Training Scheme Anecdotes

When we were persuading the Hinckley and District MCC to start an RAC/ACU Training Scheme a maintenance lecturer was required. Twig Forest (of Apple Motorcycles) immediately volunteered his services. I asked him if he wasn't cutting his own throat as it was his business to fix motorcycles. "Listen Ben" he replied "As soon as one of these lads picks up a spanner, it's money in my pocket!"

I am hoping Richard Taylor will confirm this report. He followed one trainee along Oxford Street towards the Magazine and the trainee was then supposed to go east on Newark Street and return to the cattle market along Welford Road. But the trainee made a left turn at the Magazine and disappeared through the underpass - against the traffic. Richard did not follow.

At one time I used to advise that arm signal were useful because they are not left on by mistake or signalled in the wrong direction. Dave Smith soon corrected me from his experience and within weeks I witnessed it for myself when a trainee signalled then changed his mind. So much for a good theory.

In the days before Sunday trading, Sunday mornings were a quiet time to test trainees. But when they stalled their bike at traffic signals and missed the green before restarting, the examiner would have to U-turn and ride round over the cable loops to trigger another signal cycle.

The most harrowing experience I ever had with a trainee was after a Market Harborough Bronze Star course. At the end of the course we set off for his home which was out of Harborough. We made our way towards Burnmill Road along the school drive. At the main road the trainee pulled up and looked right, left and right again. A car was approaching him up-hill from the town on his right. There was nothing coming into town over the brow of the hill to his left. He waited until the car from the right had passed, dropped the clutch and stalled the bike. He pulled in the clutch and restarted the engine. In the meantime two cars came over the hill to his left. The second driver looked down Burnmill Road towards town, seeing a clear road, began to overtake the lead car. I wasn't quick enough to grab the trainee. He took another glance to his right and screwed it left into Burnmill Road in such a wide arc that he went between the two cars. He than continued homeward as if nothing had happened while both drivers did emergency stops and got out of their vehicles in disbelief.

Please tell us your favourite stories from the training scheme.