Getting through your CBT is relatively straightforward and there is no fail – you just have to work to achieve a certain standard. These are the most common mistakes.
Lack of confidence
Your instructor’s job is to make sure you are safe and competent to ride solo on the road. And a big part of that is confidence.
Make your actions simple and assured. Get your feet up early when moving off and don’t put them down 30 meters before the junction.
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Don’t dither at roundabouts waiting for a 10-minute gap – be confident with your throttle and clutch control and go for the first reasonable gap you see.
Observation
Keep looking in your mirrors, always know what’s happening behind you. But don’t forget to do a ‘lifesaver’ too. That last-minute look over the shoulder before a manoeuver is essential.
And it’s not just behind. Look ahead for potential hazards and position your bike to maximise their visibility of you.
Speed
Breaking the speed limit is a fail, obviously. And not knowing what the limit is won’t impress your instructor, so don’t try that one.
But riding too slowly is also a fail. You should be confident enough to keep up with the traffic, whatever the speed limit.
Road signs
See them and act on them. Which sounds simple, but for many new riders, the overwhelming experience of machine control, dealing with the traffic, wearing a crash helmet and having an earpiece blaring out instructions takes up all their attention.
So, even if they see the road signs they don’t necessarily take the information in. Likewise, road markings.
Overtaking across solid white lines is a serious road traffic offence, but many riders (and car drivers) don’t know what they mean or don’t even see them.
Turning
Mirror, signal, manoeuvre? Not if you want to pass CBT.
Add to this process the lifesaver – a last-minute look over your shoulder before changing direction. And road positioning too.
Being in the right place, not cutting the corner, not waiting for too big a gap before turning.
U-turns and figure of eights
A bit like trigonomometry at shcool. these are the things you will almost never use once your test is passed.
But what they teach is low speed machine control, which is essential for filtering through traffic.
These manoeuvres are hard exercises to master in such a short space of time.
You’ve only just learned how to ride the bike and are being asked to do a figure of eight in both directions in a confined space.
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