Why do motorcycle riders keep running off the road? Is it age?

hey motorman here if you just wandered onto this channel by some strange twist of fate you don't know who i am i'm a motor officer instructor i'm the maker of the ride like a pro video yes the biggest selling motorcycle instructional video in the world and i wrote the book on these techniques and today my tip of the week we're going to talk about the most common motorcycle crash that involves just the rider and it's called failure to negotiate a curve it happens to so many people we're going to talk about whether or not age has anything to do with it so stay tuned okay if you've watched any of my 1200 or so videos i've got on youtube or even better my ride like a pro video or surviving the means trees video you know that i stress three techniques and i always say the most important of the three techniques is the proper use of your head and eyes wherever you turn your head and eyes that's where the motorcycle will go at low speeds we want to master the friction zone and also the proper use of the rear brake but the most important technique is the proper use of your head and dies because you're going to use this at all speeds and especially you better be able to use it at high speeds now the most common motorcycle crash that involves just the rider is called failure to negotiate a curve rider gets into the turn they think he's going too fast straightens up the bike and runs right off the curve and that happens because the rider doesn't know where to look how to use his head and eyes for instance here i turn my head and eyes and i try to look through the curve i position myself in a spot that will give me the best view around the curve once again i look around through the curve and we're going to do that again so being this is the most common motorcycle crash that involves just a rider does it have anything to do with age well i'm going to show you a video where we had a writer that was 75 years old had virtually no skills at all and another rider who was probably 45 years old and again had no skills at all and we'll show you what happens to them when they try to make just a couple of turns at speed and when i say speed at about 10 or 12 miles an hour [Music] and this also will depict why low speed handling is so important because you practice in a parking lot not because you're going to be riding out on the in a parking lot all the time but we practice for the road i guarantee you if you're going to get into a a crash or drop your motorcycle it's much better to do so at 10 miles an hour than it is at 50 miles an hour that's why we practice at low speeds even in motor officer training when i went through my motor officer instructor class first we had to master the low speeds they would not take you up at the high speed part of the course if you flunk the low speed because that meant you didn't know how to use your head and eyes properly along with the friction zone and a little pressure on the rear brake but so many people ride off a curve and i know why it happens because i see it in my class all the time except there they're not riding off the curb they're just riding out of an exercise but their hands get frozen in fear they look straight ahead instead of through the turn and they wind up going out of the exercise or straight ahead because the bike goes wherever you look your hands will follow your eyes this is not an opinion and it works in everything skiing roller skating driving your car even walking in the woods people get walking the woods walking in the woods and they get lost and they find out that they've been walking in circles for hours is because well if you're right-handed you tend to look to the right and then you'll be making big right hand circles so learn this technique it will save your life if you've watched it i'm going to show you a clip on the dragon that actually this crash occurred right in front of my wife as she was riding the dragon with some friends typical failure to negotiate a curve the writer thought it was going too fast actually wasn't going too fast but looked at the wrong place and went right off the curve and it doesn't matter if you're 18 years old or 80 years old if you don't know that technique if you haven't put that in your mind that that's how it works you very likely could crash coming around a curve i turn my head and eyes i look through this curve if i didn't do that and i looked straight i guarantee you i'd either ride off the road or get really close to riding off the road and if there's an oncoming vehicle and you look at that vehicle instead of where you want to go chances are you're going to run right into that vehicle this is especially helpful when you have s-shaped turns or decreasing radius turns if you don't know where to look and when to look there you are in deep trouble to show you that age is not a factor this rider is 75 years old and what he doesn't have is technique he cannot turn his head and eyes if this is the street he would have run off the curve right there again he would have run off the curve think of these as s shaped turns or switchbacks if you don't know how to use your head knives chances are you are gonna run off the road here it doesn't matter because there's no cliff there's no place to crash into except for the cones and as you see that's not a problem now this rider is 45 years old but again he has no technique cannot turn his head and eyes right there he would have run off the road if this was out on the street he's heading for the gate between the two cones let's see if he makes it he does now all he's got to do is go through the next set of cones he looks straight and the motorcycle goes straight right off the road or the imaginary road in this case thankfully inside cone to inside cone here is about 36 feet apart that's more than enough room to make this turn if you use your head and eyes he makes it through this gate doesn't turn his head nice so he doesn't get anywhere near that next gate to his right and he just gives up this is what the exercise should look like and with this group of bikes you can clearly see the s-shaped turns or s-curves everyone here is using their head and eyes and looking only where they want the motorcycle to go these riders would never run off a curve out on the street they know the proper technique and they know how to use it now before i go any further i want to remind you to please subscribe i hope you give me a thumbs up and remember if you don't like any of my youtube videos i give you a 100 money back guarantee i'm right down the street from my home unfortunately we don't have any cars in florida but there's a set of curves right here right down the street from my house and almost every day somebody is running off these curves it's amazing uh both on motorcycles and in cars usually it's because they're going too fast for the skill level but it's almost always has to do with not knowing where to look and when to look there not turning your head knives if you look straight you will go straight i see that every sunday in my class people who refuse to turn their heads will ride right off the curve which in that case is just out of the exercise so please if you learn nothing else even if you want to be a duck walker for life and not learn how to use the friction zone and the rear brake at least learn to use your head and eyes turn that head knives and look where you want to go your hands will follow your eyes every time i hope you enjoyed this video and maybe maybe it could save your life sometime practice that hidden eyes technique the best way to do it is at low speeds under controlled conditions in a parking lot you don't want to discover you have no clue how to use your head and eyes when rounding a bend at 60 miles an hour even here in florida where we have i don't know maybe 10 or 12 winding roads in the entire state people are still running off those 10 or 12 winding roads don't let that happen to you it's very simple the best way to do it is at low speeds practice the exercises i show you in my video because they force you to use your head and eyes along with the friction zone and proper use of the rear brake and i've often in fact i recently got a comment i was showing the a young lady a little 110 pound girl marianne hamilton doing a figure eight within two parking spaces wide by two parking spaces long that's tight that's 18 by 36 she's on a 950-pound harley-davidson and she has no problem doing it and it's this idiot yeah you know i i have to say the guy is an idiot he commented he said oh is that all you know how to do is turn the motorcycle at the it figure eights and circles in the parking lot meanwhile the last seven minutes of the video was all out of a nice one of our few winding roads here in florida so if you just watch the video instead of stuck in sick of his two cents in when he hadn't even watched the video he would know that of course i ride everywhere but we learned the techniques under control conditions not one rounding a turn at 50 or 60. not when that car pulls out in front of you in a busy intersection at 50 miles an hour that's not the place to learn how to transition your bike quickly from extreme lift to extreme right so i hope you enjoyed this until next time

Channel: Ride Like a Pro Jerry Palladino

Views: 1,383,389

Rating: 4.913547 out of 5

Keywords: motorcycles, crashes, ride like a pro, jerry palladino, uturns, failure to negotiate a curve, lady riders, how to, how to ride a motorcycle, high speed skills

Id: 8ZxMav9iTIA

Length: 11min 3sec (663 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 15 2020