re countersteering to know or not to know what is the question in article mjs zen sys uea ac uk mjs sys uea ac uk mike sixsmith writes lotto husc harvard edu jerry lotto writes the understanding and ability to swerve was essentially absent among the accident involved riders in the hurt study the average rider does not identify that countersteering alone provides the primary input to effect motorcycle lean by themselves even after many years of practice i would agree entirely with these three paragraphs but did the hurt study make any distinction between an ability to swerve and a failure to swerve in most of the accidents and near accidents that i ve seen riders will almost always stand on the brakes as hard as they dare simply because the instinct to brake in the face of danger is so strong that it over rides everything else hard braking and swerving tend to be mutually exclusive manouvres did hurt draw any conclusions on which one is generally preferable apparently the instinct to brake in the face of danger isn t as strong as the instinct to freeze up and do nothing in the face of danger hurt found that a surprising number of accident involved motorcyclists hadn t used their brakes at all prior to impact i think the only way you ll ever use countersteering reliably and correctly in a crisis is to make it the only conscious method of directional control you ever use and to practice it constantly even when you have no need to do any turning if you follow me down a long straight and i seem to be wiggling back and forth randomly or suddenly without obvious need it s because i m practicing countersteering and avoiding imaginary obstacles directly in my path all of this practice may indeed be futile but if i have even milliseconds to react the most familiar tactic available and hopefully the most automatic will be countersteering the same logic applies to braking with the front brake of course chuck rogers car torreys att com
