Cheese Monkey wrote:Please do carry on. I am enjoying watching you waste so much time on this.
So what is defensive riding ?
It's an attitude, or a frame of mind but above all, it's a heightened awareness of your surroundings and the potential dangers that confront you.
As a consequence of this awareness, you ride according to your immediate environment, and the dangers therein.
For example, you're riding up to a traffic light controlled crossroads, and the lights have just changed to green.
The inexperienced rider, will just plough through, blinkered and oblivious to the potential dangers, but the defensive rider will be thinking about vehicles that might have been tempted to jump the lights, and so ease off the throttle, cover the front brake, and scan in both directions before accellerating safely away.
Sounds like common sense of course, but it's amazing the amount of drivers / riders you see who go through junctions and just assume nothing will be coming because the lights they went through were green.
That's what defensive riding is.
Always expecting the worst, not assuming anything, and riding accordingly and thus avoiding danger.
In summary, defensive riding is about planning for the worst when faced with a hazard, and being ready to take avoiding action, (or accident avoidance, as you put it.).