Studying motorcycle learning in real context to improve rider's education

The literature on motorcycle training and accident studies on riding shows the current inefficiency of initial training programs to reduce accident rate : motorcyclists' mortality, compared to the whole road fatalities, is increasing in Europe since 1996 (Baldi et al., 2005; IRT Project, 2007). The present research program defends that 1) an improvement of training can optimize motorcycle road safety, and 2) systematic studies of motorcycle learning dynamics in real context are relevant to improve training. The research program presented here consists in a longitudinal and systematic study of ten riders' activity during initial training in motorcycle school, during licensing and after obtaining the license in traffic conditions. Theoretical and methodological frameworks of ergonomics analysis in real context are used (Saad, 1999): numerical data related to motorcycle dynamics, continuous audio-visual recordings of riders' behaviour and verbalisations data are collected during the whole learning process. Results of the field study lead to several improvement proposals which concern: initial training, licensing and post-test training settings, according to the effective rider problems.