Bad News for Motorcycling.

[Oldfart 0]

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/General-news/2012/September/sep1212-will-new-licence-laws-be-good-for-motorcycling/

This cant be good news. Youngsters will more than likely get an old car instead of a bike (and probably cause more carnage as a result)

Theoretically you will not be able to get a full licence until the age of 25. So you can join the forces , drive a tank and fight for your country or own a Ferrari (under 25) but youre not considered capable of driving anything over 47 bhp until your 25+.

How can this be good news? Who is going to buy a 125 when you can get an old car that will do a ton at 17. Think of the knock on effect in the industry and bike sales in general. Would you take 3 tests when you can buy a car after just one. Pity the training schools as there wont be many left.

[Robbie 0]

Take what ever MCN publish with a pinch of salt.

[Oldfart 0]

Granted re MCN but this is the directgov site

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/DriverLicensing/DG_201188

[haveugot1 0]

In a nut shell they don't want bikes on the rds.

But they want idiot kids in fast cars smashing the towns up thinking they can drive like a rally cross driver.

All new car drivers should have a black box fitted and if they want to drive like idiots then they take the car off them and crush it.as fining them makes no difference.

[lee1 1]

I dont agree with singleing young people out

Theres plenty of old heads out there to

[Macie_UK 0]

@haveugot1 wrote:

All new car drivers should have a black box fitted

Personally I think that it should be mandatory to do a year on a bike or scoot before being able to drive a car...

[Stue11 0]

This is fact...ive known about this for a while poor buggars

[Chadatious 0]

im a lucky one im 19 and can ride anything now. feel for the guys and girls. i jsut better not loose my licence or ive got to go through that crap!

[BanditMike 0]

What I can never get my head round is that bikes are only involved in the region of around, I think, 1% of road "accidents", so why aren't they busy looking at the other 99%?

Why do they constantly make it harder to get a bike when most accidents involve cars and HGVs? Possibly as Haveyougot1 says "In a nut shell they don't want bikes on the rds."

[GHRCanada 0]

@Macie_UK wrote:

@haveugot1 wrote:

All new car drivers should have a black box fitted

Personally I think that it should be mandatory to do a year on a bike or scoot before being able to drive a car...

Ya I agree, they should have to start with a bike, they would learn a lot more if they don't have a cage around them.

[trebor4460 0]

Just nanny state putting another nail in the coffin of motorcycling..

[ptolemyx 0]

A slight deviation from the unfairness of making getting a bike licence so much harder than a car licence.

Dare I say it....please don't flame me......Everyone should take a regular retest (5 years?) for all classes of vehicles they wish to use on the public highway.....think I'd fail both tests without some serious retraining to sort out the bad habits we all develop.

Old and Disgraceful

[ptolemyx 0]

And while I'm thinking about it, if the government really want to improve road safety; take the seatbelts out of cars and put a rusty 8" steel spike on the steering wheel pointing at the driver's heart

Old and Disgraceful

[Macie_UK 0]

@ptolemyx wrote:

Everyone should take a regular retest (5 years?) for all classes of vehicles they wish to use on the public highway

A good idea in theory - regular restests are currently neccessary for stuff like forklifts and HIABs so why not vehicles?

You are right that everyone would need some retraining, but the cost would be exhorbitant for someone with several categories, say car, bike HGV, PCV, or for the poor sods who passed after 97 and have to do the extra ones for trailers, 7.5t, minibus etc.