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An Introduction to Motorcycle Hazard Perception
Motorcycles are fun. Some people ride just for the thrill of it – open roads, sweeping bends, beautiful scenery. Other people use motorcycles or other powered two-wheelers to beat rush hour traffic during the morning commute, saving time and stress on the road. For many people, the bike is their job, allowing them to deliver everything from blood to pizza. But whatever the reason you ride, it is important to know that motorcycles are the most dangerous mode of transport on UK roads. In our latest blog we discuss motorcycle hazard perception and how important it can be for minimising accidents.
Bikers account for less than one percent of overall traffic, but on average 20% of all fatalities. In 2023, that amounted to 315 rider deaths. Over the last five years, total motorcycle fatalities equated to an average of 6 rider deaths and 102 serious injuries per week, with 74% of fatal collisions involving another vehicle. While some motorcyclists will crash because they push their skills and bikes too far, many motorcycle crashes are not the fault of the riders themselves and instead other road users are often to blame.
The problem is that car drivers often don’t understand motorcycles. They don’t expect to find them filtering when they decide to make a hurried U-turn, their brains are not wired to spot them while waiting to pull out of a T-junction, and they find it difficult to judge the distance and speed of approaching motorcycles. We need to train car drivers to be more aware of motorcycles, and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing at Esitu in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University. However, as riders, we also have to make sure that our skills are honed to perfection. Perhaps the most important cognitive skill that a rider possesses is motorcycle hazard perception.
What is hazard perception?
Hazard perception is the ‘sixth sense’ that riders have about how others on the road are going to behave. There’s nothing clairvoyant about this, instead, you are using subtle cues from the environment to predict which of all the possible hazards might occur.
As traffic psychologists, we think of hazard perception as a process that involves a number of steps. First, you need to know where to look to spot potential hazards, this could include checking your blind spot for overtaking vehicles before you move off. More experienced riders are likely to be able to look for more subtle cues such as shadows on the road indicating pedestrians hidden by parked vehicles who are waiting to cross the road.
When we look in the right locations, we then have to quickly process and understand what we are looking at and decide whether it is likely to become a danger. Sometimes there will be multiple sources of potential hazards, so this requires us to prioritise some potential hazards over others. The ones at the top of our priority list are more likely to keep our attention. From all the available evidence, we can then predict what is most likely to happen in the next few seconds and take action to mitigate the risk or avoid a collision. This process happens very rapidly and continuously during a ride, but it is susceptible to interference. If we become distracted or get too caught up in the flow of riding, then we may miss clues to an upcoming hazard.
How to improve your motorcycle hazard perception
Fortunately, this is a skill that improves with experience. The more hazards you see on the road, the better prepared you are to spot similar hazards in the future.
For new riders however, this poses a problem: you might need several years of riding to build up your hazard experiences, but during this time you are particularly susceptible to missing the cues to hazards which can result in a crash. There is, however, a handy shortcut to develop your motorcycle hazard perception skill: hazard perception training!
This could begin with watching many hazard perception clips, rapidly building up experience of various hazards without the usual corresponding danger of being on a bike the first time you encounter them. This is what all learner drivers do to prepare for their car driving test, and indeed what bikers are likely to do when preparing for their full test. However, the DVSA hazard perception test – even the one that bikers must sit – is created from the perspective of a car driver. The hazards are all typical to those you would experience if you were driving a car rather than riding a motorcycle. While there are many transferable hazards that can impact both cars and bikes, there are also many real-world hazards that are specific to motorcycles but are not captured in these DVSA clips. That is why we believe that vehicle-specific clips are key in delivering the best training to road users of different vehicle modes.
At Esitu, we have created hazard tests for cars, vans, HGVs, buses, tractors, and emergency service vehicles, all containing hazards that are specific to those vehicles. And now, we have added our new motorcycle hazard perception test to that list. Filmed from real motorcycles using hi-definition video cameras, we have captured the view ahead and from behind, editing the rear view into the mirrors of our virtual bike.
Working with the National Young Rider Forum and the Road Safety Trust, this new training tool is now available to rider trainers across the UK. If you are currently learning to ride a motorcycle, why not ask your trainer for access to the Esitu motorcycle hazard perception test? Develop your hazard spotting skills the safe and easy way, without having to experience each near-crash first hand!
To learn more about motorcycle hazard perception and to look into the tests we offer, visit our motorcycle page here
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