Where on your bike do you put your IAM badges? I always admire the folk who put them on the back. It means that they are so confident of their good riding as they sail past other road users that they never let down the name of the IAM. Myself, I am not so sure, which is why I have my badges on the tank.

Badges apart, how do you recognise a good rider when you see one? This is difficult; is it a blend of good riding and good manners, is it permanent observation of the Highway Code, is it constant observation of the scene, or what?

Just looking at the books is no help. The Highway Code itself has easily doubled in size over the years. I have an early copy of the IAM manual (for cars; there was no bike manual to start with), which is a small fraction of the size of the current one. Despite the increase in size, I doubt that they have contributed much more to recognising the good road user. It is a bit like the Ten Commandments. Moses copied them down on two tablets of stone, and his successors managed to expand them to fill the rest of the Old Testament. Jesus came along and summarised the whole of the Mosaic Law in two commandments, which was undoubtedly A Good Thing.

So here are my suggestions for recognising good behaviour on the road, in the form of just two commandments:

1. Ride as if you were going to meet yourself coming the other way
This covers a multitude of situations, like speeding round the corners on the centre line of the Derby ring road and the A6.

2. Whatever your manoeuvre, make sure that you leave the other road users thinking: "I wish I were doing that" and not: "Bloody biker again".

I doubt that any road user, apart from a pure boy racer, minds being outpaced from the traffic lights by a bike - that is a fact of life and brilliant acceleration. Loads of road users will also give way to one side to allow a rider to filter between two lanes. On the other hand weaving into narrow gaps, however skilfully executed, will either frighten or anger the other road users and that is Not A Good Thing.

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It often happens that I execute an overtaking manoeuvre and pull into a gap in front, only to look into the mirror and find that the car behind is now very far behind. What has happened? Did I scare him by riding too close to his door to overtake? ("Bloody biker again") Did he think, "that bike's left no braking distance - I must give him extra room" (courteous driver, is his perception of braking distance better than mine?)? Or was he just a dozy driver? I worry about these things.

Copyright PHP Harris 2000

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