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Section check: Look Behind, Ride Straight
Five lessons, six decisions. Get one wrong and it will tell you which lesson to go back to, and you can come again as many times as you like. Finishing this section means you got all six right, not that you scraped a pass. The Road Badge itself comes after all eight sections.
Step 1 of 6
1Decide
You look back over your right shoulder to check for traffic, and the machine drifts right with you.
Yes, and it fixes the cause instead of the symptom. The drift comes from your shoulder turning the bar, so a locked elbow puts a rigid straight thing between the two and the twist stops at your neck. Your head still gets all the way round, which was the whole point of looking.
Neither of those fixes what’s actually happening. A smaller turn of the head means you see less, which defeats the reason you looked. And gripping harder doesn’t stop your shoulders rotating – it couples you to the bar more firmly, so the bar gets more of the twist, not less. Go back to 4.1.
Pick the right one to carry on.
2Decide
You look back over your shoulder, face front again, and realise you couldn't actually say what was there.
Right, and it’s worth being strict about. A look you can’t report is a head movement, not an observation, and it’s the most common way this skill quietly goes wrong. The number, or the car, or the nothing-there, is the only evidence that anything actually reached you.
That’s the exact failure this drill exists to catch. Turning your head is easy, and from the outside it looks completely correct. Seeing, understanding, and being able to say what was there is a different job – and it’s the one the road is going to ask you for. Go back to 4.2.
Pick the right one to carry on.
3Decide
You want to signal a left turn, and the stretch of road right in front of you is broken up and rough.
Yes, and that’s the trade managed rather than dodged. You spend the hand where the road is smooth and get it back before you need both. The message still goes out, and the machine is on two hands at the exact moment it’s hardest to ride on one.
One of those risks the machine and the other risks the message. Signalling through a rough patch is exactly the moment one hand isn’t enough, and skipping the signal leaves whoever’s behind you guessing. Move the signal in time instead of dropping it. Go back to 4.3.
Pick the right one to carry on.
4Decide
You're about to pull out around a parked car and need to know how far back the next vehicle is and how fast it's closing.
Yes, because of the question you’re actually asking. Whether anything is back there isn’t the question – how far and how fast is. A half-second flick tells you a vehicle exists. It can’t tell you whether you’ll be across before it arrives, which is the thing you’re actually deciding.
Neither of those answers the question you have. A flick tells you yes or no and nothing else, which isn’t enough for a decision about a gap. And listening tells you even less, especially for a quiet car or another rider. Take the look that answers the question. Go back to 4.4.
Pick the right one to carry on.
5Decide
Which arm signal means you're slowing down or stopping?
Yes. Arm out and down, palm back. Straight out to the side is a turn signal, and arm-up-bent-forward is the alternate right-turn signal drivers learn – worth being able to read even though you’ll usually just use the straight arm for your own right turns, because it’s the one that’s easiest to hold and hardest to mistake for something else.
That’s one of the turn signals, not the slow-or-stop one. Slowing or stopping is the arm out and bent down at the elbow, palm facing backwards, held low where it can actually be seen. Mixing these up means the person behind you reads the wrong intention. Go back to 4.5.
Pick the right one to carry on.
6Find them
You signal left, and the car behind you hasn't changed speed at all. Which of these count as it actually responding?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 3.
Section done: Look Behind, Ride Straight.
Every question right. Seven more sections and the Road Badge is yours. Show a parent this screen tonight, and tell them one thing from this section you did not know before.
Next badge: You Are Traffic