On-road Coaching

A new experience for me today, doing an on-road training ride. On-road training rides are not ordinarily done in Australia; this one was part of a Vicroads trial to assess its effectiveness. They hope to get 2400 people; 1200 of these will take the on-road training (the treatment group) and the other 1200 will not* (the control group). I was in the treatment group, so I headed down to the HART training center at Kilsyth this morning, doing my good deed for the day by settling the petrol bill for a mother that came up short.

The instructor was excellent; myself and two others were lead on a ride around the area of about 100 kilometers, stopping lots of times for chats about roadcraft, hazard awareness and the like. Normally there would be four participants and the instructor, but it worked better with just the three of us. The carefully planned route took us through some urban traffic, then on to some more rural roads. It included a few corners but nothing really twisty or demanding. And that was as it should be, because although anyone on a restricted licence could take part, it is principally designed for those who have done 500-3000 kilometers, rather than my 13000.

It was a very useful and enjoyable day out, though the other two in the group who were less experienced may have taken more out of it. There were two things in the on-road training that stood out for me; two things that you can't get in a car-park. The first was that the classroom training stuff works much better when you are not in a classroom. The frequent stops and chats about riding, and about past experiences of riding, simply work much better from a pedagogical point of view when you are out riding. The things discussed become tangible, particularly if the discussions relate to an incident that has just occurred. The second is the ability of the instructor to talk to you on the radio headset when you take your turn as the lead rider of the group. There is nothing quite like the direct feedback of the instructor in your ear telling you, when you are approaching a crest in the right wheel track, that the left wheel track is a better place to be. You simply don't forget advice given over a headset, because you relate that advice to the corresponding visual information.

Our instructor realised that all three of us were safety conscious motorcyclists, and he tacitly acknowledged that some of the things he went through were (my words) preaching to the converted. When three bikers turn-up, all with back protectors and one with a neck brace (a motocross rider), the ATGATT discussion is naturally going to be a short one. But this didn't make the experience any less enjoyable, and we got a nice brand new high-viz vest to take home. Unfortunately it's got 'Honda' written on it.

As for the trial itself, it has been very well designed and set-up. It is easy to criticise these things but it is more difficult to provide alternative solutions. That said, when the results come out in 2012, they will show that on-road testing has no effect in crash reduction. This is because the 2400 riders in the trial do not represent learner motorcyclists. They only represent learner motorcyclists who would choose to participate in a training program. In statistical terminology, the 2400 participants are not a representative sample of the population of learner motorcyclists. The sample of 2400 is known as a volunteer sample, which is scientifically a bad way of doing things but often there is no way of doing anything else for practical or ethical reasons. A better description of the population here would be 'safety conscious learner motorcyclists'. The training in this trial will often preach to the converted; the conversions that may show the real benefit of this training will simply not be seen.

From a purely scientific perspective, taking a random sample of 600 participants from all learner motorcyclists would be far better (and much cheaper) than using 2400 volunteers. But many will take the view that forcing those 600 learner motorcyclists into doing on-road training would be unethical, even if it were legal. It is unfortunate that getting accurate answers to scientific questions is often at odds with civil liberties. As a result we get a trial such as this one which can do much, but cannot do what it purports to do; it cannot scientifically evaluate the effectiveness of on-road training for learner riders.

*Not strictly true as the control group will receive the training at the end (a wait list control group). This is to encourage participation (people may not participate if there were a 50% chance of not receiving any training) and to appease ethics committees.

Distance Travelled: 105 kms