Hazard perception and situational awareness
Hazard perception questions in the A1 test ask what you would do next, not what a rule says. They reward riders who read the road ahead and keep a margin for other people's mistakes.
Building a safety bubble
- Following distance: at least two seconds in the dry, four in rain or on gravel. Count "one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two" from the vehicle ahead passing a marker.
- Scanning: eyes far ahead, then near, then mirrors every few seconds. Junctions, driveways and parked cars are where hazards appear.
- Escape route: always know where you would go if the car ahead brakes hard - a gap, the lane edge, the shoulder.
- Surface hazards: diesel at bus stops and junctions, wet paint, tram rails (cross as near to 90° as you can), gravel down the middle of bends, drain covers, wet leaves in autumn, cold tyres for the first kilometre.
- Being seen: stay out of blind spots, especially beside lorries and buses. The classic A1 crash is the SMIDSY pull-out - "sorry mate, I didn't see you".
Worked example
You approach a wet junction where a van waits to pull out, and the asphalt is polished by braking traffic. You cover the brakes, shed 10 km/h and move slightly left in your lane to sit in the van driver's windscreen. Reasoning: polished wet asphalt can double stopping distance, so the speed loss buys time; the lane position buys visibility from a driver who has already looked once.
Traps
- Target fixation: staring at the pothole or the car makes you hit it - look at the gap, not the obstacle.
- Trusting an indicator: a car signalling right may still go straight on.
- Treating a green light as a guarantee - a pedestrian may still be on the crossing.
- Riding at the same speed as traffic on a road you cannot see under, because of a lorry ahead.