Re: Oscarmark - discussion of police/IAM/ROSPA standards
Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2015 11:28 pm
Horse wrote:hir wrote: The standard required to achieve an IAM Masters distinction is lower than that required to achieve a police Advanced Ticket [ignoring the higher speeds aspect of the drive]
Some time ago, a RoSPA bike examiner said that he'd give a 'gold' on the basis that, from a following bike and with the candidate not riding using exemptions, he wouldn't be able to tell whether it was a police advanced rider or not.
Or words to that effect.
And that's a nice thing to hear if you've spent your own money and time learning to ride better as it gives you a benchmark that they believe they've reached, encouraging them to continue their journey.
The exemptions are the crucial point. Riding along at 60 mph in the flow of traffic getting your positioning correct without any concern for maximum progress is far less complex than having to overtake every vehicle on the road when the opportunity presents, riding the bike to near its maximum performance all of the time. Doing it hour after hour whilst an instructor follows you for 8 weeks solid, no taking it easy regardless of weather, no sitting back and not taking that overtake because I'm tired.
My friend is a bike instructor and he's out in all weathers with students themselves regularly chucking the course in due to the pace. He's had an advanced course recently where one student fell off and broke his wrist and the other 2 jacked it due to the speeds, realising that they weren't capable, he ended up with no students to instruct.
In the speed limits they practice their blue light running until they hit the open roads and then it's blue lights off and on the pace all the time. Utilising the bikes performance ALL the time, not just until they come up behind a car doing the speed limit or reach 60mph. Every corner is ridden at the maximum safe speed for that corner regardless of it been a 40mph or a 130mph bend.
The riding that would be done on any civilian test would be so vastly different from that on an advanced Police bike test that comparisons are not possible. That's not to say that a Gold standard is not exceptionally good but it just cant be compared due to reasons stated.