Training "can be dangerous"

I know it is a strange comparison to make but there are similarities between driving an artic and riding a motorbike. Braking--losing the front or back end, Approach to corners, brake before and gentle power through. observation all round, thinking ahead,being in the right gear---just to mention a few. Quite similar handling characteristics.
At least most people see and artic approaching.

Originally Posted by Dicky Ticker

I know it is a strange comparison to make but there are similarities between driving an artic and riding a motorbike. Braking--losing the front or back end, Approach to corners, brake before and gentle power through. observation all round, thinking ahead,being in the right gear---just to mention a few. Quite similar handling characteristics.
At least most people see and artic approaching.

Agree 100%..........(without blowing my own trumpet....) ALL road users should be made to drive Artic's.....preferably with a half full De-mount (liquid) on the back!!!!
I've always maintained that if ya can drive that 'smoothly' then ya can drive anything on the road!!! Very strange experience.........if ya stop 'normally'.....2 seconds later ya get a huge 'kick in the back' as if ya been rear ended n the whole lot jumps forward 3ft!!!!


"Gas it w###a".........

[embee]

Just one of the aspects of safe riding and driving which doesn't usually get mentioned specifically is "imagination". Yes that's what's behind the principles of positioning in order to extend your range of vision round corners for example, but why are you doing it? It's to give yourself more time to react to what might be round the corner. What might be round the corner? Use your imagination.

What if?

[Sid Squid]

Originally Posted by embee

Stuff

Very good point.

Every ride is a lesson...
A gift if you will.
Treat it as such!

[Essex of Essex]

We train people to a basic set of mechanical skills and provide them with a framework to develop the more advanced skills; many will go back and take further training to expedite the gathering of those skills. Others look at falling off as an acceptable way of learning, one of the biggest things I learnt when I took training after many years away from the bike was observation, so keeping me out of most of those "that was close" situations.

My job has me teaching young people to fly Boeing 757 aircraft, it's not jet fighters down valleys but it does require an advancement on the skills they acquired at basic training, nobody would think it acceptable for them to go out and gain those skills without further instruction.

We give them experience of as many abnormal situations as we can, but they will never see everything in training that life can throw at them; however we hope to have given them the ability to think outside the box to resolve the situation whilst the finely honed handling skills allow them to keep control.

Isn't that what we should be aiming at with bike training?

Hmmmmm.... Mr Hargreaves obviously doesn't have much experience of aviation. Air is funny stuff and the fact you can't actually see it doesn't always help. Air moves, a lot..... and not all in the same direction. There's also enough of it so that it has considerable mass and thus energy.

Thanks to this, flying isn't static like driving tends to be. The road from the A31 to my house is pretty predictable. Ignoring snow and ice, it's pretty much always the same. The parked cars might move around a bit and the local children and animals can be a little random, but aside from that it's pretty much the same every time....

You can't say the same about flying an approach, even into a familiar airfield, the wind (that air stuff) can gust or drop. You can have turbulence from ground features (trees, hills, buildings) or from preceeding planes. You never know what you're going to get until you're having to deal with it.... BUT you HAVE to know how to deal with it once it arrives, and the only way to be able to do that is practice. Simulators can help a lot as you can be put in some really nasty situations without the risk of anything worse than embarrasment and dented pride.

If you're in a flying environment without simulators, then you fly with an instructor, part of their job is to put you in "situations" and if you get it wrong, save you (and themselves) from your error. This works pretty well, the instuctors have a vested interest in not letting you crash....

Through experience, you learn to "fly the picture" and move the controls to get the plane doing what you want it to. Or in some cases (see some of the footage with the high winds in recent weeks...) when the plane won't do what you want, get the hell out of there..... it's not an ideal outcome, but it is controlled.

Where bikes are different is that it's very hard to gain the practical experience. I'd love to be able to power slide a bike, lose the front and pick it up of my knee etc, BUT I don't have the cash, pain threshold and ability to be able to make all the errors I need to in order to learn the skill. I'm damn sure you could do a pretty good bike sim if money were no object and it would be a fantastic training tool. You also can't really do a functioning dual controlled bike for training either.

Thanks to these limitations all that you are left with is talking about how to get out of difficult situations. That said, the best thing is not to get in those situations in the first place, which is what we all think we try to do. Every so often we get it wrong and the results vary and have no correlation to the size of the initial error. Sometimes we learn something. Sometimes we don't.....

The bit where the article almost gets it right is over the apportionment of blame. The aviation world is very good at root cause analysis and pinpointing which error(s) the incident grew from. The motoring world is REALLY REALLY bad at this. Blanket blaming of speeding as the cause doesn't help.... but individual responsibility is an alien concept to many these days.... it's never their fault and they'll never learn....

As a pilot and biker I didnt get past the second paragraph. But ill go back...read it all...then get back to you.

Ok....read it.

My opinion is

Training for a car licence or bike licence is only proof that you can operate those machines in a safe manner set down by certain rules.
A licence does not make you a "good" driver or rider.

Experience and self learning and good application of experience "can" make you a better driver or rider but not necessarily. That will depend on the individual/attitude/personality.

Being a pilot is no different. You get trained how to operate the aeroplane in a safe manner. And when you can prove you can do that you become licenced. This doesnt make you the best pilot as experience and said application is key.

I have my silver c gliding endorsement. As do alot of the guys from my club. But some have only ever done the short 50k flight needed for the silver badge and nothing more. And now happily do local soaring even with high flight hours. Others have much lower flight hours but more cross country flights and land outs than the oldies. I know who id rather fly xc with.

IMHO all drivers should have to learn to ride a push bike, ride a motorbike, drive a car and an HGV, if they had experience in all those disciplines they would be more aware and therefore hopefully better drivers. Both the registered pilots I know and the most reckless car drivers I know, they both believe that they are superior drivers because they can fly. I can not however judge all pilots by the two I know.