May 2012 monthly meeting

When:	Back to Calendar » May 14, 2012 @ 8:15 pm - 10:15 pm
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Categories:	Monthly meeting

Speaker – Malcolm Palmer, motorcycle riding instructor and researcher

Subject – Do sacred cows provide the best protective leathers? A new look at advanced training.

Malcolm has been riding bikes since the long hot summer of ’76. Luckily for the UK, unluckily for Malcolm, this coincided with when it started raining. He says it felt like it didn’t stop raining for about three years . . .

He started his involvement with training in 1979, with the long-defunct RAC/ACU scheme, then with the BMF Rider Training Scheme.

When the RTS got involved with ‘advanced’ training Malcolm was asked to co-ordinate its national launch at the BMF Show, and in five months took it from three centres running ‘prototype’ courses to a dozen centres. When he ‘retired’ from the post there were 45 centres, from the Orkneys to Plymouth via Northern Ireland, and at the time the Award had more test passes annually than RoSPA.

In 1992 he wangled his way onto a Motorcycle Safety Foundation (a US-based organisation) ‘learner’ course, at a US Air Force base in the UK. In 1994 he qualified as a rider coach, and during his involvement with the USAF was able to facilitate 76 UK riders taking the MSF’s ‘Experienced RiderCourse’ (sic), their one-day post-test course.

When CBT was introduced he was involved in the start of a new training centre. It was quite innovative, being based at a BMW dealership – which didn’t sell learner bikes. With a long-standing training colleague and friend, they developed the UK’s (perhaps the World’s?) first specific course for ‘born again’ riders.

When Direct Access was introduced, he ceased involvement with ‘L’ training to focus on post-test, ‘back to biking’ and ‘advanced’ training.

Although not actively involved in ‘front line’ rider training, he’s now employed at the Transport Research Laboratory – although he has to make it clear that much of his work is client-confidential, so he may not be able to discuss much of it.

Read more on Malc’s blog – http://the-ride-info.blogspot.co.uk