Devon County Council

The Rider Risk Reduction Course is a new and innovative service being offered on a partnership basis by Devon County Council's Road Safety Team and Devon and Cornwall Police.

This is a one day "classroom" based course aimed at motorcycle riders who have been stopped by the Police for committing a violation which would normally lead to a fixed penalty notice, usually three penalty points on their licence and a £60 fine (this could, of course, be higher depending on the scale of the offence). Instead, they are given the opportunity to attend this course as an alternative to facing the possibility of prosecution.

Riders displaying various types of traffic violations have been referred to the course, including overtaking on double white lines and excessive speeds; in two cases riders were stopped for exceeding 100 mph. Although the riders attending this course haven't demonstrated a deficiency in skills, the concern is they have committed a deliberate violation and, therefore, are highly likely to be involved in a collision in the future.

The content itself has been researched and developed by Exeter University's School of Psychology. The School is already well known for expertise in the field of driver and rider behaviour at a national level.

A pilot was originally run to assess the effectiveness of the course around a year ago. Representatives from local bikes groups were invited to participate as well as national groups such as MAG and the BMF. Feedback from these discussions has had a direct effect on the course delivery and content.

The cost of the course is £80, which includes course accommodation fees, trainer fees, DCC and Police administration costs, course materials etc. Whilst it is obvious that this is more expensive than the typical fine a rider would expect to receive, the overall benefit of keeping a clean licence and preventing insurance costs from escalating makes this alternative an attractive option.

The Rider Risk Reduction course is based on an established model of intervention, which has been tried and tested and used in tackling such problem behaviours as drug addiction and alcoholism. There are eight modules that walk through a step by step process. These being:

Session Number	Subject Covered
Session 1	Facts of life
Session 2	Why am I here?
Session 3	Human limits
Session 4	Hazard perception
Session 5	I'm in control
Session 6	Bad habits and emotional baggage
Session 7	Video scenarios
Session 8	Ride safe, keep riding

The primary aim of the intervention is to give such riders a greater sense of their vulnerability and their limitations as a human-being. We want to ensure that attending riders develop a better attitude towards the risks they are prepared to expose themselves to. What we do not want to do is to "scare" riders off the road - indeed, if this happens, then the course would have failed that rider.

Comments from those who have already attended the Rider Risk Reduction course indicate that this new and exciting service already has much to offer.

• “The thing that sticks in my mind is about no matter how observant you think you are something blatant could be there that you just don’t see”.
• “Very good course. Interesting and well presented”.
• “On speaking with other members of the team that day, I think it was agreed by everyone that we all learnt a lot from the course – hopefully enough to save our lives”