Snag AcademyThe turn nobody saw coming
Brakes fine, tyres hard, helmet on, correct side of the road. A scooter behind still has to brake hard and swerve. What was missing was not on the bicycle.
Inspect the cycle and you will find nothing. Everything works. The rider is doing everything a careful rider is taught to do.
Then she turns right into the school gate, and the vehicle behind her nearly hits her.
Everyone behind you is predicting
Here is the thing to get across. Every other person on that road is continuously guessing what you are about to do, and they are guessing from one source only: what they can see.
The scooter rider was not careless. He was working from the evidence available, and the evidence said the cycle in front was carrying straight on. It carried on looking like that until the instant it did not.
A signal is a component
This is why the missing part never showed up in any inspection of the bicycle: it was never a component. It was a communication.
A hand signal is not politeness and it is not a rule for its own sake. It is the cyclist's only output channel. Everything else about a bicycle transmits motion. The hand is the one part that transmits intention, and intention is the thing everybody else needs and cannot otherwise get.
The general shape of it
Pilots, ship captains and train drivers all announce where they are going next, out loud, over the radio, before they go. That habit is most of the reason they do not run into each other.
On a road nobody has a radio. The hand is the radio.
Signal early, so it arrives before the manoeuvre rather than during it. A signal given as you turn is a description, not a warning.
The answer
Show the answer
In the puzzle, what is missing is: a hand signal, given before the turn.
Every distractor is a real piece of cycle safety equipment, which is the point. The child has to work out that the gap is not in the machine at all.
Talking about it afterwards
- "How does the person behind you know what you are about to do?"
- "What is the difference between signalling before you turn and signalling while you turn?"
- "Where else do people have to say what they are about to do, before they do it?"
In any system where several people share a space, broadcasting what you are about to do prevents more accidents than reacting quickly does.
Your child can work this one out for themselves in the app, with the picture running and the wrong answer playing out. It is free, and there is no sign-up. Open this case →
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