Licence law for 3 wheels

[Tolworth Ian]

Hi
Recently moved here from UK and I am curious about the regulations regarding trikes. What can you ride with a full bike licence?

Cheers
Ian

[AllanB]

Depends if it is registered as a motorcycle, car or farm vehicle ........... use a Harley engine and you have the choice of all three :lol:

PS welcome to NZ, but for fucks sake, don't start whinging about everything like most of your comrades who arrive here! Be the good Pom we like :cool:

[PistonBlown]

The main split is at 1000kg weight.

Below that a trike can be registered as a motorbike and ridden on a motorbike licence. Either way they must meet all statutory requirements of a motorbike (e.g. position of a lights, reflectors etc.)

Above that it must be registered as a car and ridden/driven on a car licence. Again it should meet the statutory requirements of a car on placement of lights, etc.

In practice of course it's impossible for trikes to normally fully meet all of requirements of their particular class - so trikes will often have exemptions as part of their registration.

Trikes below 1000kg can also be registered as cars (in fact this this the standard classification) but they must meet motorbike statutory requirements. A good example of this is the Can-am Spyder which is registered as a car but described on the registration as a "Factory Custom Trike". It has various exceptions in the registration that make it closer to a motorbike e.g. you don't need a seatbelt but must wear a helmet. Strangely a Spyder is insured as a bike and you get a lower excess if you have a bike licence.

I believe the rules are actually almost the same as the UK in this regard.

[Tolworth Ian]

Cheers for the responses.

As for whinging, I'll leave that to the Aussies :laugh:

[PistonBlown]

Its odd that ACC sees anything with 3 wheels to be as safe as a car even the 3 wheeled scooters by Yamaha and Piaggo qualify to be registered as a car.

Yes I don't quite understand that either - but I'm not complaining as the rego on my Spyder only costs $88 a year. Just shows how stupid the high levy rules on motorbikes are. If I have a car pull out in front of me I'll be just as buggered as when it happened to me on a bike - probably more so as there's more metal beneath me. Though I have noticed the 'sorry mate I didn't see you' instances on a Spyder are far less.

[FLUB]

Nope. I had a 'sorry mate' when I had my bright red Spyder RTS, which was not exactly small. A 7 tonne delivery truck pulled across the road in front of me. The ABS and the ability to steer whilst stamping on the brakes probably saved my life.

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[tamarillo]

Scooters are an issue. Yamaha tricity is reg as car so cheap rego and car license. The Italian ones like MP3 is bike so more rego ect. Dumb


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[GrayWolf]

There are only a few countries where the Canam Spyder is registered as a car..
it was actually due to the first personal importers that NZ is one of those. They pushed for quite hard I believe.
Having ridden a bike for over 40 yrs and also now owning a Spyder I can see the argument from both sides of the coin.
You can indeed fuck it up big time on a canam on tight or wrong camber bends.... but they are a lot more 'stable' in poor road/adhesion conditions. Having ridden a Combo years ago for a period of time, I'd compare them as quite similar in many respects.
They actually steer better than a normal trike.

Do they deserve the lower ACC levy?? Argumentative point really, but there have been a few written off now, so lets see what the future holds in that aspect?

Thread Author. there is also as you can read an option on you car licence {the Spyder}