Normally when I’ve not updated the blog for 2 weeks I start with
an apology, but this time is different. I won’t. I chose to deliberately leave
the blog until I’d completed the next major event in my life… the Driving Standards
Agency ‘s (DSA) Cardington Motorcycle Instructor’s
If you recall, at the end of March I spent a week on a
Motorcycle Instructor Training course with West Pennine Motorcycle Training
(see blog entry).
So when we got back from Kefalonia I had just 2 weeks until I went down to
Cardington for my assessment. 2 weeks to prepare for what, by all accounts, is
a very tough test with a very low pass rate (I was told it was as low as
40-45%). To recap, anyone wanting to ride a motorcycle (or moped) has to first
complete a course of Compulsory Basic Training (
But. Because I’m not “down-trained” I can’t practice by
teaching CBTs before going to Cardington to sit the assessment. So I spent the
2 weeks between our holiday and my assessment cramming, preparing notes based
on the instructor training, riding around giving pretend radio-instruction to
imaginary trainees and watching a couple of CBTs being conducted for real at
West Pennine. The guys there were excellent, and Terry, one of their
down-trained instructors was more than happy for me to watch his instruction
and even listen in to his radio-commentary as he instructed his trainees out on
the road. Tracy gave me much needed help and encouragement too, even driving
out to a local industrial estate and playing “pupil” whilst I conducted a
couple of mock-lessons, up to the point where the trainee would get on the bike
(I could hardly ask her to do that bit, even if she could). With a lot of hard
work I felt I was as prepared as I could be, and so on Sunday after watching
the MotoGP races, I kissed
At
We introduced ourselves and waited until our assessor came.
Again, I’ll change his name to protect his identity, and simply call him Andy.
He seemed OK, didn’t have 2 heads and wasn’t too scary. Just scary enough, I
guess… He introduced himself and we went to the portakabins to get briefed on
how the assessment would be conducted. By now the temperature was well into the
high 20s and it was clear it was going to be a very, very hot day. The basic
structure would be that the 3 of us would be given a number of lessons from
each of the 5 elements of the
First up was element A, with Jack going first covering the
With Element A (Introduction) done, we moved outside into the blistering sun where we were introduced to the bike we’d be “training” Andy on – a Honda CG125. We were given a few minutes to familiarise ourselves with it, then had a break and moved on to Element B – Practical OnSite Training (Bike Familiarisation). Again we were allocated one lesson each to Instruct and one to Supervise, and I was happy to be given “Motorcycle Controls” to instruct and “Machine checks and use of Stands” to supervise. Again my lesson went OK, and the supervisor made some valid constructive points, but I’d covered all the bases. John gave the Machine Checks lesson and whilst he covered all the points, he confused the trainee as the lesson was poorly structured. He also missed out the stands lesson completely, but remembered after closing the lesson. My supervisory comments were therefore a little more involved, as I had to cover how to structure the lesson more effectively to avoid confusion. But had I not done, I’d have been marked down on my supervision and I needed to pass both instructing and supervising to qualify. Not a time to be “too nice”.
Then it was on to the big one. Element C. This is the bit
you’ll see if you drive past a motorcycle training school and see the trainees
negotiating their way round the cones. It’s the critical element that teaches
basic machine control and riding skills (such as observation) before the
trainee can go out on the road with the instructor. It’s also the one that I’d
spent most time thinking about since the training course, when Steve at
After a break I was supervising Jack performing the “Rear Observation” exercise which he did well (I thought) and so I only had a few minor constructive comments to give. I then had to instruct the U-turn. Now, if you recall, when I did my RoSPA training, I dropped my own bike 3 times performing U-turns, having previously been able to perform them flawlessly. Needless to say, I’d spent a fair bit of time working on how to teach them effectively, and even spent some time practicing them myself. But I was still relieved when I offered to demo it and Andy said he was ok to just have a go. Naturally he injected a couple of faults, which I spotted and corrected quickly. And when I’d got 2 good U-turns I closed the lesson. Jack gave me the supervisory comments which amounted to little more than “very good lesson, nothing really to add”. No point him nit-picking.
Finally in Element C we each had a Junction exercise to perform and supervise to demonstrate our OSM/PSL routines (Observe, Signal, Manoeuvre, Position, Speed, Look). I supervised John doing a Right turn from a Major road to a Minor one, and Instructed on the easier Left turn Major to Minor. This exercise seemed to get questioned by Andy as I instructed him to take a full observation before starting signalling, including a right-shoulder check. And a left shoulder check before moving into a left-side road position on the approach and another before committing to the left turn. We even had a debate about this last shoulder-check, but I stuck to my instruction and gave a couple of reasons. It left me wondering if I’d got it right, and I got Andy to run through the exercise a good few times until I was happy. Just before the last run he said he thought I was “nit-picking” (whilst in role as the trainee) to which I responded that the last run was OK, but because of the importance of the exercise and how many poor ones he’d done, I wanted a final good one before I was happy. He did it and it was good, so I closed the lesson. The supervisors’ comments were OK, but I was convinced that I’d probably over-egged it and may have scored my first “2”. Not a great way to end the day…
That evening I tried to relax in the hotel, eating in the restaurant before returning to my room to watch the England-Mexico game before trying to sleep. I was still feeling relatively calm, but was getting concerned about the road-instruction ride as I’d had no real opportunity to practice giving instruction and spotting mistakes whilst riding and following a trainee. It was going to be tough…
The following morning was cooler, than goodness, as we’d been thoroughly baked being out in the heat of the day before. First up was Element D, a classroom section that covers the essentials of riding on the road before actually getting out there. This is a quick element, with 14 lessons to be conducted in around 45mins to an hour. We each had 3 lessons to instruct back-to-back, and a further 3 to supervise, giving our feedback at the end of the 3 lessons. This time I was first to go, covering Conspicuity (a word I’m convinced doesn’t exist, but basically means “being conspicuous”), Legal Requirements and Vulnerability. I’d prepared materials to use and simply took Andy through the key points, asking questions but fairly rattling-through the material, finishing well within my target of under 10 minutes. The supervisor’s feedback was that it was a “bit rushed” but covered all the key points. I then supervised John covering Speed, Defensive Riding and Rear Observation, my main comment being that he introduced things from other lessons when he could have kept it simpler and restricted to the topic in hand.
With that done, it was time for a break before the road-riding part of the assessment. For this only 2 of us would go out with the trainee, one instructing and the other supervising. First pairing were Jack instructing and John supervising, so I stayed in the canteen trying to keep my nerves in check. After around 40 minutes they were back and it was my turn to instruct. For this, I’d been given the scenario that Andy had been with me for the full day, I was happy with his progress, we’d had a classroom session on roundabouts and junctions and done the 1st hour of the road ride before taking a coffee break to warm up (hardly needed on a day like today!). After a short reminder of what I was looking for, we rode around the test centre to start with, where I had to instruct Andy on performing a hill-start, remembering to talk him through how to do it first (as he’d never done one on a bike before). Then out into the roads around the centre, with Andy making subtle and not-so-subtle mistakes whilst I talked him through what he should do and picked up his faults and corrected them. He was quite crafty with his faults – not performing left shoulder checks before changing lanes ready to exit a roundabout, not using his rear brake to slow down at all, looking down, not performing a life-saver before moving out to overtake a parked vehicle, etc, but I was on top of it and spotting them OK. Then we did the emergency stop exercise on the road, after Andy found a quiet spot. Again he locked the rear on the first attempt, leaving a lovely 12ft long skid mark on the road. I asked him what he should have done as soon as a the wheel locked up and he replied correctly “release and reapply”. I then got him to look at the skid-mark and discussed how he’d not been slowing down for that distance as the wheel was locked, to re-enforce the point. Next time he locked up but quickly released and reapplied and did so several times before stopping. A further debrief and praise for his release-reapply reactions and I got him to do it again, this time he did it perfectly and I was happy to move on. Shortly he stopped again and told me we were now into the last 15 mins of the 2 hrs so I told him over the radio that I’d now be quite and he was “on his own as he would be after the training” and only interjected to get him to use both brakes (a fault he kept re-introducing having corrected it). Back at the centre I dismounted and gave him some final pointers on keeping a check on his own observations and use of both brakes as these faults he’d corrected and re-introduced during the ride (so was in danger of dropping back into). I was feeling reasonably confident it had gone OK. Then I got the supervisor’s comments, Jack being perfectly correct in pointing out a glaring mistake I’d made. I’d de-briefed Andy following the emergency stop exercise whilst he was still in the middle of the lane, which was potentially dangerous. I should have moved him to the side of the road first. Whilst I had been checking the road was still clear and nothing was coming (which I pointed out), I had to accept that I’d cocked-up. Damn.
All over our lunch break I went over it in my mind. I’d made a stupid, simple error and cocked-up. It was a potentially dangerous mistake and whilst not actually dangerous (had a car appeared, I’m certain I would have immediately moved Andy to the side of the road), it was, in my opinion, dangerous. A score of 1 for sure. And that would result in a Fail.
I was disappointed with myself. Convinced I’d failed, I was resigned to having to come back and repeat the assessment. But there was nothing I could do to fix it now, just do my best on supervising John on his ride after lunch and take my result when given it at the end of the day. I finally got my appetite back and could eat, my nerves finally gone as I resigned myself to failure (not something that sits easily with me!).
For John’s ride we tried some different radios, as the DSA are evaluating new ones, so he had to contend with “push-to-talk” and not the easier to use “voice-activated” system Jack and I had used. But he dealt with that ok. During the ride I picked up on a few things I would do differently, and one thing he didn’t pick up on at all – during the whole ride, Andy didn’t use the rear brake at all. Not once. Back at the centre, I gave my supervisor’s comments, pointing out the lack of instruction on how to do a hill start (which Andy struggled with 3 times before getting right), a situation I considered to be dangerous that he’d let Andy ride into (moving parked cars on a narrow road), poor rear observations and the missing back brake. Harsh feedback, but I still wanted to pass that element even if I’d failed my own ride instruction.
We then had a half-hour to wait whilst Andy went through his notes before taking us one at a time into the portakabin to hear our results. Resigned to having failed, I was happy to let John go in first, despite having the longest ride home, as I wanted to know how they’d both got on. After all, we’d spent 2 days going through this together and had got on very well despite the pressure and the situation we were in where we’d need to effectively point out each other’s mistakes. John came out and put his thumb down. He’d failed. I didn’t have time to find out why immediately, as it was my turn to hear Andy’s verdict…
He asked me how I thought I’d done, and I mentioned the lesson at the end of day 1 which I thought could have gone better, and the unforgivable stupid mistake of debriefing in the road after the emergency stop exercise. He replied that there were some things, yes, but that overall I’d passed! I nearly fell off my chair. He’d scored the emergency stop mistake as a “2” as it was “potentially dangerous” but not actually so, as I’d been watching the road. I also got picked up on a couple of supervisory “unsatisfactories”. First was when Jack was doing the rear observation lesson as I’d not made sure he covered the effects of different mirror types (concave, convex and flat) and made sure the trainee demonstrated competence in performing them before closing the lesson. This last bit shows the difference between Cardington and the real-world, as down at Cardington each lesson has to stand-alone, whereas in the real world the rear observation exercise is typically followed by one for which rear observations are essential so any faults in performing them are dealt with then. Jack also scored a “2” for that lesson as he’d not performed it correctly, although he passed overall. Second was for John’s road ride, where I supervised, as I’d also failed to spot that when turning right at a roundabout and changing lanes before exiting Andy had not performed a left life-saver – which is dangerous. I’d not seen it as following Andy and the instructor meant I was almost out of line-of-sight (I should have positioned myself so I could see). Andy had deliberately put in more right-turns at roundabouts to give John more times to spot and correct the fault, but he hadn’t. As he’d also not let Andy perform the exercises on the road (U-turn in his case) without instruction, he’d scored 2 x 2s on the road and failed his assessment, lost his down-trained certification and couldn’t instruct any more until he got re-assessed locally. Tough stuff.
But, I’d passed, and I was shocked. I was convinced my one mistake had done for me. It hadn’t. For the record, I scored 3 3s and 4 4s on Instruction (with the 1 2), and 3 3s (one of which I was told was a 2, but is marked as a 3 on the form!) and 4 4s on Supervision (with the 1 2). Overall, some real positives as well as a couple of areas to watch in future.
Needless to say I was delighted. I rang Tracy to share the
news before setting off on the long ride home, saying goodbye to Jack and John
and wishing them both well. I stopped for a coffee on the way home and rang
Steve at
And there you have it. I’m now qualified as a Motorcycle
Instructor and can teach people to ride a motorcycle, issue