Welcome to MotoScience

MotoScience is the research hub of the Survival Skills ecosystem — a place where riding meets psychology, engineering, and human performance. This site explores the mechanisms behind rider error, the limits of human perception, and the science that shapes every decision we make on the road.

Here you’ll find clear explanations of how perception, decision‑making, attention, and risk interact with the demands of riding in the real world.

This site brings together evidence‑based insights, practical models, and decades of rider‑training experience to help you understand why things happen on the road, not just what to do about them.

Whether you’re a new rider, an experienced motorcyclist, or an instructor looking for deeper insight, MotoScience offers clear explanations, practical models, and evidence‑based thinking to help you understand the “why” behind the skills.

Use the menu above to explore the core scientific foundations, browse the blog, or dive into the practical applications in The Science of Riding.

What is MotoScience?

MotoScience explores motorcycle riding through evidence, observation and real-world science — not folklore or forum wisdom.

MotoScience explains the human factors that influence motorcycle riding — the cognitive, perceptual, and psychological processes that shape how we see, think, decide, and act on the road.

Motorcycling is often taught as a set of physical skills, but the real story runs deeper. Most crashes begin long before the bike loses grip. They start with misjudgements, missed cues, cognitive overload, or simple human limitations. MotoScience examines these mechanisms and translates them into clear, usable insights for everyday riding.

Explore the sections below to understand the foundations of rider performance:

Perception

How riders gather information from the world — and how the brain filters, distorts, or misses critical cues. Topics include visual processing, motion judgement, attention, and the limits of human sensing.

Cognition

What happens between seeing and doing. This section covers decision‑making, mental workload, reaction time, memory, and the shortcuts (and traps) the brain uses to stay ahead of the bike.

Human Factors

The broader influences on rider behaviour: fatigue, stress, expectation, habits, training history, and the way humans adapt (or fail to adapt) to complex environments.

Crash Causation

A structured look at how and why crashes happen. This section draws on research, real‑world case studies, and established models to explain the chain of events that leads to loss of control or conflict with other road users.

Risk Psychology

Why riders take risks, how we judge danger, and why our instincts sometimes work against us. This section explores confidence, fear, thrill‑seeking, risk compensation, and the subtle biases that shape our choices.

The Science of Riding

Riding is a cognitive task as much as a physical one. Understanding how the brain works explains why many crashes start long before the tyres lose grip.

This section turns theory into action. Here you’ll find practical applications of the concepts explored in MotoScience — how perception, cognition, and human factors translate into real‑world riding techniques.

Topics include:

• how to manage mental workload
• improving hazard perception
• understanding cornering errors
• reducing cognitive bias on the road
• applying human‑factors thinking to everyday riding

If MotoScience explains why things happen, The Science of Riding shows you what to do with that knowledge.