Episode 14: Biker Down - Preparing for the Unexpected

In this episode of Out of the Ashes: Stories from Lancashire, we're focusing on motorcycle safety as we head into the spring and summer months and the start of the biking season.

We're joined by Prevention Support Officer Clare and Crew Manager Charlie, who are both keen motorcyclists and deliver our Biker Down programme. They share their experiences on two wheels and discuss the steps riders can take to stay safe on Lancashire's roads.

We explore the Biker Down course, including what it covers, who can attend and how it helps motorcyclists prepare for the unexpected. We also discuss the importance of wearing the right personal protective equipment (PPE), even during warmer weather, and highlight additional training opportunities that can help riders build confidence and improve their skills.

Whether you're a new rider, a pillion (somebody that rides on the back of a motorcycle, not the rider themselves), or an experienced motorcyclist looking to refresh your knowledge, this episode is packed with practical advice to help you stay safe and enjoy the road ahead.

If you'd like to find out more about our Biker Down programme, including upcoming courses and how to book a place, please visit our website: www.lancsfirerescue.org.uk/bikerdown

And remember if you liked our episode, please like and subscribe and let’s make Lancashire safer together.

Transcript

[00:00:08.350] - Host (Lucinda)
Welcome to Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service's podcast series, Out of the Ashes: Stories from Lancashire. As we head into the spring and summer months and the start of the biker season, we're focusing on all things road safety.

[00:00:20.530] - Host (Lucinda)
In this episode, we'll be speaking to Prevention Support Officer Clare and Crew Manager Charlie, who both ride motorcycles themselves and run our Biker Down programme. They'll share insights on keeping riders safe on our roads and explain how the programme prepares motorcyclists for the unexpected. Do you just want to both briefly explain your roles in the fire service?

[00:00:43.960] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Hi, so I'm Clare. My role for Lancashire Fire is quite a specific role, so I'm a prevention support officer but specifically attached to road safety. So it is my role to ensure that we deliver our road safety education in schools, colleges, organise events and work with our Biker Down team.

[00:01:05.020] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Hiya, yeah, so my name's Charlie Worth, as it's been said. I'm an operational crew manager based out of Skelmersdale and an operational crew manager on-call in Ormskirk. That's the southern part of Lancs. Alongside that, I'm one of the trainers for Biker Down, that is an educational package provided by Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service.

[00:01:28.380] - Host (Lucinda)
So, as we're heading towards the spring/summer months and the biker season is approaching, this episode is going to discuss all things road safety. So shall we just set the scene? Is road safety, I know, Claire, you've just said that's your main role, but is it a big issue in Lancashire?

[00:01:44.320] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
It's a huge issue, in fact. So when you look at our stats, our fire crews will attend more road traffic collisions than they do cooking-related house fires across the year. I think that's something that people aren't as aware that our fire crews do actually attend. So hopefully, you know, following on from this, people understand that road safety is a big part of our role. And sometimes I do get asked, why do the fire service employ you just to do road safety? But the reason is because our crews spend a significant amount of time, which also then equates to money, tackling these incidents.

[00:02:21.390] - Host (Lucinda)
So as a service, like you've just said, your role is to educate and help people, but as a service, are there certain things that we're doing to share awareness and educate the public of road safety and the dangers out there on the roads?

[00:02:35.920] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
A huge part of what we do is based around road safety. So Lancashire Fire is a contributor to Lancashire Road Safety Partnership. So if you think about the partnership, it's a bit like a big umbrella. And we are a section of that umbrella. And what the fire service brings to the partnership is very much the education side. So we are responsible for working with our colleagues in Lancashire County Council, in the police and the ambulance to deliver education. We do that work alongside each other in colleges, and then specifically for fire, we deliver education to Year 6 pupils across the county, and we also deliver in high schools a package called 'Wasted Lives'. So a lot of the prevention work that we do do is road safety specific.

[00:03:26.140] - Host (Lucinda)
And Charlie, do you go out and deliver some of these road safety talks to young children?

[00:03:31.330] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Yeah, so as an operational crew, as a whole-time crew in general, throughout the year we'll go out to primary schools and high schools and support the prevention team with 'Wasted Lives' and the educational resources there, as well as delivering 'Child Safe' Year 2, where we touch on some elements of road safety in there, and then also delivering road safety in Year 6, to that point in primary schools as well.

[00:04:02.470] - Host (Lucinda)
So when we're talking to the young children, are there any certain trends or topics that you cover that is that we are seeing in the incidents?

[00:04:12.130] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Yeah, so what we do do on an annual basis is actually check all the stats. We make sure that we don't just check fire statistics because what we recognise is our fire crews don't attend every road traffic collision across Lancashire. So a part of my role is to look at the data provided to us by the police, that's called Stats 19 data, and that's something that is basically every incident that happens in Lancs gets recorded if there is some sort of injury relating to it, and then from that we ensure that our packages very much mirror the dangers to that age group. So we're very specific, for example, in Year 6 we look at becoming an independent traveller, and so we very heavily focus on being a pedestrian, starting to cycle independently, and a lot of what we cover does nicely complement previous inputs they might have had.

[00:05:06.370] - Host (Lucinda)
Yeah.

[00:05:06.550] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
So, you know, Lancashire, we can celebrate the fact that well over 80% of our primary schools do Bikeability, so then when our fire crews and our staff visit in Year 6, we complement that input and we remind them about helmet use, and you know, a lot of it is that gentle reminder.

[00:05:25.810] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Just with kids now, it's get off your phone, make sure you look both ways, the dangers that electric vehicles can pose, because we've always taught children to look and listen, and obviously now that's something that we're seeing creeping in. So when crews like Charlie's crew go out, we talk to them about don't rely on your hearing, you need to make sure that you find a very visible area that you can cross safely, so not in between two parked cars. It's that constant little update, and often it's quite subtle. It might not be that our slides need to change within that input, but we make sure that the information that our crews have is very much in line with the data.

[00:06:05.980] - Host (Lucinda)
So our road safety isn't just for car users, is it? That's what I'm getting from this conversation. We talk to children about being a pedestrian, how to be safe on your bikes. And moving on to bikes, we have something called Biker Down, don't we? So, um, do we want to talk about Biker Down and what it is? Um, Before I started in the fire service, I had no idea that this was available, and it's definitely a great course that people can attend. So I'll hand it over to you two and you can tell me what Biker Down is.

[00:06:36.060] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Yeah, so like yourself, to be honest, before I joined the fire service a number of years ago now, and I was interested in bikes, I didn't know what Biker Down was, so I actually attended a Biker Down course, then become an on-call firefighter, and then approached the team to join as, as an instructor and a trainer for, uh, for Biker Down. So I obviously followed the, the track of being part of getting the information delivered to me, then joining the job, and then getting, um, to become part of the, part of the team. But yeah, so Biker Down is a, is a, um, is a 3-hour course that we deliver, um, not only just to motorbike users, it's, uh, even though it's aimed specifically at motorbikes and, and that in general and we do have like a running joke where it's bikes versus car users and things like that, isn't it? But that's just a biker term. It's aimed at lorry drivers, bus drivers, car users, bikes, but it's just an overall general awareness of how to be better on the road. So it covers 3 different modules, which are pretty interesting, and we have updated it, like Clare said, through the statistics and things that we are seeing.

[00:07:47.090] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
So the modules are the 'Science of being seen', which is pretty, uh, pretty interesting to be honest, um, because I've learned so much stuff on, on the, uh, the updates of how your brain works. And it's not just about looking at a bike on a presentation and seeing how that works, it is, uh, human nature. And then it's just 'Scene management', which, which I deliver sometimes because that's my bread and butter sort of thing, um, going to jobs, um, but it's from the point of view of that individual turning up to an incident or riding out as a group of small, small group, 2 to 4 people, and having the ability to, to think on their feet and adapt and overcome the situation that they're following. And then it's what we like to call a bit of bushcraft 'first aid', using different things that are around you.

[00:08:32.420] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Because a massive statistic that we found, and we put it in the presentation, is how many bikes you would think you saw on the road compared to the actual percentage of bikes in Lancs, which is less than 1%. So we make up less than 1% of road users as a bike population in Lancs, but they contribute to quite a large number of the road traffic collisions and collisions like people like myself on the pumps are going to, and then Clare sees the statistics. So to have such a small number and the amount of jobs we go to is, uh, is pretty, pretty out there.

[00:09:08.670] - Host (Lucinda)
So just get that right, there's only, there's less than 1% of vehicle use on Lancashire roads...

[00:09:14.580] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
half a percent at the minute.

[00:09:16.020] - Host (Lucinda)
is, is motorcyclists.

[00:09:18.040] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Yeah, but yet—

[00:09:19.070] - Host (Lucinda)
wow.

[00:09:19.400] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Approximately 14% of our number of people that are killed and seriously injured, during COVID unfortunately, that figure rose to 50%. It was really worrying, um, at one point, and that data actually assisted us to restart our courses when we'd ceased other prevention activity because there was such a frightening increase. So a huge issue, and you know, it's so fun being a biker, it is just so much fun, but with that fun comes risk. And like Charlie said, there's so much learning to be done.

[00:09:57.750] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Yeah.

[00:09:58.160] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
And I think the people's biggest kind of misunderstanding, I suppose you'd say, when they come is this kind of car versus bike mentality. Most people come, don't they, thinking, oh, it's all the car users' fault, but actually when they do Charlie's module and they do, um, our volunteer Neil often delivers the 'Science of Being Seen', you start to understand that actually it's, I suppose, an error in the way our brains work. Is that a fair way to describe it? But once you become aware of the error, you can ride in a different manner to keep yourself significantly safer.

[00:10:33.870] - Host (Lucinda)
So Biker Down sounds like a fantastic course. Is it just for motorcyclists? Who do you want to come to this course?

[00:10:43.010] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
So the bulk of our attendees are riders of motorcycles, but we strongly encourage people to bring along their 'pillions', as we would call them, So a pillion is somebody that rides on the back of a motorcycle, not the rider themselves. So we would always say if you're a rider and you regularly have a pillion, definitely bring them with you. But we also welcome people bringing their partners along, their best mate. We get, you know, really varied people that attend. We'd also welcome older children. We wouldn't say the course was obviously appropriate for younger children, but if it's an older child, maybe a teenager that rides as pillion, we would actively encourage them to come because when it comes to managing a scene, which obviously is Charlie's module, there's a job for everybody, isn't there?

[00:11:32.520] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Yeah, or even people with an interest in wanting to start the sort of independence of, what is it, 16 and 9 months that you can get a moped now? So even individuals like that who are interested in getting their provisional licence and going out on a moped and just having that bit more training that they're more than welcome to come on the course.

[00:11:54.610] - Host (Lucinda)
How did you find out about the course? Because I know, Charlie, you mentioned you first did the course, then have become a trainer through the course. What pulled you into the Biker Down? Because you're both motorcyclists, users, aren't you? So what attracted you?

[00:12:10.180] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
So I think I first found out about it through me dad getting a bike and doing advanced training alongside with that. So just basically looking into further courses that you could do to manage his riding better, and then because I was interested in joining the fire service as well, I come across the Biker Down page that was advertised on Facebook and on the website, so that's where I initially found the course from.

[00:12:35.760] - Host (Lucinda)
And Clare, obviously you're an advocate and do it all the time, would you attend if you didn't deliver the sessions?

[00:12:43.770] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, our feedback that we get from the of the attendees is really, really positive. We sometimes get people actually that message the Facebook page and say, I'm coming on my own, but I'm a little bit anxious about that. And I always say, don't worry, you know, look out for me, look out for Charlie. I'll find out who's working. I'm always there. Charlie, you're there most of the courses, aren't you? And I'll let them know. I say, just, you know, give us a nod that you've come on your own. But once people are sat in the room very, very quickly they start chatting amongst themselves, don't they?

[00:13:17.390] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
And once you start listening to our really poor jokes, yeah, it does open up

[00:13:21.780] - Host (Lucinda)
like a community feel?

[00:13:23.000] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Very, very good at bad jokes, but we always get a good giggle. So, um, the biking community is just that, you know. Bikers, we laugh about it, don't we? But bikers like to talk to bikers.

[00:13:37.270] - Host (Lucinda)
Yeah.

[00:13:37.820] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
And that's why all our team are all bikers themselves, because very, very quickly, um, we learned that people like to listen to like-minded individuals. And whilst all our staff have got a really amazing skill set, they just take the information that we all give in a different light because we understand, you know, yeah, that mindset and the vulnerability. I think a lot of it is kind of a shared understanding of the vulnerability when you ride a bike. Um, so there's so much to be learned. We've had quite a few driving instructors recently on Biker Down, haven't we, that you wouldn't think they would need to come, but they themselves have said it's given them a completely different perspective, because you are in a bubble in your car, aren't you? You know,

[00:14:24.970] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
yeah, you—

[00:14:26.030] - Host (Lucinda)
I think when you become a vulnerable road user, I was going to say you're more exposed. Yes, that's how I see motorcyclists, is that you're more exposed on the road and more vulnerable.

[00:14:38.000] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Yeah.

[00:14:38.710] - Host (Lucinda)
When there may be an impact, sadly. But like you say,

[00:14:43.440] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
well, even driving, so I was following a motorcyclist on a Fireblade, which is a sports bike, down the M57 the other day, and we were just having a conversation in the car and just going back to like how little protection a motorcyclist actually has. So it was pretty windy and travelling at 70 mph, which is you're sat in a car, you're nice and relaxed sat in a car, aren't you? You can have heated seats on, things like that. And we were just watching the motorcyclist in front, and my passenger asked why did they look so uncomfortable on that bike. And if you, without understanding the perspective of a motor, motorcyclist on that specific bike at that speed, they're probably holding on to the handlebars and trying to keep themselves on the seat because of the wind affecting them. As one simple bit of influence which is external, as well as having to deal with all the other car users on the motorway who want to be in that fast lane, if you want to call it the fast lane, yeah, and get to wherever they want to go to. So you're massively, massively out there, aren't you, on a motorbike?

[00:15:48.100] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
You've not got that little bubble like Claire said. And then if you then take it right down to some of the things that we are seeing where that the level of PPE isn't, isn't appropriated anymore. Obviously going into the summer, I can guarantee people who are listening to this will be able to— if you look at you, look out the window, if you listen to it now in the car, you might see someone on a bike with a pair of flip-flops on or a pair of shorts or no gloves and things like that. And you just think you're getting on, you know exactly what you're doing, and you've got no protection either.

[00:16:19.960] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
So you're doing this now

[00:16:21.470] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Yeah, we do talk a lot, don't we, about like dress for the slide, not the ride. Because whilst the probability is you won't be involved in a collision that day, nobody gets up in the morning and goes, oh, I think I'll get knocked off my bike today. You know, we talk a lot about if you're not going far, you still need to put your gear on. Yeah, I live less than 4 miles from here. If I ride into work, it, yes, you get very, very hot, it's uncomfortable, but you put all your gear on. But the amount of people we see, you know, just like Charlie said, flip-flops, shorts, and a lot of the time they're riding very, very high-powered bikes that have the ability to go significantly over the speed limit, but the perception is, "It won't happen to me."

[00:17:08.860] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Most collisions happen within a mile of where you live because your brain automatically switches off and your peripheral blindness and things like that don't take into perspective objects that may not necessarily be there normally that are there now.

[00:17:21.950] - Host (Lucinda)
That's so scary.

[00:17:22.910] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Because there's such little change that usually happens, but then that one day you're not expecting someone to, to, to, a taxi to be pulled over, letting someone out at the side because there's never normally a taxi there.

[00:17:34.700] - Host (Lucinda)
I'm not a biker, and what is safe practise for PPE, keeping yourself safe? Because like you said, sometimes in the summer you see someone with flip-flops on, you think, oh, They must be, I think they look like they're having a good time, but it's not the safe practise, is it?

[00:17:51.510] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
No, no, definitely not. We're not trying to preach to people about things like that, but it's just about your personal mindset of you've got to think, now something we use in the fire services, we drive or ride to arrive in one piece. So if you take that sort of mentality um, or you prefer— prepare for the slide sort of thing on a motorbike, because we know it's pretty easy to come off a motorbike if you— if depending on what the road conditions are. Um, then if you're dressed in suitable PPE depending on where you're going, then that's all the considerations you need really. Um, I'm sure people will get on a bike and automatically be thinking, shouldn't really be getting on a bike in with no gloves on, with a pair of flip-flops on and things like that, or, or, um lightweight trackies and things like that just because it's sunny. Um, like Clare said, yeah, you might get hot and sweaty, but I'd rather get hot and sweaty than have, um, serious life-threatening injuries, um, just because I didn't want to put me, uh, protective, um, layers on, uh, because all it takes is that one moment in a lapse of judgement.

[00:18:59.210] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
And it is, it's really, um, energy-sapping riding a bike, isn't it? Um, when you've got to think of you're observing everything that's going on as well as your own riding. It is really, uh, tough at certain stages. And if it's bad weather or it's really hot and you've got to think about all these other things, and then you've got your PPE on top of that, um, there's so much you've got to consider. And if you just use the PPE that you think you should be using, that's one less thing your brain's going to deal with. Um, but yeah, as, as a practise in, in England, it's, it's definitely a helmet that can, can can fasten correctly, and that depends on your preference really, doesn't it, in what helmet you want. And then it depends on what the weather conditions are, but if it's raining, you're going to want your Gore-Tex because you're not going to be wanting to be sat on a bike for however long you're going to be sat on a bike for, and then you're absolutely drenched. But then in the summer, you want to be putting clothing on that's still appropriate to be riding, and there's all sorts of places that you can go for helmets and stuff and PPE that'll give you ratings and stuff because everything's rated, isn't it?

[00:20:06.860] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Yeah, so something that, you know, we encourage people to do is buy as best you can, but the most expensive isn't always significantly better than, you know, the kind of mid-range clothing. What we do really strongly encourage people to do though is buy new. So one thing that we have seen sort of creeping in more and more is people buying things like helmets secondhand Now, if you speak to 99% of bikers, they would never ever lend somebody their helmet.

[00:20:39.810] - Host (Lucinda)
Yeah.

[00:20:40.350] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Or borrow a helmet off somebody else, because ultimately that is the thing that is most probably going to save your life. There is actually a website that we encourage people to go on before they buy new helmets. It's called the SHARP website. Now, the SHARP testing is significantly more rigorous than the actual standards that you have to have. So when you go into a bike shop, there is a certain standard that that helmet has to have achieved. However, on top of that, and you can watch really interesting videos on YouTube where the testing takes place, and what we found interesting, you know, as a team of trainers, is that some of the really high-end helmets that were retailing at sort of £500 to £600 actually scored a lower rating than, um, some of the cheaper helmets.

[00:21:30.310] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
So there was a particular helmet that retailed at £59.99 that scored 4 out of 5 stars, which is a decent rating. And when we then looked at one of the really expensive helmets, it actually scored 1 out of 5. So, um, one thing that we've learned is don't be fooled just by a brand as well. So, and please do not buy off, you know, social media selling sites because if somebody's saying brand new in box but it's £50, not £500, it probably is not brand new or it's been dropped down the stairs, hence why they won't put it on their own head.

[00:22:07.130] - Host (Lucinda)
Yeah, so it's just taking those extra small steps to help you, one, wear the right stuff, but the stuff that you're wearing is safe.

[00:22:15.660] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Yeah, absolutely. Ultimately, we deliver Biker Down to reduce deaths and serious injuries, and when we look at the stats, it's implicitly clear that motorcyclists are a vulnerable group, but we do feel that people quite enjoy spending 3 hours with us on a usually quite rainy evening, because we do have a good laugh, and people often say to us, don't they, "Do you know what, I wasn't right sure about coming, 'But I'm so glad I came because I've had a right good laugh, but I've learned so much.' And we get people that come like a bit undercover, as I would say, where they've actually got, you know, advanced medical knowledge. Or we do sometimes get people that are advanced riders but don't tell us, don't they?

[00:23:01.410] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Until the last minute.

[00:23:02.130] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Yeah, they like to test us.

[00:23:04.280] - Host (Lucinda)
We'll put a link in the episode notes below to where people can find more about Biker Down. We run courses all throughout the year, don't we? And we advertise them on our social pages, but we'll put a link in. What other things do we do as a fire and rescue service to educate the public about motorcycle safety, biker safety?

[00:23:23.050] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
So following on from Biker Down, we see that as the start of people's learning journey, and I know it sounds a bit of a gimmick, but every day is a school day, and as a biker you need to do as much as you can to keep yourself safe. So when people come on our course, we give them information around the police's course, which is called Bike Safe, Now there is a small charge for doing Bike Safe, but I would suggest the learning that you get from that small charge is, you know, you're getting every penny. Absolutely worth every penny. Lancashire Constabulary do run Bike Safe, and if you go on the Biker Down Facebook page, we put a link on there. Maybe you could share that as well. But following on from that, I'll let Charlie then jump in and he can tell you more about advanced riding.

[00:24:09.970] - Charlie (Crew Manager)

Yeah, yeah, so following on from that, so I actually did a Bike Safe day which was located at Chorley Fire Station where the Lancashire Police came in and for that one time where you could guarantee the police officer behind you wasn't going to pull you over for anything, followed you around for 4 hours and went out on a ride and just get that, that's their course. They give you a presentation in the morning and then they follow you out for a ride and you come back and you have a little bit of a debrief, and then from that there was a gent on there who was the chairman of the advanced motorcycle group that I'm now part of as a tutor, which is ROSPA.

[00:24:49.220] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
So ROSPA is one of ROSPA is the highest civilian accredited qualification that you can get as both motorcyclist and driving, and it's recognised by insurance companies. But there are obviously other things out there, so there's the Institute of Advanced Motorcycle, which Neil's part of and he's an examiner for it. But ROSPA, so ROSPA just goes into different sorts of educational packages.

[00:25:13.110] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
So for like, for us, we're Lancashire and Merseyside based, so it's 6 consecutive Saturdays. We run 3 courses a year through that, and it just goes into a bit more detail about how to ride as a safer rider. So you go through something, for example, like an IPSCA, so that's what information you need to take in. What positions you need to be in on the road, because a lot of people, you'd only understand that if you're a biker really, that you actually split a road into either 3 positions or 6 positions depending on what terrain you're on, what corner you're coming up to and things like that. And these are all different things that if you don't know what they are, then these are the courses that you can go and find out about.

[00:25:56.570] - Host (Lucinda)
So Like I've said, we do a lot of prevention work for road safety because it is one of the leading causes of incidents for our fire and rescue service, but Biker Down is just one element of the road safety prevention work that we undertake. Charlie mentioned, and Clare did, the school visits, and you deliver it when you're out and about at open days, but like you say, it's just one area of the prevention work we do, just for road safety, but it's one area of the whole of the prevention work we do as a team.

[00:26:28.100] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Absolutely. So, you know, our staff are in schools every day, colleges every day. We attend other people's events. We do also put our own suite of summer events on, so keep your eye out on our socials for the Alive to Drive summer events. There'll be 6 of those running starting off in April actually, and then we'll run them right through to September. They are a really good day where we work alongside colleagues in the other emergency services and voluntary organisations such as the Advanced Motorists, Advanced Motorcyclists. It's a family day out with a road traffic collision demonstration in the middle, but that gives people the opportunity really to learn about what our staff do.

[00:27:14.730] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
The crews have got a statutory obligation to attend a road traffic collision, but, you know, it's through people wanting to do a good job that we do do as much prevention as you will see delivered across Lancashire. And there's so many interesting things that you can learn about water safety, road safety, wildfire safety. It's obviously road safety is my thing that I'm passionate about, but there's so much more that people can learn. And you don't know what you don't know, do you?

[00:27:43.940] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
So use these opportunities as a way to chat to our staff. And, you know, I'm sure, Charlie, you've had many in a conversation with children and adults alike who've got often quite bizarre questions about what you do. But everybody, you know, is interested in different things, aren't they?

[00:28:00.300] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Yeah, yeah. There's so many times that you're obviously just getting, uh, in simple times of going to like Morrisons and things to just get our dinner, and then you're getting stopped off to say like, what's this package that you're delivering? Or, um, the best moments are obviously when you go into, because we work within our local area and things like that, and we get given schools that are in our local area. You go to shops or you go, you're just driving along and you get young people, adults and things like that, and go, you delivered this course to me last year, um, or whenever it is, are you coming back to our school anytime? Or, um, you remember what you're doing, so obviously then that's a massive, massive positive thing because you've either, one, they've remembered what you've been in their school for, or they've just remembered you as a person because you've got good jokes or you've got good information to give them. But there's so many different avenues that the fire service try and get knowledge passed out to people, and at the end of the day, we just want to make Lancs as safe as possible, don't we?

[00:29:03.540] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Absolutely, yeah. Prevention is all about not having that worst day ever. So whilst our crews will be with you in an instant should you have the worst day you've ever experienced, what we ultimately hope we can do is give people enough education and knowledge that they can make good choices so that the probability of that happening becomes a lot slimmer. You know, we're never going to say there's never going to be a car crash.

[00:29:30.310] - Host (Lucinda)
No.

[00:29:30.700] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Or, but what we can say is if you do these things, it will make the probability of you being involved significantly less.

[00:29:38.800] - Host (Lucinda)
So if anybody does want to attend our Biker Down courses, we'll put a link to our website in the episode notes below. We also advertise them on our Facebook page and LinkedIn, Instagram, but we'll put a link so people can have a look at the page, find out when they are. We've got several upcoming with more planned throughout the year, so if you can't make one, there's one in the near future for you to attend.

[00:30:05.050] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Absolutely, yeah.

[00:30:06.670] - Host (Lucinda)
So I think this has been a great episode. We've spoken about a lot, and I've learned a lot about bike safety. What's the biggest takeaway you hope the listeners take away from this episode? I'll go to Clare first.

[00:30:21.760] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
So my biggest takeaway is that road safety is everybody's responsibility. Sometimes people say to me, "I'm not a driver yet," and I say, but you're a road user, so as a passenger in a car, as a cyclist, a motorcyclist, horse rider, which again, you know, I ride my horse regularly on the roads, we've got a responsibility to look out for each other. So it sounds a bit cheesy, but if we all do our little bit, ultimately that contributes to making Lancashire safer.

[00:30:51.260] - Host (Lucinda)
And Charlie?

[00:30:52.390] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Yeah, so I think for me the biggest takeaway would probably be, um, be it I'm slightly biassed, but going back to the community in general and that biking community is if that's something that interests you or you want to get into biking or even road, being a road user, think about the community element that you can get into. Think about all of the different things that you could potentially learn. There's no limit to anything that you can come away with, and I'm sure if you come on a course, then you'll learn a lot more and and learn a load of new contacts and maybe join a group.

[00:31:29.090] - Host (Lucinda)
Thank you very much for both of you talking to me today.

[00:31:32.550] - Clare (Prevention Suppor Officer)
Thank you.

[00:31:33.280] - Charlie (Crew Manager)
Thank you.

[00:31:34.080] - Host (Lucinda)
If you're interested in finding out more about our Biker Down course and when the next dates are, please head to our website on www.lancsfirerescue.org.uk/bikerdown. The link will be in the episode notes below.

[00:31:50.250] - Host (Lucinda)
And remember, if you liked our episodes, please like and subscribe, and let's make Lancashire safer together.