Basic riding techniques

Practicing these riding techniques will help keep your safe on your scooter.

Emergency braking
The front brake on a scooter provides most of the braking force, so apply more pressure on the front brake and don’t apply too much rear brake. As the weight moves forward under braking, there is less weight on the rear of the scooter and it becomes much easier to lock the rear wheel and skid.

Slow riding
Look at the horizon and try to ride as slowly as possible in a straight line. You’ll get better with practice. It’s also worth practising coming to a stop and choosing which leg to put on the ground. This teaches you balance, helps you understand the physics of the scooter, and will stop you wobbling around in your lane in slow traffic.

Slow U-turns
For most motorcyclists, a tight right-hand turn feels unnatural. But it’s something you’ll have to do often, so practise slow U-turns by positioning your backside on the outside of the seat and tipping the bike into the turn. This allows you to turn tightly by using your body as a counter-balance. Be very smooth and gentle on the throttle to maintain balance.

Scooter emergencies

“Knowing how to react in an emergency (having practised my braking and steering skills) has saved my skin on many occasions.” That’s the verdict from one of our members.

The two crucial techniques to practice for knowing how to react in an emergency are:

• Braking: In a safe place (with no one behind you) brake as hard and safely as you can while keeping the scooter in a straight line. Don’t “grab” the brakes with full force – it can cause the wheels to lock up and send you sprawling. Instead, apply a bit of initial pressure on the brake lever and then squeeze hard. This will prepare you for emergency stopping.
• Swerving (counter-steering): Look in the direction you want to go and then apply forward pressure on the handlebar in that direction. So if you want to go right, push forward on the right bar. This seems counter-intuitive but it works – pushing the front wheel left causes the bike to rapidly lean to the right and take the right turn. You can then practise straightening up by pushing the opposite bar. This prepares you for avoiding an obstacle in the middle of the road or getting around a car that pokes its nose out from a driveway.

Crash advice

If a crash is inevitable, there are some things you can do to lessen the damage:

• Relax: Don’t tense your muscles in a crash – let yourself go limp. This is easier said than done, but tense muscles cause more bruising and give something for your bones to break against.
• Leave the scooter: Sudden stopping is the cause of many serious injuries. If you can’t avoid hitting a car, rise up on your toes at the last instant. This with luck will flip you over the car’s bonnet. It’ll be unpleasant – but clearing the vehicle and sliding down the road without hitting anything is likely to result in fewer injuries (especially serious internal injuries) than the sudden impact of going from 50km/h to zero in a heartbeat.
• Get off the road: If you’ve crashed on a corner or a place where other traffic may not be able to see you in time to stop, try to get off the road as soon as possible after you’ve checked that you’re physically OK to do so. 

The red light won’t turn green

Scooter riders often get frustrated when they sit at a red light that won’t turn green for them. But intersection-construction experts say there’s a way to trigger the lights.

If you look carefully at the road surface at a set of lights, you’ll see rectangular-shaped saw cuts in the road surface. Underneath these cuts are sensor wires that detect metal and tell the control box that a vehicle is waiting to go. Try to position your front wheel directly over one of these saw cuts: the best place is half-a-metre behind the white intersection line and in the centre of the lane.

If that doesn’t work, phone your local council – it can increase the sensitivity of the underground wires.