Yes you can. Go take the MSF BRC. A good majority of the second half of the classroom is all about raising situational awareness. MSF calls it SEE...Search, Evaluate, Execute. This is a technique that centers around situational awareness.

 

Awareness with out fail.

Some people cannot see past the situation at hand, others are able to see every situation from all angles, predict what other road users are going to do, (the latter part comes from having miles under your belt in almost all situations)

I can tell just by looking at a car what he is going to do, the speed he is doing, how close to a car he is, looking through his back window and seeing the age they are, if they are talking to their passenger and concentrating on the road, or arguing/mucking around, (this usually filters into the cars movement) If he's looking into his rear view mirror or side mirrors and trying to find me? engine noise and what gear he is in, if he is looking at the traffic ahead..... the list goes on, but i see all of this in seconds and by the time i have processed all of this i have usually gone past them or changed lanes.

Reaction times are massive factor in awareness too, being calm and not panicking which can get you in to some tricky situations.

Be safe, think aead and remember your life saver/.

 

Best way to learn awareness out on the road is to talk to yourself.

Tell yourself what you see out loud, don't think it, say it. This is actually a skill in itself because it makes you think and makes your brain work.

Try it next time your out.

Traffic lights just going from amber to to red, Blue Mercedes on her mobile phone, possible situation is she doesn't brake. going down through the gears, white van just changed lanes behind me, all at a safe distance no problem. Lights changing to green, saxo boy racer belting it off the lights, 5 cars in front no problem, white van changed lanes again behind me.

This is just an example of what you should be saying out loud to yourself. It does get far more complicated but it teaches you to see whats going on around you, thus creating "awareness"

 

as important as situational awareness is to all manners of driving, and while i agree that it is a very teachable skill, it is not exclusive to motorcycling; i can tell you that i pay as much attention to other drivers in my cage as i do on my bike, and i get just as frustrated (if not more) every time they prove me right by driving with their heads up their you-know-wheres. awareness should not be one of those elite superpowers wielded only by those on two wheels -- if everyone took being on the road as seriously as i do, we probably wouldn't even be talking about this.
i thought kuro was looking more for suggestions pointed toward things that specifically help you control your motorcycle. (btw - when did this become a poll?)

 

Totally agree...

Even in my cage, i use the same skills, but in reverse, now looking out for bikers.

 

You can teach awareness, or at least practice it until you learn it. They teach it to law enforcement in training (I've heard). You can practice it , even in the car. Get used to scanning the area and call out all the hazards that you can see and not see. If you do this with someone else in the car with you, they will see things you don't and vise versa. Make it a game with kids if you have to. Eventually you will be seeing pavement changes up ahead and predicting dumb moves by cars. You will be able to know what cars will do, before they even know that they will do it. Sometimes, I'm surprised that the didn't do something stupid that I thought for sure they would.

Anyone that can't master this, or is one of those clueless drivers, should not ride a bike.

 

i.e...

I was first, sitting on a 4 lane high traffic red light. Red light turns green but I was not aware so did not take off as I usually do...car to my right take off before I do...car enter intersection about 20%, a truck was flooring, runs his red light (our green), clips the bumper of the car...now if I was aware if the green light, can I be the one that gets hit, since a bike will normally takes off faster than a car....

For this reason, when I'm first in line at a red light, that turns green, I'll stall for 2-3 seconds...making sure cross traffic stops before entering intersection....

But sometimes when riding, one may be distracted by other things.......this is why it's always good to have your guards up when riding....one thing should fear all rider is plain bad luck. At the least expected moment, some *** happens.

I have had experienced in a car, driving down a freeway, distance ahead I saw a contractor's truck, with a extention ladder strap to the bed. The moment I said to myself, that ladder needs an extra bungy strap, and a red towel tide to the end. Damn ladder strung upward, wind takes it and flip it upwards....all this was happening so fast....but reading this ahead if time allow me an extra second or two to signal my hazard lights to slow cars behind me down. Two cars ahead of me hit ladder directly...stupid truck keep driving on and didnt know they drop an extention ladder in the middle of freeway, just image you on a bike...road hazard.

 

This is a really great question and has generated some really good discussions here.

The funny thing about riding tech and riding skills is that each one tends to have an influence on the other, so for example, if you have good body position then you can be more relaxed on the bike, if you are more relaxed then you can turn it quicker and brake more effectively, if you can turn it quicker then your lines will be better, etc etc.

However, the one thing that you can usually trace a riding error back to is some inefficiency in the rider's overall VISUAL SKILLS. Basically, you are only as good as your eyes allow you to be. If you are struggling with braking it might be because you are looking too close to the ground, if you are chicken with the throttle you might not be looking far enough ahead, if you run wide in a corner it may be because you were target fixated on something, if you freak out because you went too fast into a turn it might simply be your eyes perceiving that you are too fast for the turn.

With that being said, If I HAD to choose one of the options listed in the poll I would choose visual skills as being the most important skill.

Many people have also mention situational awareness, which is hugely important when riding, especially on the street. Situational awareness comes from your visual skills and being able to SEE and PERCEIVE what is going on around you. A rider that is target fixated on the car in front is not going to have good situational awareness....

Which brings us to the question about whether or not situational awareness is teachable or not and I believe it absolutely IS. At the California Superbike School several of our seminars are based on visual skills like finding reference points, looking through the corner and widening your field of vision. These are KEY skills that are needed if you are going to improve your overall awareness while riding and as a riding coach I've had great success in seeing students succeed in this area.

To tell someone "you need to improve your situational awareness" is not the same as showing someone how to improve their situational awareness by breaking it down into specific and measurable skills that they can work on.

Misti

 

IMO i think vision is the most important, without it you dont have awareness. Also if you dont see something then throttle, braking, and position dont matter.

 

Let's take it off topic a bit....I agree with members...vision and awareness...but believe it or not, your sixth sense. Have anyone ever had that feeling that you don't want to ride? For no reason, nice weather and all...but you just seem tentative...so you take the car.