Motorcycle manoeuvres review: the feasibility and safety implications – phase 1

This study is the first stage in assessing the feasibility and safety of carrying out a revised set of manoeuvres for the motorcycle test.

Care should be taken in interpreting these findings, and they should be considered alongside the later phases.

In this first phase of the research, off-road locations were ‘mocked-up’ to resemble real roads in terms of marking the centre line and the edges of the carriageway. On this mock-road area, ‘test ready’ learner riders rode through the revised set of manoeuvres being proposed for potential on-road use, and through the existing module 1 manoeuvres on a separate layout. In this way it was possible to draw direct comparisons between the two sets of manoeuvres.

Key findings
• The revised manoeuvres, with the exception of the figure of 8, appear to be feasible, practicable and sufficiently safe to proceed with the second phase of testing revised manoeuvres on real roads with expert riders.

• Examiners rated their workload as significantly greater when examining the mock road versions of the ridden u-turn, the slalom, the figure of 8, the emergency brake and the hazard avoidance, in comparison with the module 1 versions of these manoeuvres. Higher workload was attributed to the physical and cognitive demands of marking out these manoeuvres using portable mats and examining in a mock-road environment.

• Learner riders were more likely to receive faults on the mock road versions of the figure of 8, emergency brake, and hazard avoidance manoeuvres, when compared with the module 1 versions.

• Examiners were generally inconsistent when estimating learners’ speeds. When extrapolated to a test situation, the outcome would be an unacceptable number of incorrect pass or fail decisions (13-36%). An objective method of speed measurement appears necessary if on-road testing of the high-speed manoeuvres is to be attempted.