Have you ever ridden your bike and realised you are making a lot of silly mistakes – sloppy handling, poor positioning, not noticing potential hazards – and thought, ‘I’m just not on it today’ , and wondered why?
Could be you are riding tired. It’s common for people to over-estimate their ability to function at the top of their game and after a long ride or a hard day at work, it’s understandable that you could be running your energy levels down.
This directly feeds into your riding, making you a crash ready to happen.
A new guide has come out that looks at the issues of tiredness among motorists, highlights the dangers and suggests ways to avoid it. Called Tiredness At The Wheel: An Essential Road Safety Guide For Understanding Driver Fatigue it is aimed primarily at car drivers but its main lessons are equally applicable to bike riders. Indeed, as riders depend on their balance and fine motor skills more than car and van drivers, and these are greatly affected by tiredness, it could be argued that it is essential reading for the bike riding community, despite the title!
The guide’s authors say:
‘While we don't like to think about it, road accidents claim more than a thousand lives every year. In 2022 there were an estimated 1,695 fatalities and 29,795 killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties. For bikers, the figures were 350 and nearly 6,000, respectively.
‘The number of lives lost every year as a result of crashes which could have been avoided is a real tragedy.
‘Tiredness at the wheel, or driving fatigue, is one such example. Most people are fairly confident in their abilities. It’s for that reason a lot of us will take to the roads even when we really aren’t awake enough to properly focus.
‘In this guide we’re going to look at driving fatigue in detail, highlighting the causes as well as the preventative measures you can take to drastically reduce your chances of having an accident while tired.’
Don’t think that riding tired won’t affect your performance; it will. This guide has a number of handy hints that warn you when you are tired, what this will do to your riding and how best to counteract it.
It can be accessed at https://www.hendycarstore.co.uk/driver-fatigue-essential-road-safety-guide/
