Quote:
Originally Posted by Ram Jet
Have we really turned into such a pathetic bunch of quivering sacks of protoplasm that we have to take a training course? You're not learning to fly a twin engine private aircraft. If you can drive a car and a scooter you can drive a motorcycle.
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I taught my then 21 year old daughter to ride on my Yamaha DT100. We rode around our subdivision a couple hours total, and ten or twenty miles on the back roads. I tried to get all the safety principles across that I could. Then I paid about $200 for her to take the MSF course. Shortly after that, we were riding together, with her on the recently acquired Ninja 250. I was following her, and we came to a medium sharp right sweeper at 55 mph. A dump truck appeared coming the other way, and it passed my daughter approximately at the apex of the curve. I was happy and relieved to see that she stayed in the middle of her lane and showed no evidence of being spooked by the truck. When I mentioned it later, she said that in the course, she had learned to look where she wanted to go, so she kept here eyes on the middle of the lane and stayed there.
I had told her about target fixation and looking where she wanted to go, but there was something about being in a class with other students and several teachers, and the way they taught the material and tested the students, that made her remember it from the class when the truck appeared. Some similar things have come up in the years since that confirm that I didn't waste my money. I don't believe that everyone has to take the course to be a safe rider, but I think there's enough good material taught that it can't hurt, and will probably help anyone who takes it.