Motorbike license comparison

Originally Posted by sinbad

Maybe it's a car pulling out from a side road ahead that stalls and stops in your lane.

On the new test hear that would be the "hazard awareness" part which could include the wind blowing a carrier bag in your path.

Pedro I do like the old sig better though......... tongue in cheek of course

Sig duly changed to please as many people as possible ... except those that have been colour blind from birth, and have no concept of what colour "copper" actually is.

That'll be on the new motorcycle test in the UK if the DSA reads this ... "Carrier bag blowing in the wind avoidance" ... followed by, "Suicidal squirrel avoidance" (Smudge/Plowsie have both failed that one recently I believe).

I think "avoidance" of ANY object should fall under the heading of "hazard awareness".

If you can identify a hazard, then you are AWARE of it ... and if you are aware of it, then you can take action to AVOID it should you need to - no point unnecessarily avoiding something only to be hit by the oncoming hazard you DIDN'T see!

IMO.
Pete

I went on a driving and riding holiday in America earlier in the year, covering 6 different states and over 2500 miles. Generally, I would say that the standard of motorcycle riding wasn't necessarily worse, but it was certainly more conservative. Plenty of times I saw people failing to make overtakes etc. that would have been safe and that I would have done, but this was offset by my seeing far fewer people "riding like tw@s". There was really only one person I saw who was really riding like a knobber the whole time I was there and unsurprisingly, literally 5 minutes later he stacked his ZX-10R. On the flip side of the coin, I didn't see much riding I was really envious of, other than the chap on some small dirt bike who was absolutely owning tail of the dragon (safely too, I might add). I'm not bigging up my own riding ability and certainly not when two up on a Goldwing, but that I was catching up with sportsbikes (and only overtaken twice) at somewhere which is a mecca for fast/skilled road riding was surprising. On equivalent roads up the Brecon Beacons I'd be overtaken at least once every couple of miles on a busy day. Motorway riding was much more sedate than over here, but to be fair I saw almost only choppers on the freeways and I suppose they are slow and stick to the inside lane here, too. As an aside, I didn't see any tatty commuting bikes, or more than a handful of commuters full stop. It seems unless you're an Angel, you only use a bike at weekends. I also saw no bikes filtering (bar myself) the whole time I was there. I realised after I got back that this might have been because it's illegal in some states. Whoops!

Could this difference in riding be down to the training? Perhaps those who have to pass a more stringent test are prepared to push it a bit harder (for good or ill)?

Originally Posted by Ceri JC

I went on a driving and riding holiday in America earlier in the year, covering 6 different states and over 2500 miles. Generally, I would say that the standard of motorcycle riding wasn't necessarily worse, but it was certainly more conservative. Plenty of times I saw people failing to make overtakes etc. that would have been safe and that I would have done, but this was offset by my seeing far fewer people "riding like tw@s". There was really only one person I saw who was really riding like a knobber the whole time I was there and unsurprisingly, literally 5 minutes later he stacked his ZX-10R. On the flip side of the coin, I didn't see much riding I was really envious of, other than the chap on some small dirt bike who was absolutely owning tail of the dragon (safely too, I might add). I'm not bigging up my own riding ability and certainly not when two up on a Goldwing, but that I was catching up with sportsbikes (and only overtaken twice) at somewhere which is a mecca for fast/skilled road riding was surprising. On equivalent roads up the Brecon Beacons I'd be overtaken at least once every couple of miles on a busy day. Motorway riding was much more sedate than over here, but to be fair I saw almost only choppers on the freeways and I suppose they are slow and stick to the inside lane here, too. As an aside, I didn't see any tatty commuting bikes, or more than a handful of commuters full stop. It seems unless you're an Angel, you only use a bike at weekends. I also saw no bikes filtering (bar myself) the whole time I was there. I realised after I got back that this might have been because it's illegal in some states. Whoops!

Could this difference in riding be down to the training? Perhaps those who have to pass a more stringent test are prepared to push it a bit harder (for good or ill)?

[translation-mode] American's are pussies [/translation-mode]

[northwind]

Ceri's post makes sense to me, I'd never thought of it that way before... Certainly all of the american riders I've ridden with have been either very good, or very very tentative- not neccesarily unskilled, just riding in such a way that you can't actually tell. And I'm no demon, so if I can get from Callander to Tyndrum 15 minutes faster than a GSXR thou, he's going slow. You see the same in a lot of trackday or road video footage- SV Rider was well impressed by my footage, everyone here says "You ****ed that apex up, you tool". And a lot of what gets posted there as far as Gap vids are fairly tame.

It answers the question of how you can have so little training and so many people on supersports as first bikes, and yet not have the expected astronomical death toll, too

Originally Posted by northwind

Ceri's post makes sense to me, I'd never thought of it that way before... Certainly all of the american riders I've ridden with have been either very good, or very very tentative- not neccesarily unskilled, just riding in such a way that you can't actually tell. And I'm no demon, so if I can get from Callander to Tyndrum 15 minutes faster than a GSXR thou, he's going slow. You see the same in a lot of trackday or road video footage- SV Rider was well impressed by my footage, everyone here says "You ****ed that apex up, you tool". And a lot of what gets posted there as far as Gap vids are fairly tame.

It answers the question of how you can have so little training and so many people on supersports as first bikes, and yet not have the expected astronomical death toll, too

That makes sense, I suppose you don't really need to know much about riding to stay alive, as long as you know it's dangerous.

And if you want to see one of those so-called "American Pu$$ies" then take a look at this ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx1CkPcICaY

Now I know I'm probably the last person who should be offering advice on filtering, but even this guys moves scare the hell outta me and I'm sat on a SOFA watching it!

Enjoy ... oh and look out for the other vids of his ... it would appear this guy makes these vids to boast about "losing the cops". Sensible chap huh?!

Pete

Originally Posted by Pedro68

And if you want to see one of those so-called "American Pu$$ies" then take a look at this ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx1CkPcICaY

Now I know I'm probably the last person who should be offering advice on filtering, but even this guys moves scare the hell outta me and I'm sat on a SOFA watching it!

Enjoy ... oh and look out for the other vids of his ... it would appear this guy makes these vids to boast about "losing the cops". Sensible chap huh?!

Pete

Except Ghost Rider is Swedish. Spectacular videos though.

[northwind]

If I was ten years younger, I might say PWND! to that. But I'm not. But still.

If you want a real laugh with Ghost Rider, a lot of the highway clips in that video are from the Uppsala run, where he covered 68km in 15 minutes- an average of 168mph. Sports rubber fans, the rear tyre was a Michelin Macadam 100, a tyre most of us wouldn't commute on as it's "unsafe". It was the only tyre he trusted not to disintegrate.

Well I stand corrected ... live n learn eh thanks for that