T’is the season to be….

It’s the holiday season already: it starts with Uni's going on the long break at the end of Nov (through to early March), then private schools and public schools, and then the Big Crawl from the week before Christmas to New Year.

Here’s a timely reminder from this week: What do you think happens next to this rider? (It’s a well-known 100 kph highway used a lot by holiday motorists going on coastal holidays). What skills did the rider use to avoid the situation?

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The rider saw the two cars on the left at least 3 seconds ahead, and correctly guessed that the drivers of those two cars would probably attemptto drive across the (100kph!) highway in front of the white car.  And the rider also correctly guessed that the driver of thewhite car could slam on their brakes and swerve into the rider’s lane.  

So the rider took action by setting up, gearing down, carefully watching events unfolding and buffering to the right of their lane (the lane closest to the middle grass verge). Bizarrely – or perhaps not, given the time of year it is – a car behind the rider overtook the rider on the left, saw the stopped white car too late and went into the back of it.

The rider pulled over to render assistance to the four car pile-up, and fought a very strong temptation to say something inappropriate to the drivers who were all blaming each other…

Let’s recap on the good road-riding techniques shown by the rider here:

1.     Well in advance of the situation, the rider did very well to create and maintain their Riding Bubble: you can see no traffic infront of the rider for at least 5 seconds, no traffic to the left either. And behind them, there was no traffic for at least 3 seconds. That’s as good as it gets in terms of road-riding technique!

2.     The rider used great skills to correctly infer what would probably happen

3.     The rider then prepared for that, as if it would happen – and how about that: it did happen!

The moral to this story is that Christmas Crazies are a real thing! Enjoy your riding and be safe this holiday season, and hopefully we’ll see you soon on one of our Enhanced Roadriding courses on iconic and challenging roads in NSW. More details on our Facebook page theartofmotorcycleroadriding, and email us: theartofmotorcycleroadriding@gmail.com or call us on 0408 756 929. Substantial discounts for current BMW Club NSW Financia Members.

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Matt Featherstone

Lead Instructor

The ART of Motorcycle Roadriding.

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