Despite pulling right up to the line and a well trimmed hedge, this driver's view is still obstructed

Many of us will have had a break from riding over the winter and I had a longer break than usual myself this time, thanks to a bit of surgery followed by a lot more snow and ice ( and therefore salt) than usual.  So coming back to riding might involve for some of you, as it always seems to do for me, recovering riding skills which have gone a bit rusty.

Setting off for the first ride never seems to bother me and it feels quite natural to get back on the bike and start riding it again.  So I am perhaps fortunate in rarely suffering any huge crisis of confidence, although it did happen to me one Spring – ironically after passing my Advanced Riding Test the previous November.  I really did have to go back to basics that year and rebuild confidence in my basic handling skills that year.  Mind you I was still riding my GL1200SEi that year and compared to a GL1800 it is a bit of a handful.  Fortunately that sort of major loss of confidence has not recurred.

Every year there is however something I need to relearn – or more usually quite a few skill elements I need to brush up.  And sometimes I seem to have to experience a buttock-clenching moment or two as a wake up call before giving them the attention they deserve, even though I consciously try to go through a personal re-training routine each year as I start riding again.  For example one of the first things I do is head for a nice quite, flat car park to practice stopping and starting smoothly and to do some other slow speed manoeuvring to get my confidence back about coping with tight turns and the like.

Blind junctions seem to crop up most years as something I forget how to do properly for a while and from time to time they deliver the sharp reminder of a near miss (or worse) that I’ve fallen into bad habits again and need to get my act together or pay the price.  By “blind” junctions I’m referring to those where there is no proper view of the approaching traffic to which you will have to give way until you are right up to it.  There might also be an awkward angle of view (my neck won’t go round as far these days) or additional hazards at the junction such as a slope or a loose surface to complicate matters too, but essentially it poor visibility of conflicting traffic I’m referring to.

Many junctions are marked with a Stop sign rather than Give Way and for those you have no option of course – you are obliged by law to come to a complete halt and put a foot down.  And really you’re taking a big and unnecessary risk if you don’t stop at these junctions.  Stop signs are not erected for fun and there will almost invariably be a very good reason why the extra precaution of stopping completely for a good look before entering a junction is necessary for your safety.  And GoldWings aren’t the easiest of bikes to hover, feet up, at a junction in a state of indecision are they, even when the road is flat and smooth?

At a Give Way junction on the other hand you have a choice and you can keep rolling as you enter the junction if you wish.  Keeping moving through the junction isn’t compulsory of course but stopping isn’t mandatory either.

The golden rule of Give Way junctions is Plan to stop so that you can choose whether to go.

Incidentally this applies to junctions generally, not just blind ones, and to roundabouts too, especially when your view of other traffic is obstructed as you approach it.  If you are prepared to stop as you approach you will be able to do so without difficulty, if you’re not prepared you risk making a hash of doing so when the need suddenly arises.

It’s easy to forget to apply this Rule because the instinctive thing to do for most riders when approaching a Give Way junction or roundabout is to plan to keep rolling and to consider any problem which stopping might prevent only when it becomes necessary.  Since you might have to stop very quickly indeed if traffic appears at a blind bend, being unprepared to stop is not a good idea.  Your balance of the bike will be wrong for stopping and you might not be able to recover in time if you need to.

I know that I have a tendency to slip back into this particular bad habit and I do try to stop myself doing so but it’s not easy.  It’s perhaps a combination of eagerness to keep moving (it is only a Give Way junction after all) and laziness, in that superficially it’s easier to keep the bike moving through the junction than stopping and starting off again.

And when I do start to fall back into the bad habit I usually get away with it a few times which isn’t helpful because this tends to reinforce the bad habit.   I might tick myself off for being sloppy but having got away with it I don’t dwell on it and don’t do anything to stop it happening again either – until I get a real fright, when fast traffic suddenly appears, just as I have committed myself to entering a junction.  And even if I do survive unscathed the buttocks will have clenched and I will have had my serious reminder to get a grip and start tackling junctions properly again.  All it takes to end up dropping the bike when you have to stop suddenly and unexpectedly is an unfavourable slope or a bit of loose gravel which you haven’t bothered to look for and down you go.

You can slip back into bad habits at any stage of the Season of course, it doesn’t need a lay off to bring it about.  I didn’t need a reminder to tackle junctions properly this year because I was still smarting about a mistake I made late last Season when I did drop the bike.

At this junction the view is obstructed by a roadside equipment box

I was taking my granddaughter out for an afternoon ride around Pendle Hill in East Lancashire, where the Pendle Witches came from.  It’s a scenic potter through fairly narrow and twisty lanes.  I felt on safe ground because I’d done the same circuit a week or two earlier and found a nice Cafe with a witches theme; just the thing to interest my granddaughter.  I decided to do it anti-clockwise this time, for a change.  I don’t get the chance to take her out very often so it’s a special opportunity with a special passenger; I was taking great care.

I was approach a blind T Junction (high untended hedges obstructing the view left and right) on a narrow country lane intending to turn right.  I slowed right down but there was no sight or sound of traffic so I kept moving slowly, very slowly I suppose, as I was about to enter the junction.  I looked both ways and the road was clear but it was an awkward tight right turn I was about to make and with granddaughter on board I really didn’t want to make a balls of it.  I was now focused on making the turn.

At that very moment, as I was still moving ahead, barely into the junction and eyeing up my turn a fast moving vehicle appeared from the left and I saw the movement in my peripheral vision. Instinctively  I jammed on the brakes (including grabbing the front brake) and down the bike went to the left.  The white van, for that’s what it was, swerved around me and carried on as I went down.  I rolled off with the momentum of the slow but unstoppable fall of the bike and granddaughter found herself  sitting at a much steeper angle.  The bike had toppled right over, rocking on its crash bars, rear wheel off the ground, touching down with mirror housing and clutch lever.  My granddaughter was shaken by the sudden change of circumstances but unhurt.

Perhaps the van driver had a conscience about his speed but anyway he had seen me go down and very kindly came back to offer help.  The bike was easily rocked back onto both wheels and then lifted (using the technique I learned at the 2008 Light Parade from our US friends) back upright.  The clutch lever had broken and the mirror housing was scratched but the mirror was intact and there was no other damage.  I thanked the van driver for his help and we went on our way.

So where did I go wrong?  I could of course try to lay all the blame on the van driver; he was cracking along approaching a junction which should have been signposted to him as an upcoming hazard and he was probably a local lad forging ahead with gusto.  But his hazard sign, if there was one, might have been as obscured by overgrow hedges, as my Give Way sign had been, if indeed there had been one at all.  There were certainly no road markings at the junction; it was a narrow, unclassified country lane.  Maybe I should blame the Highway Authority for poor signage, poor junction design and poor maintenance.

But no matter whether the junction was a bad one or the van driver was driving faster than he should have been, I was unprepared to stop and that’s what really mattered.  That’s why the bike went down when it shouldn’t have done.

It was a real pig of a junction because of the angles and the hedges and the distinct slope down and across the turning line.  I should have spotted the difficult slope of ground and realised the junction presented exceptionally poor visibility of approaching traffic.  I should have planned to stop to pause to listen as well as look.  I should have planned to align the bike for the right hand turn as I stopped, to make it easier to move off straight into a tight turn.  I should have paused to listen and look for long enough to have more confidence that there was no oncoming traffic.  I should certainly have sounded my horn before moving into the junction to warn other traffic of my presence.  It was such a pig of a junction that I should perhaps even have considered asking the granddaughter to dismount and cross over on foot to check for approaching traffic from where it could be seen.  I didn’t do any of these things and I paid the price.

Fortunately it was the relatively small price of a new clutch lever and a replacement mirror housing.  Had the van approached at the same speed one second later when I would have been further into the junction, I doubt very much if he could have stopped and a serious collision who have occurred, of which my granddaughter’s left leg would have taken the brunt.  I shudder to think what injuries she would have sustained.

As buttock-clenching reminders go this one was therefore fairly high on the Richter Scale and the memories have persisted.  I am, for the time being, consistently planning to stop at junctions and choosing to go if and when the view of approaching traffic is clear.  So I can now concentrate on some of the other bad habits I’ve developed over the winter, like turning into bends too early again.

You really have to keep working at your skills to ride safely and well but that’s one of the things which makes motorcycling so enjoyable.  If it was easy it would be boring!

Advanced Riding Training was great fun as well as the most useful thing I ever did to develop my motorcycling skills.  The Skills for Life programme offered by the Institute of Advanced Motorists is available all over UK and it’s really cheap too – the fee includes your first year’s membership as well the training manual and the test.  And the lessons are all free because the instructors (called Observers) are volunteers.

Apologies for the photographs in this Article, which are the most relevant I could grab in the limited time available.  It seemed important to publish on this subject early in the Season but I will replace them with pictures which are motorcycle oriented as soon as practicable.