Case study of the real contents delivered in French motorcycle schools

Purpose This study is concerned initial motorcycle training delivered in motorcycle schools in France. Novice motorcyclists are a particularly vulnerable group of road users in Europe and in France. However, scientific attempts to achieve a better understanding of their behaviors have been limited. The potential value of studying initial motorcycle training, both for research purposes and with regard to public policy, is readily apparent. The aims of this paper are to describe the real educational content of training in motorcycle schools and analyze to what extent this content is related to riding after licensing. Methods A case study of all the training process of one trainee (38 hours) was carried out in real world. Audiovisual recordings and interview data of the rider and instructors were collected at each session. This study was supplemented by ethnographic observations of the educational content provided in three motorcycle schools throughout the instructors’ working days. Results The results that merged from both studies show (1) the riding skills that were fostered (i.e. control skills, and especially emergency skills, in stable and restricted environments) and undervalued (i.e. hazard perception skills, everyday skills) during initial training, and (2) the poverty of observed training settings: learners spend almost all their training time riding in the same setting that is used in the test. In addition to being repeated to excess, these settings are quite different from the real traffic. Conclusions These results are discussed regarding the scientific literature on motorcycle education. The conclusion presents the implications of these results for public policy in order to design a future rider training system.