Bikesafe

I attended a Bikesafe event today with Devon & Cornwall Police. Three of us
went out with a police advanced rider. I don't think you ever stop learning
and this built on the foundations of my previous IAM and RoSPA experiences
(but RoSPA was in the car). The Police were very keen and the riding was up
to their usual standard - I particularly liked the "ride as fast as you feel
safe............there will be no tickets given out today".

It did strike me that the event was done on the cheap in the back office of
a local dealer and with a knackered copy of a few VHS tapes. Now I'd have
thought that with the rise in revenue collected from cameras and the like
surely some of it could be ploughed back into this type of thing?

If you've not been on one get your name down. See www.bikesafe.co.uk for
more info.

Mark

 

Apparently they can't - in the same way it was suggestd to use some of the
money to run bike specific first aid courses. Something in the regulations
or such nonsense.

 

In dwb triped:

Just goes to reinforce peoples' belief that Gatsos are about revenue
collection and nothing to do with road safety; after all, if speed camera
revenue was used to fund driver/rider education rather than the
Treasury/Camera Operators people may find them slightly more acceptable.

 

Just to educate you all, the police do NOT see any of the revenue gained
from speed cameras or the road safety partnership. All the money goes back
to the government.

 

So it goes back to the people who pay the police, and they pay the
police with money. Am I missing some other complexity out here?

 

I was on that very run this afternoon. I learned a lot about riding in
pissing rain from a very swift chap on a daytona, was that you?

 

Not unless you've confused it with a blue 1200 Bandit............

 

No, but I did say hello to you in that case as I left. I was wearing a
bright orange jacket.

 

I did one of those a couple of months back from the South London venue.
Superb value for money (£25, of which lunch must have been a tenner).
Thought some bits of the classroom session were a bit on the obvious side,
but I guess they've got to cater for all levels of ability / experience. A
couple of the instructors were very towing the party line a bit heavily in
the presentations (had a 'discussion' with one who was of the opinion that
you'd always lose your licence for 26+ mph over the limit), but most were
top blokes / birds.

It's very humbling following a woman on a fully-kitted Pan Euro, down a
single-track road, sparks streaming off her centrestand round the bends,
with you struggling to keep up. It was only when we got back at the end of
the day, that she told me I'd been doing 70 in a 40 at one point (in my
defence, she'd said she'd drop back if I was going too quick, but at the
time we were running late, so she hadn't).

A good introduction, but I reckon you'd need another full day on the road to
really put into practise what you were being taught.

The London set-up seemed pretty well funded - several full-time instructors
(who were unsurprisingly very happy that they'd been pulled off 'normal'
police duties to run the courses), and decent presentation kit.