• Welcome Guest! If you are already a member of the BMW MOA, please log in to the forum in the upper right hand corner of this page. Check "Remember Me?" if you wish to stay logged in.

    We hope you enjoy the excellent technical knowledge, event information and discussions that the BMWMOA forum provides. Why not take the time to join the club, so you can enjoy posting on the forum, the club magazine, and all of the discounts and benefits the BMWMOA offers?

    Want to read the MOA monthly magazine for free? Take a 3-month test ride of the magazine; check here for details.

  • NOTE. Some content will be hidden from you. If you want to view all content, you must register for the forum if you are not a member, or if a member, you must be logged in.

Two "4 second rules"

I guess it is a matter of constant threat awareness and putting your bike in a position to reduce the risk using many generalized rules to assist out decision making. It has worked for me so far in several countries and riding environments.
Agreed, there are lots of time and space rules of thumb etc that one needs to consider, even in a vehicle, and that was a good way to sum it all up for me.
 
This post comes from my last re-reading of "Stayin' Safe," a book of columns by the late Lawrence Grodsky for "Rider" magazine. I would highly recommend the book, but what follows are my interpretations.

1. What is unfolding 4 seconds ahead of you requires your fullest attention and often immediate action. (12 seconds ahead is what you would like to see and often can't.) So are you aware of everything 4 seconds ahead of and off to the side of your bike? And since you probably don't have a second hand mounted on your faceshield, try counting. (One thousand one, one thousand two... or One Mississipi...) This is a very good reality check.

2. If you are really safety conscious, you want to be able to stop in any "blind" situation, whether that is a curve or a hill. Grodsky's informal tests seemed to indicate 4 seconds was the time needed for good experienced riders to stop in a curve when there were not any road surface problems. Cresting a hill can be a more insidious problem unless you take into account the possibility of a hidden driveway to your right or a vehicle crossing the centerline. Again, count the seconds to what you can see.

There are many riders who violate the second rule - and some of them have been doing it for many miles and years. I don't understand why they are still alive. Maybe they can tell us how Larry and I are wrong. At any rate, I am not telling YOU how to ride. Just offering some thoughts which make sense to me.

Doug - I applaud you embracing Grodsky's lifetime of work dedicated to safer riding. He left us too soon, courtesy of those damned 'forest rats.'

The 2, 4 and 12 second following distances were never 'rules,' but rather recommendations, and for good reasons. As MSF instructors, we enlighten novices to these suggestions, and in doing so, we emphasize the dangers of being too close in traffic for effective reaction distance, as well as promote situational awareness ("head on a swivel").

As you can see from the multitude of responses to your original post, much can be discussed and learned in the interest of becoming a safer rider.

Thanks for posting. :thumb
 
Last edited:
"Much to be learned" is for sure the one thing we all can agree on. A second might be that lots of real world experience can make a difference. I'm sure most of us would say we still learn new stuff even at our "advanced age"

The contributors to this thread appear all to be riders with lots of miles and years of experience- and they're still doing it despite what is between them probably hundreds of instances when injury or death was possible. That's too many escapes/avoidances to be all dumb luck and says that one can likely learn something from any of them- even if their way of thinking about the event and describing it isn't yours.

A friend of mine who wrote a few best sellers made his reputation studying and explaining to to others the different ways humans learn- what works for your own education is what ultimately matters- just as long as you get educated enough to tilt the odds in your favor. Learning from the "other guy" beats learning the hard way.
 
Thank you, amiles

What a pleasant surprise to see this thread revived after six months! Clearly there are very different ways of thinking about these matters - and probably what counts most is that we ARE thinking about them.

While I am always interested in specifics, probably one's attitude is more important. I try to remind myself every time I get on the bike or in the car that my MAIN GOAL is to arrive at my destination with body and machine intact. Hopefully the specifics of speed, bike placement, and situational awareness flow from that one simple idea.
 
Back
Top