Well I do know that SOME people in the community and SOME clubs think attendance sheets are a good thing. I am not either one of them!
Any club ride is a bunch of friends going out for a ride. We all carry "personal responsibility" and that is the end of the matter - despite that others will help if they can we all know and accept the risks. We are bikers and want to get away from paperwork, not embrace more of it on the weekends! People that want to fill forms out aren't the type to have the problem - proposed solutions need to work for all.
Yes I know of the sad story in another club of a rider who almost always bolts home early but on this day didn't as he rode off into a tree and died, and no-one went looking until that night and he was found in the morning. Despite what people may wish to believe, paperwork is more likely to NOT fix that situation as the belief that people can transfer THEIR needs to someone else doesn't make it so, in the real world.
What we at Hunter DOG do (and what really works!) is wait on turns. Elsewhere here there is a description of that. The simple reality is that all the ride leader needs to do is count how many left then every turn the same amount turn up. If they don't somebody ALWAYS saw the missing rider turn off / stop (and be OK) / whatever. If they didn't the group makes a decision what to do. It works well for all concerned. Really.
Two times this has happened on club rides and what happens is the main group choofs off to the next destination (typically lunch) and one or two go back to check the road since last sighting. As the scanning rider once I found the missing rider just stuffing around smoking / on phone. The other time no sign, but during lunch managed to get them on the phone and sure they had to go mow the lawn / whatever bs excuse had been poorly handled. In the mean time I had scanned the road verges a lot and found nothing. This is the norm, and that is why forms will never reliably make a difference. But be a total pain in the ring - that bit is certain!
I don't remember now whether these couple of incidents lead to the waiting on turns thing or came after, just that they happened. I think they were before as I also realised the additional hazard is that the scanning rider/s want to cover the ground quickly in case there is a real problem needing help. This also is not too smart and better avoided completely if possible!
PS: But the Rider Risk videos Scott has put a couple of links to are brilliant. You WILL change things you do as a result of watching a few of these short punchy videos, can't speak too highly of them!!!
