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Euro Licensing Model Meets Resistance For Now.

13K views 64 replies 30 participants last post by  dingling  
#1 ·
first!!!!!!!!!!!



What looks good on the surface has flaws throughout underneath..

The Euro weenies are trying to make licensing harder not safer. The Brits have the system right.
 
#2 ·
I have mixed emotions about these regulations possibly making their way over here. Though I didn't really plan it this way, at 43 y.o. and riding 28 years I am riding my first over 1000 cc. bike. Started on an XL 100 at 15 and steadily got a little more motorcycle each of the 10 or so bikes since then. It has worked for me so far but I like to think I am more mature also.
 
#4 ·
I don't see tiered licensing happening over here. Motorcycling in the US isn't for transportation, it's for recreation. We don't impact society in any significant way. Now, if we had a national healthcare program that was paid for out of taxpayer dollars then the burden to the healthcare system might draw attention.
 
#5 ·
Yet it is okay for a 16 year old to drive moms Hummer?

The whole idea of restricting what an adult can do makes my head hurt. I don't think it is really right that the drinking age is 21 in the US. If you can join the military, sign a contract, go to real prison, and or get married what right does the government have to say you can't buy a drink or ride a motor cycle.

I am way over 25 and don't drink at all but things like this really bother me. Maybe it is because I am live in Florida and see too many 80 year olds running people down. Yes in a parking lot near my office an 80 year old ran over a mother and two kids!

Motorcycles don't tend to kill anyone that isn't ridding them. Fix the car system first since they are more dangerous.
 
#7 ·
I'd have to say that most inexperienced riders shouldn't be able to buy a 600cc sportbike much less a big bike( including a 700lb cruiser). I have a 15 yr old son and can't wait to help him get a street bike. I know it won't be a repli-racer of any kind. I'm planning on starting him out on a DR-Z400SM. It's a great learning bike. I'm all about sportbikes but feel too many young people shouldn't be "learning" the road on these very fast bikes. I don't have any quick answers but I would agree to any Reasonable plan of graduated liscense program. I'm sure it would save a few lives and a whole lot of pain.
 
#8 ·
It's none of my business or the business of my government to keep people from killing themselves. A bike rider - inexperienced, drunk, high, or whatever - is a danger almost exclusively to himself. On the other hand that soccer mom in the SUV with a cel phone in her ear...



If graduated licensing were used to make the streets safer they'd make everybody ride a motorcycle for 3yrs before they could drive a car. We wouldn't have many inattentive drivers then.
 
#9 ·
How, pray tell, do they think they are going to enforce such a law? I don't think you can tell how old someone is going the other way, wearing a helmet, and hopefully other gear. My guess is, that if you can find someone old enough to be the official "owner" of a bike you fancy, you would have to be a damn fool to ever get popped. Cops have better things to do. Don't they?
 
#11 ·
I don't want ANYTHING from the corrupt euro nanny-state in America. Nothing! Europe is in terminal decline. It has no future whatsoever. Emulating their government-by-elites system would be a profound mistake.



We are going to have to fight the EPA as well. If they could, they would destroy motorcycling as we know it and find much satisfaction in doing so. Under the banner of moral superiority... the religion of environmentalism.
 
#12 ·
one word - LAME!

We don't need more arbitrary crap laws in our lovely 'free world' what we need is people that take resposibility for themselves! People with brains!

You can't legislate away stupidity.

I find it pretty F***'n hillarious that people that ride motorcycles are considered such a danger that we need a graduated licence system, yet people that drive cars don't when it's pretty ovious the car is much more dangrous to everyone except the driver.

And don't even say we should have graduated licence system to protect motorcyclist from themselves. It's NOT the laws place to protect us from ourselves. Just look all the states that don't require helemts.

Your trying to tell me we should think about having a graduated licence system when we don't even have helemt laws in all the states?

21, 24... screw that you should be able to get whatever you want by the time you can get drafted into the army. Who comes up with these BS arbitrary ages??
 
#13 ·
Start dirty.

Do your son a favor, start him off with a dirt bike. When he is sufficent in the dirt he will be much better prepared for the street.
 
#15 ·
Re: Euro Licensing Model---Proposed EPA Restrictions

I'll be waiting to hear about those dangerously restrictive EPA regulations.. I mean the gang we've got in Washington now wants to drill for oil in pristine national parks--hard to imagine them doing anything to step on any industry toes, even the MC industry. Hell, were even free to eat tainted meat with this crew in charge.
 
#16 ·
Government-by-elites...hmmmm...something about that sounds familiar....



It's all collectivism, even here. "Do it for the children." "Do it for the country/nation/people/Volk". "Do it for the poor." "Do it for(insert your favorite deity here)." And if ya don't, we'll come after your money! H3ll, we'll come after that anyway!
 
#17 ·
You live in Americuh, the land of less than 10% union jobs, offshoring, tax evasion, purchased elections and corporate corruption ... and that also sports the biggest gap between rich and poor in the world. I think the closet commies from Europe are the last people you need to worry about.



Welcome to the United States of Wal-Mart is more like it.



 
#19 ·
Fighting the EPA is easy; Reagan more or less killed it in the 80s.



Besides, "destroying motorcycling as we know it" is a bit of hyperbole. Fuels will change, so the internal combustion engine will change or even disappear, but that doesn't mean motorcycling will stop altogether. Or is it that you are so tied to the vroom-vroom that you wouldn't ride a motorcycle that might be more or less silent? In the end, it doesn't matter what comes out of the tailpipe (water or normal exhaust) as long as you butt is in the saddle, right?
 
#20 ·
I have worked in the federal government since 1994 and all I can say is NO.NO.NO.!!!you don,t want this,whateversounds nice on paper,by the time the oligarchy gets thru with it,it will look like nothing it started out as,will be laden with all sorts of superfluous ancillary ideas[i.e pork],and cost tax dollars to implement! I know of what I speak.Just more chipping away of our illusions of freedom in a " free society"[hah!]
 
#22 ·
Tiered licensing makes some sense, but it should only be based on skills, not age. And the skills test should reflect real-world situations, not be at parking-lot speed. I'm violently opposed to age-based licensing schemes - they seem senseless. Just look at Rossi.



I'm in favor of tiered licensing for cars, too, but based on a weight / power formula, not just power. Get untrained drivers out of 6,000+ pound vehicles, basically.
 
#23 ·
Show me the money. Does the motorcycle industry donate heavily to US legislators? That's what gets things done, or prevents action by our feckless leaders (kinda like "protection" money). If a graduated licensing system would hurt sales of bikes, and industry puts up $$$, then there's not a chance of it happening.
 
#24 ·
If you want to put a stop to gunboat diplomacy just require the children of all elected or oppointed officials to serve as combat infantry for the entire length of the office holders term.



As far as licensing goes, requireing new riders young or old to have licenses limited to 500cc and smaller for the first two years would weed out the posers and give them a chance to learn some basic skills on a smaller bike.
 
#26 ·
RD350's would work too....



I was thinking more of SR500's or EX500's. The thing is when we started riding there were tons of small bikes or dirt bikes that sort of thing. You learned your skills on a small bike and moved up, by the time you got a big bike like a 650 or 750 you had a chance of being able to ride it.



Now you get guys with minimal experiance on 600's and up that were full on race bike performance levels a few years ago or 800lb cruisers and drinking. It's not good for the sport and people get hurt which makes it look even worse. On the other hand, all the 40~60 year old exec's ridng Harleys are a pretty powerful demographic from a political and economic standpoint so that helps us in the short term at least.



I know I'm preaching to the choir here, you've been riding at least as long as me..........



I'm doing it for the children