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What does BikeSafe involve?

BikeSafe is a national police run motorcycle initiative, aimed at working with motorcycle riders in a relaxed environment to raise awareness of the importance and value of progressing on to accredited post-test training. BikeSafe workshops involve an observed ride with a police graded motorcyclist or approved BikeSafe observer. With some local variation, BikeSafe workshops aim to cover: rider attitude, systematic methods, collision causation, cornering, positioning, overtaking, observation, braking, hazard perception and use of gears.

Whilst advanced police riders are some of the safest on the roads, we are not in the business of delivering rider training to the public, hence BikeSafe is not a training scheme in itself. We do, however, through our BikeSafe workshops, provide detailed briefings on hazard awareness and how to make your motorcycling safer, followed up in most forces by an on-road assessed ride. Under the eagle-eye of an experienced BikeSafe assessor, you will receive detailed feedback on the strengths and weaknesses or your riding. We will provide honest feedback in our review, as we believe that provides the greatest benefit to the rider. The crucial next step after having had your BikeSafe assessment is to go on to undertake further training from the range of organisations that provide post-test training throughout the UK. Our workshops will provide you with details of how and where to find this.

Motorcyclists are more vulnerable than many other road users and continue to represent a high proportion of those either seriously injured or killed on our roads. The majority of incidents involving motorcycles are avoidable and all too often, are simply the result of basic errors made by riders. We will continue to work towards reducing the numbers of motorcycling casualties and BikeSafe makes a real contribution to that.

A coordinated police-led mission to save lives

Every day in the UK there are 60 serious motorcycle related road traffic accidents. 16 involve life-changing injuries, with at least one daily fatality. Key to addressing these statistics is to understand that the most significant contributory factor is rider error. This is why professional police riders from all over the UK are united through BikeSafe to help riders to recognise the benefits of investing in ongoing post-test rider training. To this end, during the eight year period of 2011-2018, police riders and their teams, through 5000 workshops and 60,000 workshop places – have invested 238,000 hours into rider education.

Police forces

Workshops delivered

Places made available

Hours paid forward