try to think about all this logically.
Let’s start with the “95% of riders get inadequate training” claim. We can look at that in several ways. What’s meant by “inadequate training”?
Well, since the link the article makes is “inadequate training = accidents”, we can start with some statistics to see if there is any basis in fact:
- do 95% of riders crash in their first few weeks out on the road? I very much doubted it or bike accident stats would be far, far worse than they are already. So a VERY quick search on Google turned up the fact that 77,000 people took their motorcycle test in 2006/7. There were just on 6,500 killed and seriously injured (KSI) out of the WHOLE RIDING POPULATION. Now, other statistics do show that riders in their first two years on the road have a higher than average chance of an accident, but clearly, the vast majority of new riders are managing to stay shiny side up.
- what about pass rates? Figures for 2006/07 show that the overall motorcycle pass rate for those 77,000 was 65%. The figure for riding school passes is about 80% first time – my own pass rate back in ‘06 was in excess of 90% first time test passes. So if the fail rate is taken as a measure of competence/incompetence, then clearly it’s the riders who present themselves for the test having done only CBT and taken no formal training who are responsible for pulling down the overall pass rate.
So that suggests that the schools are doing a better job than riders who train themselves and that the training itself isn’t so bad that the riders go out there and instantly fall off.
So if you can’t make a straightforward link between “inadequate training = accidents”, perhaps it’s age and experience that’s the problem:
- who crashes riding what at which age? DfT figures can throw up some answers. There appear to be two peak age-ranges for accident involvement, 16-20 years and 31-35 years. 17% of the accidents in the 16-20-year-old age-range involve going out of control on a bend, but 15% of the accidents in the 31-35-year-old age-range involve going out of control on a bend. Riders having this type of accident are nearly three times as likely (compared with the whole sample) to be rated as ‘inexperienced’ riders by researchers.
That looks conclusive doesn’t it? It does… until you look deeper.
The 16-20 years olds will be genuinely inexperienced, not just on a bike but as road users in general. Few will have got out of their own neighbourhoods at that age, and they won’t have much time behind the wheel of a car either. The fact is they crash in cars too, so it’s not just about inadequate motorcycling skills – it’s a deeper problem.
But… the figures turn out to include a significant number of provisional licence holders (who, let’s remember, haven’t been trained to test standard) and also riders without a bike licence – perhaps someone trying a mate’s bike out without being a trained rider, someone who’s nicked one, or someone who’s just bucked the system!
I seem to remember that the number of unlicensed, illegal riders who are killed is significantly higher than those with a licence at this age. So add that to the provisional only riders on L plates, and that will definitely skew the picture for the younger age group away from trained riders.
The 31-35 age group turn out to be riders who nearly all have a full motorcycle licence, but perhaps either have not held it for a long time, or have returned to motorcycling after passing a test some years ago (so called ‘born again’ bikers). The mean age of this group is 32 and, of those cases with licence records available, they show a mean of 5.9 years of holding a full licence, slightly less the 7.5 years that the equivalent group of “non-crashers” average for length of time a bike licence has been held at this age.
Now, call me picky if you wish, but 5.9 years of riding time is not “inexperienced”.
Assume 3000 miles per year, and that’s a total of 18,000 miles on a bike. OK, not a lot by my standard or that of a 20 years police rider, but it’s a significant number of miles. Even someone doing just 1000 miles a year will still have 6000 miles road time. And remember, it’s an AVERAGE too – so some will have less riding time than that when they crash, others will have a lot more. The older group are also more experienced ROAD-USERS than the 16-20 group; most of them will have driven a car for quite a few years, they’ll have travelled far wider and experienced more bad weather.
So, it’s not quite the clear-cut “inadequate training = accidents” link that the article is making out, is it?
We mentioned the risk of riding with just CBT. Let’s remind ourselves that CBT is not “test standard” and isn’t meant to be. To my mind, it’s a bit bizarre that motorcyclists are the only group allowed to use the road who haven’t passed the standard competency test! However, let’s look at some of the suggestions:
The client to get a written description of what CBT should feel like and what it should cover.
Surely the job of explaining what CBT is about is down to the DSA and already covered via their website and publications. They are the regulators, they are the ones with the authority to say what CBT should consist of, not the training schools. This information is already out there, it doesn’t need to be repeated in my opinion, even though most training school websites and literature will provide brief details.
To include the idea that riding a bike safely is about lifelong learning, not hitting a minimal standard in the test then relaxing.
Which of course is mentioned already in CBT. But perhaps then we should be looking at a higher standard for CBT altogether, or as I’ve suggested in the past, removing the option for a learner to ride unaccompanied – which would get rid of the need for CBT and eliminate the provisional licence holder accidents entirely.
CBT to cover existing syllabus plus hard braking from 30mph, cornering at 30mph, and classroom training in planning ahead, where to look, using the vanishing point, counter-steering, hazard perception and how the five most common crashes happen. Braking and counter-steering principles to be further explained to all new riders with a static bike demonstration.
People have been arguing for the inclusion of counter-steering for decades. For the record, it was, as far as I’m aware, North Wales Police who argued against its inclusion in the basic syllabus at the last open meeting the DSA held where it was discussed, claiming it was an “advanced technique”.
I fully agree that counter-steering MUST be covered on CBT in future, but if they can steer round the playground at 20, they can steer out on the road ride around a corner at 30 or 60. Steady steering isn’t the issue, it’s the sudden change of direction mid-turn that’s needed when a decreasing radius bend catches you out or you come across a hazard half way round the bend that wasn’t anticipated. That’s what really needs to be emphasised. So although hazard perception and basic planning already get a good look in on CBT, perhaps the emphasis needs to be changed to encompass bends and what goes wrong.
Likewise, I’m not sure that we need to “up the ante” on braking performance – the big problem is not that trainees can’t use the brakes skillfully and effectively in the playground or even in front of the examiner, it’s using them in an emergency which is the problem, not freezing or grabbing in particular – and you can’t simulate that by getting a trainee to plough up and down stopping when you stick your hand up – it’s a mental thing.
But this is all a bit besides the point – these steering and braking skills will be tested on the practical riding test from October. Adding these to CBT starts to bring CBT up the same standard as the practical test – so as I’ve already said above, what’s the point of both?
Rather than done in a day, CBT to be a competency-based process that takes as long (or short) as needs to for each client. All progress is verified and signed for by the rider who only goes out on the road when they agree they are ready.
Which is exactly what a school is supposed to do at the moment – and the good ones WON’T take a rider out on the road until they are ready – at the school I’m associated with, perhaps 1 in 4 trainees has to repeat the off-road element before we take them out. But as another instructor said; “the first thing the customer asks when you pick up the phone is: “how much…?”".
Personally, I reckon three days would be about right for CBT
for a complete beginner. But would anyone pay for it? Not if there’s
another school up the road that’ll do it in two days. I think that as long as there is no statutory minimum time limit on ALL CBT (not just the road ride), then there will be people “undercutting” on how long it takes.
What’s needed is also a fixed fee for it (like MOTs), perhaps to be laid down by the bike training industry itself. Then there’s no argument, no shortcuts, and little incentive to cut corners. And I’ve suggested that before too!
New riders must complete all off-road and classroom on a separate day to their road ride to reduce the possibility of accidents through fatigue. Only experienced riders, who are already competent in all off-road elements, can complete their accompanied road ride on the same day.
The first thing I’d question is the implicit suggestion of “accidents through fatigue” on CBT and whether there is any evidence for such accidents. Otherwise it’s an interesting, but probably impractical idea if you don’t have a fixed length course! It could be an administrative nightmare trying to get people who’ve done the off-road section onto the road, particularly if you have a first bit of the course that isn’t fixed in length! Presumably they’re thinking that you do the offroad bit in the morning, then the previous week’s lot come back in the afternoon – but what if the first bunch overrun? It’s one of those ideas what would probably work for a big school but a one man band would have a lot of problems timetabling the trainees.
But broadly I’m in favour – CBT in one day is too much, and needs to be broken down over two days my opinion – but trainees need to understand they have to pay for it.
Training bodies must keep customers’ itemised progress forms for three years. The DSA can inspect them without notice whenever it wishes.
More paperwork.
Riders must pass the Theory Test before taking CBT.
No problem with that, but I think you need to allow 16′ers to take the theory test before their 16th birthday in that case.
Increase the minimum area for CBT training from 80ft x 30ft to 200×40ft, based on the need to brake hard from 30mph and corner realistically.
Ho Ho Ho. Pass the Tardis, Doctor. It’s easy for Shaun Hayes to say that, with his access to a racetrack!
OK, let’s move on to Direct Access. First of all, we should remember that the DSA practical test is the standard by which all drivers and riders are judged, and is a more or less consistent standard across the classes, with some specific skills being tested for each group.
It’s also a standard that’s meant to keep the rider or driver safe in the vast majority of situations they will find themselves in, which means a good standard of driving but it’s not exhaustive, nor can we train beyond the speed limits. We need to remember the law of diminishing returns. Even the law only requires a “reasonable” standard of driving. No
training course can cover EVERY eventuality, or cater for EVERY rider. You can keep tweaking training and tests, adding bits here and there, but beyond a certain point, does it make for a fundamentally safer rider or driver? Or are you simply driving the costs up for miniscule gains? Back to those accident stats again. The idea that you can reduce accidents to nil is clearly nonsense, however hard the Swedish government try to export the idea of “zero accidents”.
So if the accident stats don’t support the “inadequate” contention, but the client says it’s not adequate, we’re looking at a difference between what the client needs and what the client expects.
Is it reasonable for someone to say “my Direct Access course didn’t equip me for hooning round a corner at 90mph on a 170hp bike on the TT circuit” any more than it is reasonable to say that it didn’t prepare the rider for trackdays? Or for riding off road?
Or should an element of personal responsibility come into it?
DSA to regulate the syllabus (currently unregulated).
The DSA do so indirectly every time they take a candidate out and examine their competency to ride; if the candidate doesn’t know the right stuff, they are unlikely to pass. So the instructor / school wouldn’t have much of a future in bike training if they didn’t offer the skills and techniques necessary for the rider to pass the test, and that means the instructor needs to be competent in the skills and techniques already laid down in the DSA’s own literature.
What about the “training logbook” idea that’s been floating around for ages, where the instructor and trainee sign off the various areas as satisfactorily completed? Surely that’s what’s needed, NOT a rigid syllabus in the way that CBT stifles the instructor’s originality?
What would be good is GUIDANCE to instructors. We don’t need a syllabus, we need to know exactly what the DSA expect to see!
The syllabus should include a minimum of six hours urban riding over two separate days and another minimum of six hours of national speed limit A-road and B-road riding over two separate days. It should cover specific teaching for junctions, overtaking, filtering and riding in bad weather, plus comprehensive cornering and braking, and the causes of the five main types of crash.
Same criticism as above – there are already standard techniques for junctions and overtaking and riding in bad weather are covered in the Highway Code and other DSA publications.
I do agree that single carriageway overtaking is probably not covered anything like as well as it could be, but the idea of going out on the road and saying to a nervous trainee “go on, give it some welly, get the overtake in” fills me with liability litigation horror. As I’ve said elsewhere, you can’t really choose whether you go round a bend or not, it’s a fact of life, but overtaking is a matter of choice. I think the answer here is a DSA video, where the DSA shoulder the responsibility, not the training school.
I don’t particularly like the idea of “minimum hours, specific location” either. The DSA are not noted for their flexible CBT syllabus and I can see this ending up written in stone in the same “thou shallt not…” way CBT is. One of the pleasures and advantages of doing DAS without regulation is the ability to change the routes, change the locations, take the trainees who are doing well on a bit of a ride, whilst spending more time in the problem areas with trainees who are struggling a bit.
More importantly, I think a maximum number of hours training per day needs to be put in place. Some schools run 8 hour days or even 9 hour days – far too long. But we also need to stop schools exploiting INSTRUCTORS by making them work too many hours a day – I’ve heard of one school that runs THREE courses a day! The instructors are working a ten-plus hour day and gets less than an hour’s break in total. It would be unacceptable in any other industry.
Clients must sign an itemised progress form to show competency and satisfaction with the training.
That logbook again.
Training bodies must keep customers’ itemised progress forms for three years. The DSA can inspect them without notice whenever it wishes.
Ditto above.
Instructors must explain and demonstrate that riding a bike safely requires lifelong learning. All clients to be given at least three options to improve their skills (such as track instruction, a trackday or high-quality road training).
How does a trackday or even track instruction improve road skills? The link is tenuous at best, in my opinion. Accident investigators say that riders don’t crash in 60mph bends at 70, or even 60! Usually, the bike is well within its capabilities, it’s the rider that’s failed. If the rider has the control to steer, there may be an element of confidence that’s lacking, but it’s more likely that the rider has failed to read the corner and panicked – on the road it’s difficult to pull the rabbit out of the hat when the brain has frozen, no matter how good you can be on the track.
Getting confident at higher speed and greater lean angles on a one-way track doesn’t result in more caution on a blind bend on the road!
Conclusions:
It’s certainly not the new broom approach that it’s made out to be – many of the highlighted areas are already in the CBT syllabus or covered on DAS, and virtually everything else has been argued with the DSA over and over in the past.
But the headline claim that 95% of riders do NOT receive inadequate instruction is simply not true – the accident stats show that.
Whilst both could be improved, there’s little truth in the claim that CBT and DAS are “profoundly inadequate”. And to suggest that “most of the training industry operates to abysmal standards” is hugely unfair to the majority of trainers actually out there doing the job.
One of the things I’ve found over the years is that trainees will consistently report that some bit of training, sometimes something quite important, wasn’t covered in their course. At first, I tended to believe it was poor training. But then it started to happen to trainees I’d taught – where I not only knew I’d explained things, but could remind them exactly where and when on their course! They’d simply forgotten it until something – perhaps a refresher for a re-test or an advanced course covered the same ground – and they’d swear blind it was new. Now I tend to put a lot of the customer dissatisfaction with training down to this.
I suspect there must also be a big element of “wise after the event” in all these riders who claim they didn’t get good enough training. We offered a free advanced course to trainees at our school a few years ago as a winter “teaser” offer to keep bookings up through the quiet period. I think TWO of the twenty or so eligible clients actually came back and did it – the remaining 18 turned down a complete freebie! So clearly the readers complaining about inadequate training didn’t go to our school.
Or perhaps they just THOUGHT they’d learned all they needed to know. If, as Shaun Hayes says “the clients who actually undertake the training” are the ones “most qualified to comment”, then one wonders why they vote so consistently with their wallets, and in this case actually turned their nose up at a free course.
Just to show I’m not suggesting the industry is all peaches and cream, here are some suggestions of my own:
The simplest improvement to CBT and DAS would be fixed length/fixed cost courses at a realistic charge to the client and a realistic minimum wage to the instructor to stop the owners simply diverting the extra funds to their own pockets. The extra time could then be used with existing skills and techniques to make training more relaxed and enjoyable and therefore more likely to stick, not just to train riders to a better standard! It would also allow more time to emphasise important points and together with the introduction of logbooks being signed off by instructor and trainee, it would help stop the “my instructor never told us that” issue where they’ve simply forgotten the training.
One of the best ways of improving training standards would be for the DSA to provide free guidance on test standards and free “career development” sessions for instructors rather than the “pick you to pieces” assessments that the DSA currently do.
One of the quickest ways of reducing accidents would be to do away with CBT altogether.
One of the best ways of ensuring personal attention on training would be to limit ALL training to 2:1 ratio to stop schools training at higher ratios on 125s AFTER the trainees have a CBT certificate.
One of the best ways of improving DAS standards would be to do away with the loophole that allows a CBT instructor (and therefore unqualified to teach DAS) train riders on a paid-for DAS course so long as they are on 125s!
One of the best ways to ensure skills are transferred to the bigger machines would be to ensure that DAS courses are actually taken on DAS bikes, not 125s; it’s a common practice to only put the trainee on the DAS bike for the last day or two of a course.
Will any of that happen though?
