All 36 schools awarded the European Motorcycle Training Quality Label and academia are joining forces to pave the way to a new high-quality training concept to address the most relevant and frequent powered-two wheelers accident scenarios.
Based on scientific accident analysis, the innovative approach will give training experts and scientists the possibility to develop a set of cognitive and riding skills necessary to avoid these hazardous accident scenarios. The aim is to create a level system that clusters these skills in groups of increasing abilities, encouraging motorcyclists to continue developing their personal riding curriculum over time.
This concept will be offered free of charge to all training schools interested in improving the quality of their post-licence courses. To ensure a larger deployment, it will also be shared with bodies planning to set up voluntary motorcycle safety training programmes in countries currently with limited training options.
The level system concept represents a natural evolution of the European Motorcycle Training Quality Label especially thanks to the united endeavours of training experts and academia, namely: Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich – LMU, Würzburg Institute for Traffic Sciences – WIVW, Institute for Motorcycle Safety – ifz and Traffic accident research at TU Dresden – VUFO.
The working process will be led by Klaus Schwabe, KTM Riders Academy, the architect of this concept.
The high-quality training concept is expected to be launched by the end of next year.
Quotes:
Commenting on the initiative, ACEM Secretary General, Antonio Perlot, said:
“The European Motorcycle Training Quality Label already is an excellent example of how industry players, NGOs, motorcycle trainers and users’ organisations can work together for motorcycle safety. With strong academia involvement we will now take the Label to the next level by providing a self-assessment tool for European riders and a toolbox for motorcycle trainers. The ultimate goal of this initiative is to motivate riders to undergo regular voluntary training and achieve higher level of safety riding performance.”
Dr. Sebastian Will, Würzburg Institute for Traffic Sciences (WIVW) commented:
“From the empirical evidence available, it seems like a significant share of crashes involving motorcyclists could be avoided or at least mitigated from PTW-side. Important cognitive skills, such as “reading the road” properly or anticipating other traffic participants’ behavior alongside necessary motor skills will optimise rider-motorcycle interaction. Having different stakeholders working towards putting these skills together should be very beneficial for rider safety.”
Jesper Christensen, Director of the Mobility Commission, FIM added:
“Modern schools offering advanced safety training are nowadays embracing a stronger approach towards cognitive skills and the understanding that accidents involving riders may start ten seconds before the crash occurs. The development of an improved high-quality training concept using a solid academic approach based on real world data under the umbrella of Quality Label is a warmly welcomed step by FIM.”
Note for editors:
The European Motorcycle Training Quality Label is a voluntary certification scheme for post-licence safety training programmes run by the German Road Safety Council, the International Motorcycling Federation and the European Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers.
The main objective of the European Motorcycle Training Quality Label is to inform motorcyclists across the EU about the best training programmes available in their countries and to increase the number of riders undergoing high-quality voluntary training regularly.
There are currently 36 certified programmes in 11 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, with more motorcycle training centres expected to join in 2024.
In 2019 the European Motorcycle Training Quality Label received the Road Safety Charter Award in the category “Voluntary commitments” from the European Commission.
For more information, please visit:
https://roadsafetystrategy.acem.eu/home/the-european-motorcycle-training-quality-label
For further information, please contact:
Dr. Veneta Vassileva, Safety Manager, ACEM
