FEMA member organization SMC Sweden has been nominated for the 2016 FIM Road Safety award for its rider training work.

For 2016-2017, SMC has committed a budget of up to one million euros to give a voucher for a free course to every person in Sweden who buys a new motorcycle. SMC Secretary-General Jesper Christensen made the following remark at a recent conference in Brussels hosted by the motorcycle industry: “We don’t discuss pricing. It takes too long. So we give this to the industry free because we believe in it so much.”    

SMC also uses it safety training as a vehicle to ‘guide’ riders who are interested in fast riding into the sport rather than doing it on the road. SMC works with the Swedish police as well and courses have also been run for police officers.

For many years SMC ran springtime courses so that riders could get some practice after the winter. This has now developed into the SMC School which runs through three seasons and involves hundreds of courses. As Sweden is such a large country, training takes place in many locations. There is a large training circuit (not a racing circuit) close to Stockholm Arlanda airport which is used by the emergency services during the week and by SMC at weekends. SMC also uses racing circuits for training purposes but a clear distinction is made between this activity and racing.

Source: FIM