Badge Kids › Road Badge › Section 5 › Lesson 5.2

Ages 11-16 · Road Badge · Section 5

The two positions, and both of them have names

Name the primary and secondary positions, place yourself in each on a real lane, and say which situations call for primary.

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Step 1 of 10

1Look

The same street, two positions

One residential street photographed twice from behind: a rider in the middle of the lane with the lane markings either side of them, and the same rider about a metre to the right of the traffic flow with clear road still between their wheel and the kerb. — Two positions on one street

Both of those are taught positions with names, and a trained rider moves between them on purpose. Neither of them is the one most riders actually use, which is somewhere hard against the kerb.

2The idea

There are two of them, and knowing the names is most of the skill

The most precisely specified positioning doctrine in English names two positions and puts numbers on them.
Primary — the centre of the moving traffic lane you are travelling in. It is also called taking the lane, because it is the position a driver would use.
Secondary — about one metre, or three feet, to the side of the moving traffic flow where the road is wide, and never closer than half a metre, about a foot and a half, to the edge of any road.

One translation you have to make, and it is a real trap. That standard is written for a country where traffic drives on the left, so every left in the original becomes right here. Secondary in North America is a metre to the right of the traffic flow. Primary is the centre of the lane, which is the same either way.

3The idea

When each one is used, which the standard also spells out

Primary is for junctions, roads that narrow, bends, anywhere there is not enough room for somebody to overtake you safely, and any time you are moving at about the speed of the traffic. On this machine that last one happens more than it did on the bike you learned on.

Secondary is for the rest of it — where there is time and space for somebody to get past you. So the two positions are not brave and timid. They are a wide road and a narrow one, and you will use both of them on any ride longer than a few minutes.

4Your turn

Put the rider on the road

Interactive

Primary or secondary

Eight pieces of road arrive one at a time: a wide street with nothing parked, a lane with cars down one side, the approach to a junction, a blind bend, a narrow bridge, a long straight with a car coming up behind, a stretch where you are keeping up with the traffic, and a wide road with a queue of cars behind you. Place the rider, then the card shows the standard's own answer and why.

Two of the eight have more than one defensible answer. The card says so rather than pretending otherwise.

5The idea

Secondary is not the gutter, and the number is the proof

Look again at what secondary actually says: never closer than half a metre to the edge of the road. There is a floor written into the definition. The position has a minimum distance from the kerb built into it, which means the standard is describing a real place on the road, not an instruction to get as far over as you physically can.

The kerb itself is the one place nobody teaches you to ride. It is where the grit, the glass, the drain grates and the sunken gutter seam all are, and it is where you are least visible to somebody pulling out of a driveway or a side street.

6Decide

The lane narrows and there is not room for a car to pass you inside it. A car is coming up behind.

Yes, and it is the answer the standard gives too. Narrow road, no room to be overtaken, so primary. Squeezing right in a lane that cannot be shared does not create the space — it just invites a pass that was never going to fit, at the closest possible distance to you.

Think about what moving right actually offers. On a lane too narrow to share, going further over does not make room; it makes the attempt look possible. The position that says clearly there is no room here is the centre of the lane, and it is the one written into the standard for exactly this piece of road.

Pick one to carry on.

7Say it

The two words, used on real road

Say it out loud as the road changes

“Primary here. Secondary after the bend.”

Say it on your next ride at every place the road changes width. Naming the position out loud is what turns it from where you happen to be into something you chose, and choosing is the whole skill.

8Find them

Which of these call for primary?

Tap the ones that count.

Find all 4.

9Look

A lane that cannot be shared

A view down a residential lane with a car and a rider drawn side by side inside the same lane markings, the gap between them measured and obviously too small, with the kerb and a parked car on the right. — Too narrow to share

You can see it in one glance from the saddle, and once you can see it you have the answer for that stretch of road without having to think about it.

10Do it

Before you leave this page

In your practice space, chalk a lane about the width of a real one. Ride it in primary – dead centre – five times, then in secondary, about three feet in from where the traffic flow would be and never within a foot and a half of the edge. Somebody watches and calls out which position you are in, and only ticks it if you can hold it for the whole run.

Tick it when you have done it.

Lesson done.

Primary is the centre of your lane. Secondary is about a metre to the right of the traffic flow, and never within half a metre of the edge. Neither of them is the gutter.

Next lesson: Control and release, which has the give-back in the name

Section 5 · You Are Traffic

5.1You are traffic, and here is the sentence that says so 5.2The two positions, and both of them have names 5.3Control and release, which has the give-back in the name 5.4The rule everybody quotes in half 5.5Four feet, and whose offence a dooring is 5.6Junctions, both left turns, and the strategy that comes last ★Section check

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