[Aerkuld]

That may be a sick, but effective way of teaching people to take more care. But from my experience, nothing beats good training.

I originally passed my bike test in Britain and rode for several years over there before I had to take it again in California, when I moved over here. In Britain my training was very intense and took a long time to complete. They don't just teach you how to ride a bike, but how to pick good safety equipment, how to think ahead and identify risks, how to develop a potential 'escape route' for the worst case scenario, hours of riding on the road with the instructor learning road positioning etc. They even take you to a bike shop. Basically everything you need to prepare you for riding a bike SAFELY and BEFORE taking your test.

For the test itself, the examiner first inspects your safety equipment and makes sure you have a decent helmet, gloves, boots, leather jacket, and preferably leather jeans. The riding test itself involves riding around on the streets, in traffic, with the examiner on a bike behind you, talking to you on a headset. The entire process takes 30 - 45 minutes if I recall correctly. He watches you like a hawk, if you break the speed limit, don't check all around you for hazards before doing anything, fail to signal, or do ANYTHING wrong, then you'd better schedule another appointment next month. Then, back at the test center you get tested on the Highway Code, and again make a mistake and you're coming back next month. I can't remember the exact details of the law, but even then if you take a test on a small capacity bike, that is what you are limited to for a period of time. If you want to ride bigger bikes then you take your test on a bigger bike.

By contrast, the California test seemed like a walk in the park. Start it, stop it, show me where the turn signals are, ride around some cones in the parking lot and off you go and ride whatever you like. My boys are aged 5 and 12. They ride dirt bikes around their property and they could pass the California test I'm sure. Sure there is a Highway Code section too, but given three goes and only having to get 75% of the questions right (or whatever it is) they'd probably give that a bash too.

I'm not saying that Britain is perfect, or that there aren't good riders here, or there aren't bad riders there, but at least in the British test the examiner satisfies himself that you know how to ride safely and that you know what you should wear when riding. Of course what you do after the test is up to you within reason.
So which method do you think prepares a rider better?

I cringe when I see riders in shorts, tee shirts and tennis shoes, or the Harley riders with bare arms and these tiny helmets (we call them piss-pot helmets). I want to ask these guys if they want to get off their bike, run down the road as fast as they can run then throw themselves onto the asphalt. Do you reckon they would?
I see bikes tucked in behind other vehicles where they can't possibly see ahead of the SUV's tailgate, let alone see cars waiting to pull out of side roads - and guess what? The guy in the car waiting to pull out can't see them either. All he see's is an SUV and he's pulling out after that - by the time he see's the bike it's over! Just bad judgment and bad riding and probably because they don't know any better.

All that aside, I choose not to ride bikes over here anymore. It's simply too risky, no matter how careful I am or how much I plan ahead, there's much more traffic, which increases the number of idiots who aren't paying attention. It's bad enough in a car sometimes, but on a bike the consequences are generally much more painful. Do I miss my bikes? Of course, but not as much as I'd miss everything else. I worry that those boys of mine will want to ride bikes on the road, but I'll see what I can do about that when the time comes.

Glad I got that out of my system!