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Cheers Radar, happy to oblige.
There’s one other riding/driving tip I would offer up which is dead easy to do and will improve everyone’s riding beyond recognition.
Stick rigidly to the stopping distances in the highway code. Why?…..read on.
The easy way to remember them is at 30mph it’s 23 Metres from the car in front, roughly a quarter of a football/rugby/hockey pitch or pace it out and visualise how far it is. Above 30mph its generally sufficient to remember roughly 1 Metre for every MPH your going and at 70mph its 90+ Metres (roughly a full pitch), I teach the damn subject and I cant remember what the actual figures are from day to day so quite how the DSA expects new drivers to stick to the figures is beyond me.
All this sounds a bit excessive and anyone with a bit of common sense can stop a car or bike well within these distances but from the point of view of a moderately skilled rider/driver it gives you the opportunity to NOT watch the car in front’s brake lights in case he/she hits the brakes causing you to jump on your brakes making progress pretty uncomfortable. Instead of that you pretty well ignore the guy in front, unless you’re blind you’re going to see his brake lights coming on, and you can watch several cars ahead and as soon as one of them brakes you just knock off the throttle a bit and wait for all the rest of the queue to brake and they all concertina up towards you again. Ever find your pillion head butting you? This knocks it on the head (bad pun, sorry) the danger then being they will fall asleep. Don’t believe me? I was on the way back from Brands Hatch after watching BSB and my daughter head butted me because she nodded off!
This is the tough, disciplined bit though as remembering to keep your stopping distances without creeping up takes concentration but once you are used to it the difference is amazing. You take control of your riding, no more swerving to avoid potholes and drain covers as they appear from under the car in front, or worse, crashing through them because you are 6 feet from their bumper. When you think an overtaking opportunity is coming up, CHECK YOUR MIRRORS well before you even think about changing speed (remember there’s always some hero faster than you), then you can move up to about 5 or 10 Metres from the car in front ready to make the pass. If you see the overtake isn’t on, drop back to your original position until you see another chance, don’t hang about close to the car in the hope another chance will come up, it just means your back to the inefficient way of riding!
Ask any advanced rider/driver (hate that term, elitist and riding well is relatively simple) what the most important aspect of riding well and they will, almost to a man say “Observation” or “Observational links” but my belief is its maintaining our stopping distances. Think of it this way, if you were driving in thick fog you can’t see a thing except the car in front, your most important consideration is “can I stop if he hits his brakes hard?”. No clever observations just simple survival and that’s every drivers default to safety, stopping their car/bike without hitting anything.
Now all this sounds slow and no biker wants that but if you ever watch a Police rider in a hurry its a lesson in how to ride unbelievably fast but stay as safe as anyone can be. Yes they will be beaten momentarily by a determined sports bike rider but the likelihood of the hero crashing is very high and most Police chases end with a crash. Coppers love going fast as much as we do, that’s why half of them do the job! Besides, if a Cop sees you riding well he’s much less likely to nick you, he’s as likely to stop you and have a bit of a chat just to warn you to slow down a bit.
The important thing is keep your thought processes simple, like filtering there are only a few rules cos I can’t handle any more when I’m riding: Start with 23 Metres as the default safe stopping distance at 30mph, then roughly 1M for every mph you’re going at; watch several cars ahead if possible to anticipate braking and try to use the throttle to control speed but never be so determined that you don’t brake when you need to; use your mirrors before you even think of altering your speed (altering speed means either knocking off the throttle to slow or winding it on to speed up, not making small adjustments to hold position in a line of traffic or something) or in any event every 10 seconds or so. The hero on a bike or in a car will always surprise you by trying to overtake you if your not using your mirrors and if you hit him when you are going for an overtake you are in deep doo doo because you’re on your arse in the middle of the road with traffic coming at you in both directions.
Finally, don’t overtake on the approach to junctions, thats asking for Grandad to ignore his indicators “Cos I know where I’m going sonny” and turn in front of you when you’re accellerating up to 80mph to pass a line of traffic…Ouch!
Here endeth todays lesson, hope it helps.
PS, don’t use indicators when overtaking, Highway Code tells us to use them when others will benefit and if you have checked your mirrors you know no one else is overtaking you, and if they were what would be the point in using indicators then, and when you’re howling past a car, if the driver see’s you in his mirrors (unlikely) he’ll know damn well you are passing him, besides it’s another process to think about and it doesnt look very cool either
I’m new on this site so I guess an introduction is in order if I’m going to hand out advice. I’m an ex copper, trained to drive police cars by Strathclyde Police to GP (General Purpose) standard considered a gold grade RoSPA qualification. I have been driving for 35 years+ and riding on and off for the same time. I’m a RoSPA qualified driver (silver grade, not bothered about test perfection so no gold) a RoSPA bike member but never bothered to take my test and I’m a qualified car driving instructor. More importantly I spent several months riding a bike from Dartford to Chiswick, diagonally across London basically, and then spent several weeks as a courier before I was caught out by a ‘U’ turning driver and broke my wrist. There are lots more people much better qualified than I am so I know I have lots more to learn however I have picked up some stuff along the way.
Firstly, from what I can see on this thread there might be a misunderstanding of filtering. I guess it can be described as manoeuvring between two, or more lines of vehicles moving in the SAME direction. If you are facing opposing vehicles, you are overtaking.
The rules for filtering are fairly straightforward, its not illegal but if there is an accident you, as the biker, will be targeted simply because everyone else hates the thought that you will reach the office before them, including the insurance companies. The fact that the highway code recommends drivers maintain a safe stopping distance between moving vehicles and that they should allow sufficient space for overtaking vehicles to pull into completely escapes them. On the flip side, if you are having to force your way into a non existent gap between tailgaiting drivers demonstrates you haven’t thought about what you are going to do and that’s dangerous for you.
Keep your speed down to no more than 10mph more than the surrounding traffic up to about 50mph, above that, if there is a crash and you hit the deck there is no chance anyone can stop so you WILL be crushed under a car/lorry/bus! Even at 50mph its a risk but car drivers can, generally, deal with incidents at that speed, YOU might be able to cope with higher speeds but you are the one who will be unexpectedly knocked off your bike by a dozy driver who can’t, and you will be the one run over by an idiot who didn’t see you being knocked off in the first place. Quite apart from that, if you fall off at 70mph in 50mph traffic you will end up under the wheels of a car in front of you and who could reasonably expect a driver to deal with that.
When I started riding to work along the A2 I was impressed by the heroes who made rapid progress by zig zagging between the gaps in staggered traffic; in other words a car in, say, the left lane with no car beside it in the next lane but one behind and one in front in that lane. Just what you want, lots of space to zip into; the problem is that car drivers only ever see other car drivers and are usually aware of the gap they can move into so when you appear in the gap the chances are high that you could be sideswiped by a driver who doesn’t bother to check their mirrors BEFORE they move moves lane. OK, another flip side here; how often do you check your mirrors when you are changing direction, and what is filtering if not changing direction. I went round the Periferique (spelling?) in Paris for the first time (French M25 round Paris) on a Friday night at 5pm. Now I can filter pretty quickly but every 3 0r 4 minutes I had 7 or 8 bikes backed up behind me and had I not constantly been checking my mirrors I would have been the Brit wonker who cant ride. The moral of the story?…..There’s always someone faster than you.
There are tons more tips I guess plenty of people can help you with but I’m not too clever and can only deal with a few simple rules when driving or riding. In terms of filtering, these are my unbreakable ones:
no more than 10mph faster than traffic up to 50mph, how much faster do I want to go at in traffic?always filter between two cars, the chances of them moving over are almost nil and even if they do, the worst for you is squashed legs (BMW riders excepted) but at least you’re not on the deck in front of a Scania.
Use your mirrors……every time you use your throttle EITHER WAY, slowing or accelerating to make a pass or move lanes but in any event, at least every 10 seconds. That’s a lot but its worth it, no more brown trousers!
Job done………safe filtering.
