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| Road Positioning is critical. It’s actually a pretty basic concept. Put yourself in everyone’s Line Of Sight. It is crucial to your safety and well being to be seen by traffic coming at you from all directions. As is demonstrated in the picture to the left, which lane you choose and where you place yourself in that lane has a huge impact on your chances of being seen. This is a situation that demonstrates just how many things have to be taken into account to ensure the best chance of being seen by other road users. The bonus that goes along with being seen is hopefully being able to predict what is likely to happen in your immediate vicinity or where you are likely to be in a few seconds time. This is something that only comes with experience on the road. It doesn’t matter if it is in a car or on a bike. Pay attention to what is going on around you and the knowledge soon mounts up to a library you can instantly recall when you recognize a potential situation. Experience and statistics show that motorcycle riders are safer car drivers. It can be surmised that being more vulnerable on a bike leads to a greater sense of caution; awareness increases, reactions quicken and this heightened state of the senses is not only a great feeling but is also good for the brain. Who would have thought? The US Air Force asked a university that had previously worked with a certain branch of the government to find a pass-time or sport for their pilots that would require the same level of sensory perception, mental agility and hand to eye co-ordination required to fly a jet fighter plane. They looked into ball sports like squash and tennis, they looked into role playing scenarios but nothing came close until (the urban legend has it,) one of their test subjects rode his sport bike to lunch one day while he still had his data recorder on. Not even flying a helicopter or commercial airliner required the same amount of concentration needed to ride a sport bike at speed on a public road. This was apparently the inspiration for Tom Cruise’s character in Top Gun.
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