stayingalive Mirror, Signal, Manouevre... Crunch
As a seventeen year old novice behind the wheel of a car, virtually the first thing I learned, apart from keeping my eyes on the road when seaching for the gear stick, was the mantra ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’ (or MSM). Similarly, bike instructors will have drummed into new riders the equivalent ‘observation, signal, manoeuvre’ (OSM) during CBT. Both systems are an essential part of the process of satisfying the examiner you’re safe to ride a bike on the road. Unfortunately, a single mirror check is totally inadequate, as the large number of low speed accidents that involve a driver or rider failing to notice another vehicle is about to run into the back of them, should demonstrate. A driver might get away with a large bill from the bodyshop and maybe whiplash, but riders are very vulnerable to even low speed rear-end collisions. I’ve been hit from behind several times over the years and lying in the road with cars dodging round you isn’t a nice place to be – trust me on that one. Most recently, I was following a French driver around a confusing diversion through a Luxembourg border town. As subsequent events showed, I was following the car ahead of me too closely and wasn’t paying sufficient attention to the mirrors. The French driver was confused by the ever-changing priorities, and when she saw a motorcycle coming from our right, she stopped when she shouldn’t have, and I had to brake a little harder and stop a little closer than I would have liked. I’d just come to a stop when I was hit from behind by a local. She knew the priority was with us, and wasn’t expecting the traffic to stop. Following me too close in turn, she couldn’t stop and punted my FZ750 into the back of the car ahead. Fortunately, aside from one broken indicator, a smashed headlight lens and a scrape mark on my three day old exhaust can, I got away lightly. I just stepped sideways off the bike as it went down, with only a complex insurance claim. A similar accident happened to a rider turning left just after he’d passed some roadworks. Next thing, he heard the sound of locked wheels then the bike was knocked out from under him. So what could we both have done better? Three things:
• The first is to have monitored the situation behind properly. When slowing down, we’re nearly always taking away risk in front and transferring it behind us. I knew there was traffic behind, but I’d allowed myself to be distracted by the stop-start progress of the driver ahead and wasn’t paying enough attention to them, or I would have noticed the car behind was too close and left a bigger gap ahead of me. He knew the car was behind because he’d performed his ‘mirror’ part of MSM, but then relied on brakelight and indicator. The problem with mirrors is that they
Kevin Williams: Behind you!
only provide a static ‘snapshot’ and to really see what’s happening we need a series of checks before we start planning – immediately before we signal, to see if the signal has been recognised and acted upon before we brake – whilst we are slowing. It’s absolutely vital we see that the driver behind is reacting to our signal, whether it’s a brake light, an indicator or a combination of both – as I said, the DSA ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’ mantra is entirely inadequate.
When I’m slowing for a queue or stopping at lights, or preparing to make a turn, I’m (usually!) using the mirrors at least as much as I’m looking in front. Some riders will object
The moment we start thinking “there was nothing I could do” or “it was the other guyʼs fault,” weʼre just setting
ourselves up for a repeat
performance
and suggest there are things ahead we need to watch. The simple answer is that if we’re at a safe distance it’s not usually an issue. Yes, there are circumstances that require swapping of attention front and rear but the truth is that few riders really search for and monitor hazards behind them. They rely on the following driver to keep them out of trouble.
• The second thing we can do is to emphasise our indicator or brake light with an arm signal. Because hardly anyone uses them, they are surprisingly effective. There’s no need to do a cycling proficiency test ‘straight arm’, a ‘half arm’ with bent elbow is quicker, easier and far less upsetting to the bike’s balance. One of the best examples of an arm signal I’ve ever seen was on a practice run with some fellow National Motorcycle Escort Group riders. Tom the bike cop was leading around a bend when he braked AND gave an arm signal. I immediately slowed (and checked the mirrors!) because there was clearly something irregular out of sight ahead. It turned out to be a group of
horse riders on lead reins crossing the road. His arm signal gave useful information to both the riders behind him AND the horse riders ahead of him.
• The final option is to abandon the manoeuvre. When I got rear ended in Luxemborg I was too close to the car ahead and had boxed myself in or I could have swerved alongside the car ahead, but the rider involved in the junction accident could have abandoned the turn and accelerated off again. But neither option is feasible if we don’t monitor the mirrors. There’s no doubt neither driver should have hit either of us. For me it was a useful wake-up call not to neglect the mirrors. The driver behind should have stopped, but once we start thinking ‘the other guy should do A or B’ and rely on that, we are in trouble. Just because it’s a ‘no-fault collision’ doesn’t mean we should become tangled up ourselves. The moment we start thinking ‘there was nothing I could do’ or ‘it was the other guy’s fault,’ we’re just setting ourselves up for a repeat performance at some time in the future.
Kevin Williams: Survival Skills Rider Training 2010. Post test training for everyone from newbie to experienced with a BTEC qualified professional instructor. Survival Skills Publications – new book ‘The MAG Columns’ 40+ articles from ‘The Road ‘
www.motoonline.co.uk survivalskills@clara.net www.survivalskills.co.uk
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