For years I have been leading TRF rides with other experienced riders who know the lanes in my area. However, one of the regular ride leaders has withdrawn as he fears he has liability if things go wrong and his concerns have put the wind up a few of the other regular ride leaders. Am I taking a big risk as a volunteer ride leader?
He has said we wouldn’t be insured on our own bike insurance if someone sued us, so he won’t lead anymore. Do as I do, not as I say. I have no problem leading rides and have done so, on and off, for my local TRF. More off since I came off Facebook because I can’t post a ride, but legally the problems are more imagined than real. However, there are some basic do’s and don’ts. Don’t take payment. This is the most fundamental point. If you take money, you are providing a service for what the law calls ‘consideration’ – if you get bought lunch by your grateful group, that is different. That is a gift. If you insist on lunch or even your fuel being paid, you enter into the realm of providing a service for reward. This raises your duty of care and will create substantial problems with your own insurer, which will almost certainly have a ‘hire and reward’ exclusion. In leading a ride, are you becoming a teacher or an instructor? In my opinion, and in a couple of first instance judgments (and therefore not binding decisions, made by experienced County Court Judges), the answer is no. You are a ride leader. You are leading a ride. Anyone following you is the master or mistress of their own destiny. I don’t give tips to novice riders or indeed anyone else. However, it makes good sense for the ride leader to make it clear that any rider can stop if they wish.
Certainly, I would not take novice riders out without a reliable tail-end Charlie. If a rider turned up on a Multistrada on Road Pilot tyres and my route involved the slimy chalk and ruts we have over here in the Chilterns, I would just decline to lead that rider as a matter of practicality. You can’t stop Ducati boy following you. He has every right to use the byways. What you are doing is simply showing people where the lanes are. If a rider turns up on a 1290 R on decent tyres, then I’d be happy to lead, but having fallen off twice, the third time he’d be picking up his own bike without my help. However, when I lead a ride, I have a stock speech. First, this is an intrinsically dangerous thing to do. People can, and do, get hurt trail-riding. Hitting a tree at 20mph can kill you. I have a broken shoulder from my own trail offs. I got cross-rutted at around 25mph on a very open twin-track trail and finished up under my bike in a ditch. Second, I explain that I am showing a route. I am not an instructor or a teacher. Finally, ride at your own pace and within your own ability. If it is too much, bale out. I know of one off-road school that gives the speech while another instructor videos it – and the face of every rider. That is wise for a commercial organisation and I know for a fact that this video killed off the largely imagined case of a rider who denied the warnings ~ possibly unaware of the video process – but I wouldn’t do this for a volunteer ride lead.
The duty of a commercial instructor is a lot more onerous than a volunteer who shows a route. As to insurance, if any claim, real or imagined, arises out of your use of a motorcycle it is a road traffic insurance risk. If you are being paid to lead, then you need different insurance. But for a volunteer ride leader, a claim could be cobbled together, it would be a road traffic risk for your insurer to meet. You are leading on an insured motorcycle on a public road (which includes byways and other green roads) and any claim would arise from the use of motorcycle. In 32 years of practice, of which close to 30 have been as a specialist motorcycle practitioner, I have never had anyone approach me in a speculative claim arising from being led on a green road ride.
Andrew Dalton
Trail Riders Fellowship – Spring 2024