BETTER BIKERS

Two-thirds of bikers across Scotland believe they should be encouraged to take up post-test training, to help improve their safety on the country’s roads, that’s despite only around one per cent of them actually attaining an advanced or higher qualification. Despite making up just two per cent of Scottish road users, bikers account for a disproportionate number of those killed and/or seriously injured every year, with a high number of incidents happening on rural roads – one in five crashes on Scotland’s non-built-up roads involve motorcycles and, of those, three in five result in a death.

The Better Bikers campaign has been launched by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) to promote the benefits of further training. Nick Lloyd, the charity’s head of road safety, said: “In reality, motorcyclists are some of the best-trained road users, given how much they have to do just to pass their test, but we know, from speaking to bikers who do continue to learn after getting their licence, that doing so vastly improves their abilities as riders – they learn how to better plan, and observe, during their journeys, how to ride more smoothly and how to better avoid inherent dangers, particularly on rural roads, like other motorists and poor road conditions.”

As part of the campaign, RoSPA has launched a digital hub at www.BetterBikers.org.uk which will host information, advice and resources on how to handle country roads and the dangers they present. It’ll be updated over the summer, but it currently includes a guide to the POWDER pre-ride maintenance checklist for your bike, and a video on the positions to take when approaching bends.