Advice: Staying safe with defensive riding

Defensive riding is a set of skills and techniques that you can use to reduce your risk of an accident. It’s about anticipating potential hazards, recognising behaviours of other road users and making proactive and educated decisions to keep yourself safe on the road.

While the term ‘defensive riding’ implies a passive approach to riding, it actually involves taking a proactive and strategic approach in a bid to minimise risks. Done well, it allows you to foresee potential hazards and take appropriate actions to distance yourself from danger. In some cases, this may involve taking assertive action to avoid an accident.

However, the primary focus of defensive riding is to reduce the need for evasive action. This may involve adjusting your speed or position on the road, signalling your intentions to other drivers and maintaining a safe following distance. Defensive riding doesn’t necessarily mean you are always on the defensive, it’s about being on the front foot in every situation so you’re best equipped to deal with whatever the road throws at you.

In simple terms, it’s a combination of situational awareness, risk management and safe riding practices. It includes techniques such as scanning the road ahead, making sure your own actions are predictable to other road users and positioning yourself within the lane for maximum visibility depending on the conditions.

Defensive riding also involves anticipating other road users’ actions. Never assume another road user has seen you, regardless of how bright or loud you’ve made yourself, and it’s not a bad idea to assume they’ll make unexpected moves – there’s plenty of distractions inside a quiet confines of a passenger vehicle, like pinging phones, loud radios and bossy satnavs.

And this may not only apply to passenger vehicles, either. Other motorcyclists can pose dangers to you, too, especially when riding in groups which can give you or other riders an increased feeling of safety. Whether you’re riding alone or with a group, stay alert, identify the clowns and use your mirrors to stay aware of your surroundings.

There are some really basic things you can do to keep yourself safe on the road, but there’s other things that you learn with experience that can be really useful, too.

Starting with the basics, you’re scanning the road ahead for vehicles, pedestrians, debris or changes in conditions. You’re wearing bright or reflective protective gear to make yourself as visible to other road users as possible and you’re keeping a safe distance between the vehicle ahead, which ensures you’re giving yourself enough time to react if it hits, drops or runs over something you haven’t seen.

Another important technique to consider is where you choose to position yourself within your lane. And while it might seem counterintuitive to do so, often the safest place to be is in the wheel track closest to the centre of the road. Not only will oncoming traffic be able to spot you earlier, but your visibility of the road ahead is far greater than if you were following a vehicle and positioned towards the outside of the lane, for example.

It also means you’re not sitting in the centre of the lane, where oil and other fluids can reduce the available grip. And, if you’re on a dual carriageway, be aware of other vehicles’ blind spots; never sit in them and move through them quickly if passing.  

While many of us want to look and feel like Jack Miller when riding on the road, picking the safest line on the road is very different to picking a line on a racetrack. The best line on a racetrack is chosen as the quickest way through a corner, but being quick and safe on the open road comes when you’re giving yourself as much information as you can as early as you can through vision.

So instead of identifying the apex of a particular corner on the road and using it to take the quickest line through the turn, a good technique is to instead square the corner off so you’re seeing through the corner to what’s ahead much earlier than you would if you opted to hit the apex. Your vision is your largest source of information gathering, and the more information you have, the safer – and quicker – you’ll be.

As the basics of riding defensively second nature, you’ll probably find you’ll pick up extra tips and skills which add to your defensive riding coffers. Things like learning to recognise the movements the driver of a vehicle is making can be really useful. A lazy driver, for example, will often lengthen their neck and lift their head in a bid to widen the view in their rear-view mirror, rather than taking the time and effort to perform a proper head check.

And while lots of drivers believe having their phone on their laps will mean they won’t be seen or caught texting while driving, the slumped head is a tell-tale sign that they’re completely distracted by the communications occurring in their lap.