Trust me, I’m a Doctor
Persuading riders to get advanced training is a tricky business. So why are doctors succeeding where the Peelers struggle?
For most of us, there are few things more painful than being lectured by a policeman, so police forces’ well-intentioned efforts to persuade motorcyclists to do advanced rider training often struggle. But a small team of doctors have a solution: let them do the talking.
‘The problem is that motorcyclists see the police as enforcement and often don’t want to speak to them. But if you put a doctor on a bike, they’re really keen to engage,’ says Dr Rob Dawes, a consultant anaesthetist and critical care doctor on air ambulances. Every weekend during the riding season, Rob volunteers for the Docbike charity, riding to popular biking haunts on his medic-spec Kawasaki GTR14. While waiting to be summoned to any road traffic accidents, he chats with whoever’s about. ‘The trouble is that the motorcyclists we’re trying to reach [ie those most likely to crash] are also the least likely to want to go on training courses,’ says Rob, who rides a Ducati Streetfighter when off duty. ‘But by engaging with them, we’re usually able to get them onto a Biker Down first aid course.’
Crucially, Biker Down doesn’t tell you how to ride, it tells you how to look after your mates if they come off, and is therefore less threatening to those of us with delicate egos. ‘For a lot of riders it pings a lightbulb in their head and they come out at the end and think, “ok, maybe I could try a Bikesafe course and avoid crashing in the first place”.’
And there is evidence it works: the first area to pilot the scheme – Dorset – saw a 5% drop in KSI accidents (killed or seriously injured). ‘Before Docbike started in Dorset, the Biker Down and Bikesafe courses were running at about 40% capacity. They are now all full. There’s no doubt in my mind that Docbike is making a difference.’
» docbike.org, docbike.org/bikerdown, bikesafe.co.uk