General How Often Do You Do 'lifesavers'?

[Inlinefour]

Hey guys!
First 'proper' Vlog here.
I feel like I potentially use 'lifesavers' too often... Though then again, I'd rather do them more than less! What do you think!?
Feel free to leave your thoughts/comments either here or on the video.

Thanks in advance ladies and gents!

 

[SwissMotard]

Always when making any change of direction relative to the road, such as turning off, changing lanes or moving position in my lane.

What most new riders seem to do is massively over exaggerated lifesaver checks when you only need a quick glance out of the corner of your eye and not to move you head 90 degrees.

 

[Lurch]

Observations need to be effective rather than regular if that makes sense.

Lifesavers are for looking behind, and shoulder checks to the side. In the main when you are moving, it would be a shoulder check as you will maintain forward peripheral vision in case something changes, like the car in front suddenly brakes. You have rear view from your mirrors, so a shoulder check fills in the blind spot.

If you can lay your hands on a book called Motorcycle Roadcraft by the Police foundation, there is some excellent advice on observations and how you feed that in to your riding plan. If your local Police run a Bikesafe, that's a cheap worthwhile thing to go on, you will get tons of safety pointers from a class 1 Police biker, and in terms of safe motorcycling, you don't get much better than that.

 

[Inlinefour]

Observations need to be effective rather than regular if that makes sense.

Lifesavers are for looking behind, and shoulder checks to the side. In the main when you are moving, it would be a shoulder check as you will maintain forward peripheral vision in case something changes, like the car in front suddenly brakes. You have rear view from your mirrors, so a shoulder check fills in the blind spot.

If you can lay your hands on a book called Motorcycle Roadcraft by the Police foundation, there is some excellent advice on observations and how you feed that in to your riding plan. If your local Police run a Bikesafe, that's a cheap worthwhile thing to go on, you will get tons of safety pointers from a class 1 Police biker, and in terms of safe motorcycling, you don't get much better than that.

Yeah I've really been considering doing one of those bikesafe courses, or at least an advanced riding course. I generally consider myself a fairly competent rider, but I'm sure that everyone thinks that, and at the end of the day, we don't know what we don't know.
Anything that can make you safer on the road is worth investing a little time in, if you ask me!

 

[Lurch]

I'm doing RoSPA and the improvement to my riding is phenomenal, even though they said my riding was very safe in the first place.

 

[JamesBrown]

lol people cant see my butt i got a trunk on the back of my bike.

 

[chaosnaut]

What is a 'lifesaver'?

Is it just being aware of who is around you?

 

[Lurch]

A life saver is a side/rear observation done by turning your head to look. It means you can clearly see what's coming from behind and blindspots. It can literally save your life.

 

[MattFazakarley]

Nice video and a great topic safety is always a good place to start

 

[Inlinefour]

A couple of years ago, I rode for around a year with only 1 mirror on my bike, so I think that's what sharpened up my lifesavers... Not that I'd recommend anyone else removes their mirrors to do so though!