Wow, this topic is one that drives many police motor instructors up a wall. I'm an IPTM certified police motorcycle instructor and in my opinion the BRC is a joke (ERC not much better), then again so are the MC endorsement requirements of most states. I think that everyone should go through the police motorcycle operators course in order to get their endorsements seeing how maybe 1% (police escort training) if not less, is solely law enforcement exclusive/applicable. The basic police course has a 33% fail rate and this 33% is usually the "experienced" riders who are unable to unlearn their bad habits (mental preconceptions of what a motorcycle can and cannot do) from civilian riding added to this the stress of being a law enforcement course. The newbies with little to no experience usually do the best. When I took the police motorcycle operators course, let me tell you it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Many SWAT cops will tell you police motor school was harder than their SWAT training courses. I am still amazed at what a motorcycle can do, even the large Goldwing Cadi's. This tends to scare the public into thinking that making the police class a requirement for an MC endorsement would be unreasonable but the public forgets that the only thing that makes the police course a law enforcement course is the style of instruction. We (cops) are also getting evaluated when going through the course on how we deal with being fatigued and stressed while operating our motors (simulate long shift hours, emergency response riding to an accident scene, extreme weather ect.) , this obviously would be the difference between the police and a civilian version of the police course. We only get two weeks (10, 8 hour, days) to learn how to professionally operate a motorcycle for policing purposes. Of course a civilian version could be set longer and conducted in a much less stressful manner with the concentration being soley on safe operation and not safe operation for police work. The differences between the MSF BRC/ERC courses and the Police Motorcycle Operators (PMO) course is alarming to me because there should not be such a wide difference where there is. Here's a couple of examples. People generally get taught that they need to use both brakes to brake and should use both at the same time, but we're taught that 85% to 90% (depending on the bike) of our braking needs to come from the front brake and it is recommended that we never cover the rear brake when riding but cover the front brake! That it's best to apply front brake first in order to more likely achieve "thresh-hold braking" and reduce the chances of locking the rear brake. We're taught that the rear brake is a stabilizer, which is how we use it in conjuction with slipping the clutch for the slow exercises (which, by the way is mechanically wrong! Wrenches will tell you that the clutches are NOT designed to do this wet or dry and a BMW dry clutch will teach you this quickly). This scares people who tend more often than not that too much front brake results in going over the handlebars which is a total myth. Just like the myth about loud pipes, which old ladies will tell you they will think belong to jacked up pick up trucks first. Another difference is here in FL the riders handbook shows three acceptable paths of travel within a lane (safest most visible being in the center according to the book) whereas police are advised there are only two (left and right side) and to ride on the side that mosts secures your lane (so as not to allow someone to muscle in). The most important difference is the public never gets the muscle memory aspect of motorcycle riding training. Emergency braking and evassive manuevering need to be a muscle memory reactions and the only way to achieve this is to practice them both everyday (this is done to death in the police class and rightly so). Survival motorcycle skills are perishable skills, if they are not practiced they will deminish and deteriorate over time. With all this said it is amazing to me how the MSF does not recognize police motorcycle instructors as instructors and require police motor-instructors to attend their courses before they can teach an MSF approved course. I know a few police instructors that have done this but to me I find it insulting seeing how the MSF course barely scratches the surface of proper motorcycle operation and is putting people on the street who can't handle a motorcycle which I will have no part of. My dept. had one incident where a new rider, who had just bought a Road King right after taking the MSF course, was given a ride home because this person took two lanes of traffic to make a left turn and still nearly dropped their bike in the middle of a busy intersection yet we're supposed to believe they somehow passed the MSF course :-[. The way it's set up in FL now where dealerships are practically running all the MSF courses, it appears that safety has taken a back seat to motorcycle sales. Sad I've worked countless motorcycle crashes that just should not happen because people do not know how to properly negotiate a curve, improperly braked, panic and froze (did nothing) and rode beyond their ability :truce:. Some of you are probably saying well "what about the motorcops that crash we see on the news all the time", the stats that I've got from UNF say that at least 80% of police motorcycle crashes, even though the motor officer may not be at fault, the motor officer should have been able to avoid the crash entirely if they had only applied their training. The problem with motorcops is the frequency of mandatory motor training/practice is required by their agency. There are still quite a few law enforcement agencies that have little to no continued training after the initial police motor course and in some cases don't even require the police motor course. Nobody is perfect, but getting as much training/practice in as possible helps increase muscle memory and better your chances of survival by avoiding crashes. I don't care what anyone says, "motorcycle" is the hardest language to learn to speak fluently. Stay safe and keep the sticky side down!!! :motonoises: