It should be obvious to all motorcyclist that education and training are the key to being a good rider, and keeping both wheels on the road.

I do not work for the MSF nor do I get any money whatsoever from the MSF, so my endorsement of the fact that EVERYONE, including seasoned riders should take a MSF certified basic course if they are a new rider, or have been out of the saddle for a few years. I further recommend that EVERYONE take a MSF advanced course every time they get a new type of motorcycle.

Yes, I know, it cost money, it's a hassle, you are a experienced bad assed experienced rider that knows everything about riding...... NOT. I have ridden hundreds of thousands of miles on many types of motorcycles since I was a kid. I am still amazed at new tricks and safety techniques that I learn from other riders from time to time. I am also amazed at the differences in the various motorcycles that I have ridden over the years with respect to their handling, breaking, power, etc. I feel that a rider on a new bike, does not really know their bike unless they put a minimum of 1,000 miles on the bike, no matter how many years they have been riding.

The sad fact is that motorcycle deaths and injuries have been growing every year. Much of these deaths and injuries have been attributed to their being more new riders on the road due to the increase in popularity of riding motorcycles, plus the rises in gas prices forcing persons to buy motorcycles to save money.

This may be true. There are three parts to education and training for bikers; (1) The biker knowing how to properly ride his motorcycle; (2) The biker knowing what cagers do; and (3) Cagers getting a more positive image of us bikers so that they respect our right to be on the road, and are more careful when they see us.

Us bikers only really have control of (1) and (2). With respect to number (3) we can have an affect.

This is my humble opinion. I am not the holy grail when it comes to this subject.

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Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq.
Biker and Motorcycle Lawyer Blog
www.bikerlawblog.com

Well, that about sums it up! Exactly!

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Doing my part to save a Bikers life!
www.SaveABiker.com

"Yes, I know, it cost money, it's a hassle"

 But it is still a bargain compared to crashing from ignorance or lack of a skill.

I believe the day you decide to stop learning to be a better rider is the day you start looking for a new hobby.

Well said Norman.  I don't think I could have said it better myself.  I also encourage all riders who have been riding for awhile to take the ERC (experienced rider course).  It's basically several of the exercises from the basic MSF class, that you complete on your own bike. 

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Chris Goldapple
Human Factors Moderator
ImplementNAMS.org

Good point Norman . You can never be to educated on the roads. I think there should be a follow mandatory class that every rider should take. It seems that most riders just take the basic learning skills class and dont go any further then that. The population is growing and the amount of riders have grown right along with it. We should try to make it more entising to take follow up classes.

Second:

 A motorcycle is a serious investment and a lot of people do not treat it like that. Seriously you have to take a drivers education class before you get your automotive license why cant it be the same for us motorcycle riders. Alot of these kids are going out on the bike, have no clue on how to ride and go out and by these 1000 cc bikes and redline them all the way down the highway.When they have never riden before that scares me. We need to try to get education a must, before you buy. Anything to try to make riders safer on the road.  

And maybe even have some sort of education class for automotive drivers, because they do not know how to act when there is a motocycle next them.They tend to take up more then there designated lane and push us off the road.

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Steven Asvazadourian
Social Factors Moderator
ImplementNAMS.org

Biker_Lawyer:

It should be obvious to all motorcyclist that education and training are the key to being a good rider, and keeping both wheels on the road...<snip>

 I would add to this:

It should be obvious to all motorcyclist that education and training usually make you a worse rider. Training have repeatedly shown an increase in rider's risks and accident probability in a similar way as auto training does. Riders engaging in training to increase their safety -- probably make a bad decision and should be recommended to avoid it.

Possibly, if more time was spent in actual education and training rather than promoting the sales of clothing and retro American motorcycles or if more money were spent on education than lobbying by the same group that uses a misnomer for a name, we might createn a better motorcyclist riding on the unsuitable and inferior roadways that we have.

Mr Karl Olsson:

I would add to this:

It should be obvious to all motorcyclist that education and training usually make you a worse rider. Training have repeatedly shown an increase in rider's risks and accident probability in a similar way as auto training does. Riders engaging in training to increase their safety -- probably make a bad decision and should be recommended to avoid it.

Indeed, much research has not shown motorcycle training to be effective, though I'm not aware of any studies showing that it makes one a "worse rider". Would you please cite one? A study that has shown benefit is the Evaluation of the California Motorcyclist Safety Program.

Proving the effectiveness of rider training poses a number of problems. Self-selection bias is one. When training is elective, one would expect that those who seek training will be more motivated to ride safely than those who don't. So it isn't much of a surprise to find out that, post-training, they crash less frequently than untrained riders. That's true of Hurt's oft-quoted conclusion.

An error that can tilt conclusions in the other direction is granting trainees licenses at a younger age than untrained riders. The comparison is then between different age groups, and age difference can have a greater effect than training. I don't know of a motorcycle example of this, but I understand that some driver training programs have been shown to produce this result.

I strongly disagree with your recommendation that riders who want to ride more safely avoid training. I know of no evidence that motorcyclists who get training voluntarily end up the worse for it. It doesn't take a scientific study for a rider to appreciate the benefit of his training. The skills I've developed both through MSF training and track schools help me every day.

I'd like to offer a conjecture (OK, wild-a$$ guess) as to why training might not have the statistical benefit expected. Training improves riding skills. Improved skills make one more confident on the road. Greater confidence makes riding more enjoyable. The more one enjoys riding, the more one rides. More riding exposes one to more risk annually. So, while skills have reduced risk per mile, greater mileage tends to increase risk per year. The net effect could even be neutral or negative (and I would emphasize that I have no evidence for this one way or the other). Compared to a low-mileage untrained rider, the trained rider may not hold a risk advantage, but he gets a lot more enjoyment out of motorcycling. 

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A superior rider uses superior judgment to avoid problems that would demand his superior skill.

 

I regret my post and I went way to far. Maybe I should have wtritten something like -- studies hasn't shown training to be effective. Some studies has shown a negative result. Therefore people should be careful and perhaps avoid recommend training as an effective way to increase rider safety. Yes, that's a generalization to, but a little safer, I guess.

(quote: Motorcycle safety- a literature review and meta-analysis TØI report 681/2003)

"There is no evidence to show that voluntary motorcycle training programs, meaning programs completed voluntary be riders who possesses a riders’ licence, reduces crash risk. On the contrary, such programs seem to increase the crash risk. One possible explanation is that riders feel more competent after completing the course, without actually having improved their skills. Another reason may be that they have improved riding skills that are irrelevant concerning accident prevention."

"...Studies that does account for the effects of self selections, concludes with -- non required training, either have no effect, or contribiute to increased accident risk. (see Billheimer, 1998 for summary)"

(source [only the summary in english]) (pdf)

 

Thank you for the link. I've downloaded it and read the English summary.

The study is a "meta-analysis", which means that they have aggregated results of studies done by other researchers in order to improve the statistical power of their results. I'm not very enthusiastic about that methodology because it groups programs that might be very different and omits a lot of detail about the individual studies. For example, it would be interesting to know how the results varied and which training programs, if any, produced positive results and why.

Nevertheless, the conclusions are the opposite of what I would expect. Voluntary training programs "seem to increase crash risk" while compulsory programs produce "a weak, but consistent reduction in crashes." It would be useful to know whether the increased crash risk is adjusted for the amount of riding done. I still think that a well-trained rider is likely to ride more, so annual risk might increase while per-mile/-kilometer risk falls.

I found this intriguing:

Several researchers have criticised motorcycle training programs for merely focusing on rider skill training, and ignoring motivational factors (i.e. the motivation causing deliberate risk taking on the road). Accident involvement is not necessary the result of poor riding skills, a more relevant issue is what the rider chooses to do with his skills. Training programs are further criticised for not focusing on hazard perception training in order to avoid accidents.

If the training offered is basically lessons on how to brake and steer the bike in an emergency, I can understand that the results might not be as good as expected. I'm a strong believer in preventing a crash long before it comes down to braking or swerving to avoid it (see signature below). But that requires a different kind of training than simply teaching control skills. Riders must be taught to think about traffic in ways a car driver typically does not. That brings up a subject that's been in the back of my mind for a long time: Would simulator training be beneficial?

Those who have used Microsoft's Flight Simulator know how realistic it is visually and dynamically. So sophisticated, it has transcended the gaming realm and is recognized as an effective flight training tool. Application of that technology to motorcycling could provide novice riders with vivid, dynamic images of real-world situations that would make it possible for trainees to experience—virtually—and learn from the situations that motorcyclists have had to learn the hard way. Honda has developed a motorcycle simulator for training that is currently use only in Japan.

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A superior rider uses superior judgment to avoid problems that would demand his superior skill.

I agree with the meta-analysis point -- it'd be good to see details about various training, individual studies etc. On the other hand, a common idea is that training is a solution no matter what. For that, a meta-analysis becomes kind of handy for the purpose of saying it might be a little more difficult than expected.

"I still think that a well-trained rider is likely to ride more, so annual risk might increase while per-mile/-kilometer risk falls."

They (TOI) kind of argue the oposite way. Well not exactly but: they refer to (Raymond & Tatum 1977, Satten 1980) and that it shows that motorcyclists involved in such training, ride less miles than those whithout training. And that riders with less distance accumulated -- has a higher risk per distance unit. (But I guess your point was different and  that a same rider, after training, typically will increase riding distance.)

For the simulator, I wouldn't expect to much. Airlines have safety problems from simulator training. Maybe with luck, a bike school can keep them self from doing any harm. As far as I understand the Honda simulator have the bars acting the wrong direction. If that is true, and in a simulation discussion -- this would probably be plain stupid, due to interference/negative transfer of learning which will/might implement strong but wrong patterns. Probably a better way would be, just watching "the movie", (or asking someone else to steer :),  reflecting upon the real world situations that show up. That could help in developing insights about risks -- to be used for strategies whilst riding.

Mr Karl Olsson:

For the simulator, I wouldn't expect to much. Airlines have safety problems from simulator training. Maybe with luck, a bike school can keep them self from doing any harm. As far as I understand the Honda simulator have the bars acting the wrong direction. If that is true, and in a simulation discussion -- this would probably be plain stupid, due to interference/negative transfer of learning which will/might implement strong but wrong patterns. Probably a better way would be, just watching "the movie", (or asking someone else to steer :),  reflecting upon the real world situations that show up. That could help in developing insights about risks -- to be used for strategies whilst riding.

Your comment about "the bars acting in the wrong direction" on the Honda simulator suggests that either Honda made a big mistake, or you don't understand the control input required to steer a motorcycle. If Honda indeed failed to implement the effect of countersteering (here's a good scientific reference -- 260K PDF), that should be easy enough to correct by reversing a sign somewhere in the code.

I'm not familiar with the literature on aircraft simulator training effectiveness, only with its widespread use in general, military, and commercial aviation. And a quick search didn't turn up any negative assessments.

As to "watching 'the movie'", as with porn, participating is much better than just watching. MSF currently uses videos in training, but I'm not very confident of their effectiveness. Training a rider's eyes and brain to anticipate and react requires more than just watching a situation unfold and discussing tactics. He must repetitively practice visual and cognitive patterns in real-time. That's what I see as the benefit of riding experience--learning what can happen, picking up cues that it's about to happen, and figuring out how to make it not happen. The problem with the real world is that the consequences of a mistake are severe. The theory of the simulator is to train the brain without bruising the body.

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A superior rider uses superior judgment to avoid problems that would demand his superior skill.

Hi, me again. I think we need to get more valid stats on this... not exactly sure of the best way to do it, but would like to start with a national online survey (see my other posts)... again, I realize this methodology has its flaws and limitations, but if there was enough responses, maybe that would strengthen the results. I do not claim to be an expert on research or statistical methodology- Dan- you seem like an excellent resource for this! I think if we worked together, bringing our various strengths together, we could come up with something pretty good. I am certainly willing to work on this...I really would like to find out from riders if they have taken a safety course or not, (and why or why not...?), and if they did take the safety course, did they feel that there were instances where the training they received helped them to AVOID an accident; turned an incident into a near miss instead of a crash.... otherwise I do not see how else you can collect data for something that DIDNT happen....

Anyway- in our MSF classes we do address more than just how to brake and steer (someone said that in the above thread). We talk about having a strategy, Search, Evaluate and Execute... so we do address the need for the ride to have situational awareness and to make judgement calls based on their assessments. No, we can't put them in those situations, but we can put a bug in their ear... if a rider hears what we say in their heads while they are reacting, than that should be good... all we can do is educate and empower people to do whatever they can to increase their own safety and minimize the risk as much as is possible.

By the way, in PA, the MSF course is free to PA residents. I believe the last 2 years we have trained over 27,000 people, and we still have waiting lists for people to get into our classes... It would be great if more states offered this to their residents... that would eliminate the barrier of the classes costing so much for some people.

Thanks- Laura

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"The destination is only the excuse" - Daniel Meyer

Does MSF keep the stats on how may of the motorcyclists that they have trained have been involved in a crash?

I can not speak for MSF as an official representative, but I don't believe they have (I could be wrong). DataDan posted this in another thread though:

Landmark Motorcycle Rider Training Study to Begin Field Research in Southern California

A milestone three-year study to determine the effectiveness of periodic involvement in a series of motorcycle rider education and training courses will begin field research soon, as the pilot testing phase of the study is set to begin March 23 at a new California Motorcyclist Safety Program rider training facility in Long Beach, Calif.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Motorcycle Safety Foundation entered a cooperative agreement to jointly fund this estimated $1.2 million research effort. The MSF is contributing 60 percent of the total funding for the research, officially titled "The Longitudinal Study to Improve Crash Avoidance Skills." The crash-avoidance skills of motorcyclists who have taken a series of MSF RiderCourses will be evaluated over a three-year period....

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I believe, at least in our state, that the MSP looks at the stats of the program- how many students we had, their satisfaction with the course, etc., I do not believe they have collected information from students  after their course. Laura

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"The destination is only the excuse" - Daniel Meyer