A new programme aims to teach secondary-school students motorcycle safety before they are on the roads. John Wheeler reports
Was motorcycling part of the official curriculum when you were at school? Unlikely. Had it been, some of us would have sat up and taken more notice.
In September 2003, Cavan Vocational School launched a new "Rapid Programme" aimed at young people who did not want to sit the Leaving Certificate. The programme combines regular classes in such subjects as woodwork, construction, cookery, first-aid, photography, tractor driving and motorcycle safety training. Two days a week are devoted to work experience, with local companies involved in the cash-and-carry trade, garages, restaurants and even a golf course.
One of the most popular elements of this programme has proved to be the motorcycle safety training course. Longford-based Irish Rider Training Association instructor Jim Fisher teaches this course. The aim is to equip the class with a better understanding of basic defensive riding skills, the hope being that these students will be more aware and responsible when they take to the road.
On our recent visit to the school the students spent part of the time doing a test paper, which covered the rules of the road, and motorcycle skills. The results were encouraging and showed that these students now have an above average understanding of the important theory of riding.
Later in the day the instructor explained and demonstrated the principles of slow riding. Next week, using a training machine, the students will have their first chance to get to grips with motorcycle machine control, in a safe, and supervised environment within the school grounds.
Long ago, having had to introduce a day-release class of locomotive engine fitters to the dubious mysteries of simultaneous and quadratic equations, which I knew had nil relevance to their everyday lives, I was envious of the interest and enthusiasm shown by these students in something that really does interest them.
The Rapid Programme, brainchild of principal John Kearney and course co-ordinator Paddy Haren, is funded by ADM/CPA, an intermediary funding body selected by the government to implement measures of the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, and has proved popular and successful. It targets those students who might otherwise drop out of school, and provides a useful introduction to a range of life and work skills.
In many schools in North America "Driver Ed" is considered a normal, indeed essential, part of education. This Cavan initiative suggests that many other schools, especially those with a Transition year programme, could be equally innovative.
Anyone who has been involved in motorcycle rider training can attest to the fact that if one can harness young people's energies and enthusiasm at an early stage, the more likely they are to begin their on-road life as safer and more responsible road users. In an age when personal transport is increasingly regarded as an essential life skill, it makes sense to make time for this kind of programme in the curriculum. For so may young people the cost of car insurance means that the only affordable transport is a moped, scooter or motorcycle, a kind of transport that requires high levels of skill and responsibility.
Given the carnage on our roads and the frequency with which young motorcycle riders figure in the statistics, an initiative such as this one ought to become the rule, not the exception.
Fisher expressed the hope that this course is only the start of a nationwide trend to encourage safer.
The National Roads Authority estimates the cost of a single fatal accident exceeds € 1 million. Saving even the cost of one fatal accident would fund many more courses. Hopefully more schools will be encouraged to follow the Cavan example of encouraging our young folk to use our roads responsibly.