Risk Management Police Motorcycle Training Article by Andy Norrie

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POLICE MOTORCYCLE TRAINING.

Risk Management

By Sgt. Andy Norrie

Risk Management is any activity that involves the evaluation of, or comparison of risks and the development, selection and implementation of control measures that change, reduce or eliminate the probability or the consequences of a harmful action. In laymen's terms identifying the dangerous or risky areas of our work and doing things to lessen the danger or risk.

The principles of Risk Management are universal in nature and apply to every job in Law Enforcement. Police motorcycle operations are no exception. Having a goal of increasing safety for our personnel, the public at large, and minimizing our liability exposure is a worthy and admirable aspiration.

Law Enforcement is an extremely complex profession that involves a tremendous amount of risk. Motorcycle operation in and of itself is a risky venture, adding our police duties to motorcycle riding pushes the risk and liability exposure to a higher level.

Risk Managers focus on pre-incident prevention of problems using a philosophy of: "Prevention is better than Correction". To apply this philosophy to police motorcycle operations we must evaluate our job function using a Risk/Frequency Analysis. We must analyze and assign all aspects of our job function into one of the following four categories:

Number	Category
1	Low Risk - Low Frequency
2	Low Risk - High Frequency
3	High Risk - High Frequency
4	High Risk - Low Frequency

History and research show us that if we have good people, policies, training, supervision and discipline we will have success in categories 1, 2 and 3.

A good police motorcycle program will have success if it contains:

Good People - A relevant selection process that identifies people with solid character traits. · Good Policies - Established, reasonable and communicated parameters and standards expected of your officers.
Good Training - Sound initial basic instruction and ongoing, progressive training periods.
Good Supervision - Well-rounded knowledgeable supervisors who are going to keep the group on track and provide the tools and an environment for success.
Good Discipline - Fair, impartial enforcement of rules with a clearly defined delineation between what is acceptable and what is not acceptable conduct.

If you have a weakness in any of these foundational areas you are exposing yourself to preventable risk and the odds will eventually catch up to you. If all of these aspects of your program are solid then your vulnerability to risk lies mainly in the portions of your job that fall into category 4 and are identifiable as High Risk - Low Frequency.


	Discuss this article or share your experiences in the forums.

Historical research like the Hurt Report and fresh current data from the Police Motorcycle Survey prepared by MK Media and available at: http://www.motorcops.com/survey show that most motorcycle collisions occur during braking, cornering and swerving. Most police motorcycle collisions occur during the daylight hours while participating in stationary or moving traffic enforcement. The second highest number of collisions occur while traveling to and from the Department. Of note, is that most police motorcycle collisions occur during the first hour of work. Does logic not dictate then that we need to address our training towards these areas to reduce the risk and liability exposure to our job function.

We should turn our attention to the best methods to achieve this goal. It is an accepted fact that adults learn better by repetition rather than immersion. That is, constant repetition of a training skill is more effective then one long sustained training episode. For example, bi-weekly or monthly training on collision avoidance will be more effective and beneficial then one annual re-qualification on these skills. The more repetition of these risk-minimizing skills, the more ingrained these abilities will be in your psyche and the more likely you will be to employ them properly in an emergency riding situation. Thereby, potentially saving ourselves from serious injury or even death.

I suggest to you that emergency braking, collision avoidance and braking in a curve are our High Risk - Low Frequency events. They don't happen often but when they do they can have horrific results. Good training exercises already exist for these types of occurrences. What we need to do is repeat these proper skill reactions until they are embedded into our mind and body so that they become an automatic reaction when placed in a situation requiring these procedures. Good repetitive training will accomplish this. Can you say that you have done everything in your span of control to prevent one of these events from having the wrong outcome?

I would ask that you incorporate these Risk-Management Principles into your police motorcycle program:

Always work to improve the police motorcycling profession and community. There is always room for improvement and more to learn. Don't settle for mediocrity.
Have good capable people on your team. You are only as strong as your weakest link.
If you identify a problem, work to fix it. Be willing to learn from your mistakes, don't bury your head in the sand.
Always be aware of the risks of police motorcycle operations. Don't fear them but respect them.
Make your training rigorous and repetitive. Make the response to those rare risky events the proper ingrained automatic reaction.

Conclusion
This is just one motor officer's perspective on the job we know and love. I hope if you can garner one thing out of this article that you can apply to making your police motorcycle program safer than I will have succeeded in reducing some risk to our profession.

Remember, ride safe so we can all achieve our primary goal: "To come home at the end of the day."

Andy Norrie is a Sergeant with the Toronto Police Service in Toronto, Canada. He is a supervisor in Toronto's Traffic Enforcement Group, their full-time motorcycle unit and is a proud member of the Toronto Police Service's "Winged Wheels Precision Motorcycle Team". He has been a member of the Department for 23 years has over 21 years of experience on police motorcycle duty. He has attended and participated in various police motorcycle training and competition events since 1991 and is one of the founders of the Great Lakes Police Motorcycle Training Seminar based in and around the province of Ontario, Canada since 1999. He can be reached at: andy.norrie@torontopolice.on.ca.

If you are a police motorcycle instructor and would like to share some of your knowledge with your fellow officers, please let us know.