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My accident in California on my group's Spring Break ride has given me a whole new perspective on accident avoidance/survival techniques.
I have absolutely no memory of my accident, which is not uncommon. Other than the observations of the accident scene made by my fellow riders (who did not witness the accident), I have no idea what caused the accident and whether or not I reacted appropriately. The fact that I survived to be able to sit here and type this message tells me that I was very fortunate and probably did something right.
When I was undergoing training at the FBI Academy many moons ago, we were told that in times of stress, especially life threatening stress, we will react by doing the last thing on our minds or what we have been trained to do. Based on this and my accident, I think the best we can do to develop accident avoidance/survival techniques is to train and practise so that these techniques become automatic.
Constant training and practise can be done for some techniques, such as simultaneous hand and foot braking or counter steering. Other techniques, such as pushing off on your bike to vault over a car you are about to T-bone, can be difficult to train for.
As we are developing accident avoidance/survival techniques, I thnk we should look for those that are simple, require a minimum of thinking and analysis, and can be developed through training.
I have absolutely no memory of my accident, which is not uncommon. Other than the observations of the accident scene made by my fellow riders (who did not witness the accident), I have no idea what caused the accident and whether or not I reacted appropriately. The fact that I survived to be able to sit here and type this message tells me that I was very fortunate and probably did something right.
When I was undergoing training at the FBI Academy many moons ago, we were told that in times of stress, especially life threatening stress, we will react by doing the last thing on our minds or what we have been trained to do. Based on this and my accident, I think the best we can do to develop accident avoidance/survival techniques is to train and practise so that these techniques become automatic.
Constant training and practise can be done for some techniques, such as simultaneous hand and foot braking or counter steering. Other techniques, such as pushing off on your bike to vault over a car you are about to T-bone, can be difficult to train for.
As we are developing accident avoidance/survival techniques, I thnk we should look for those that are simple, require a minimum of thinking and analysis, and can be developed through training.