Moped query

[SMOKEU]

$400 for not having a motorcycle license. Fines also for the bike not being reg as a motorcycle, and not having a warrant of fitness.

Believe me, you don't wanna go there.

I thought a breach of license conditions incurred a $100 infringement notice with 35 demerit points.

[rastuscat]

I thought a breach of license conditions incurred a $100 infringement notice with 35 demerit points.

He said he had a car license I thought, meaning the offense would be Not The Holder Of The Appropriate Licence.

That's the problem with a moped turning into a motorcycle. Most people with a motorcycle Licence ride motorcycles, not mopeds.

Mopeds are normally ridden with car licences.

So, if your moped does 60 it's actually a motorcycle, and your have the wrong class of Licence. Ka'ching.

[rastuscat]

My bad. OP has full 1 and full 6.

Ride a moped at 60, meaning it's not a moped, and the tickets are

No wof on a motorcycle.
Vehicle licenced as wrong class.

Still Ka'ching, but nowhere near as nasty. And the Popos Christmas Ball Fund wins yet again.

[mossy1200]

My bad. OP has full 1 and full 6.

Ride a moped at 60, meaning it's not a moped, and the tickets are

No wof on a motorcycle.
Vehicle licenced as wrong class.

Still Ka'ching, but nowhere near as nasty. And the Popos Christmas Ball Fund wins yet again.

Might be cheaper if I eat donuts till im fat and it only does 50. So your saying a scooter sold by a bike shop with a moped plate reaches 51kmph down the first hill makes the new owner by default a criminal?
Im going to just watch my speed and will need to do 50.
Can I do 54 on a public holiday weekend and 59 the rest of the year?

[mossy1200]

Latest breaking news.

Police hold a combined moped charity run event to raise funds for Children in need and Guberment slushy fund.
The event included a cruise through Wellington city and past a speed camera set at 51kmph.
over $400 was raised for needy children and $10,000 for the other charity.

[pritch]

Mopeds are normally ridden with car licences.

A lotta bike riders own or have owned mopeds. Can't be beat round town.

[Willdat?]

I looked at LTSA website $400+/12 months rego, I might just keep to 50 km/h

[rastuscat]

Fascinating topic this, which throws a light on the weaknesses of the legislation.

Back some 23 ish years I joined the donut munching brigade. Actually it was the snake division which disappeared in 1992, and we used to drive black and white cars, and R80RT bikes.

Lifetime licences were around (remember them?) and you could ride a 250 on a provisional.

Then some rocket scientist wrote the rule about mopeds being less than 2 kw, and less than 50 kmh. We sat and pondered how we were meant to tell if a two wheeler had less than 2kw power when we stopped them at the roadside. 23 years later we still can't.

Back then mopeds would only do 50 if you took them up the then non-existent Sky Tower (Yes, I was a Jaffa back then) and released them like a pidegeon, to fly freely to their destiny.

Suzuki FA50s and the odd Solex were the mopeds du jour.

Time passed, I grew up, and the legislation stagnated. What didn't stagnate was the technology of engine building. Even back then, an RD250LC would make a farce of the 250cc limit on learners. As would the TZ250, and a host of other bikes. Rocket ships in not terribly disguised disguises.

Its to the point, over time, that the 250 learners limit is pointless, and I understand that even the bureaucracy recognizes that. Voila, the LAMS list. Some day soon a learner will be able to ride a F650GS BMW (I think), but not one of the beastly 250 rocket ships. Makes sense really. I see lots of chat about LAMS on here, but it is essentially a move in the right direction, overdue. Te power to weight ratio makes more sense than a cc rating, in this day of high octane fuel and two stroke monsters.

But look further into the problem, my correspondents. At the other end of the scale are the mopeds, and the power assisted pedal cycles. Class AM and class AB vehicle, respectively.

A moped is a 2 wheeler with a motor with no more than 2 kw of power, and a design speed of no more than 50. It doesn't have to have a wof, but it has to be up to wof standard. You can ride one with a learners car Licence, even if you have never driven a car ( bet the dude who wrote the law never meant for THAT to happen).

A power assisted pedal cycle is a pedal cycle with a power assistance motor (electric or petrol), which has no more than 300 watts of power. The intention is that you use the pedals to over ome the inertia of the bike and rider, and the motor then cuts in to provide assistance. A PAPC would not be able to be used without pedals, as 300 watts is insufficient power to overcome the inertia of a bike and rider. That why the Ezi Rider things aren't PAPC, as they are totally useless as a cycle, and are largely operated totally without pedals. Can't be a power assisted pedal cycle if you are not primarily a pedal cycle.

300 Watts? Wot? If I can't measure 2kw at th roadside, how can I measure 300 watts? Bloody law isn't worth having if it's unenforcable.

Anyway, the latest fun development is the mountain bike with the petrol motor strapped to the frame. Buy one on TM, and away you go. No need for wof and reg, coz its a power assisted pedal cycle, right? Um, no.

Engineers tell is that 2 stroke motor producing 300 watts would be somewhere around 9cc. Like, a motor for a model aircraft. Tiny little things, that buzz like a bee. The motors being strapped to the MTBs are certainly bigger than 9cc, although they don't normally have a capacity stamped on the cylinder exterior.

I have spent far too much time on this. I keeps coming up at work as people who are disqualified from driving appear to be using the toothless part of the law to ride these things, claiming (and believing themselves in some cases, actually) that they can do so as you don't need a Licence to ride a PAPC.

Case in point. A dude loses his Licence for drink driving. It happens. He then oes and gets an Ezi Rider, coz he says it's a power assisted pedal cycle, and you don't need a Licence for one. Wrong, but that's what he thinks. He gets pissed again, and falls off his Ezi Rider turning left from Madras Street into Bealey Ave. Smashing the 24 bottles of Speights he is crarrying on his bike. Cool, really good law, this one.

Case 2. A disqualified driver buys an engine kit and fits it to his mountain bike. Coz the guy selling the kit said its okay to do that, you don't need a licen to ride one. Stopped by a Popos for doing something silly on the bike, the bike gets impounded, and he gets charged with driving while disqualified. I get a call my boss asking me to examine and test the Antichrist of a thing, to see what sort of performance the thing has. Section 114 of the Land Transport Act refers. I get fully suited and helmeted, full motorcycle gear. After a few minutes of working out ho to get the bloody thing started (chokes, primers, centrifugal clutch, crash start) we manage to determine that it tops out at 56 kmh.

Now, no way in the world can a bike with 300 watts of power do 56kmh, meaning that it isn't a power assited pedal cycle. Step up, and because it can do in excess of 50, it can't be a moped either. So it's a motorcycle.

End of rant. Too bloody early to be raising my blood pressure like that.

Breakfast donuts. Here I come.

[Conquiztador]

Interesting subject to read while having brekkie (no donuts).

Takes me back to when in my old home country at 15yo we could legally ride mopeds w/o any license. (But as you do we did ride them much earlier. There was no way for anyone to figure out how old we were) And we did, and we learnt how to make them go faster (many nights spent fitting oversized pistons, machining down the cylinder head, fitting bigger carbies, opening up inlets, modifying exhaust...) I had one that would do 90k/h (measured riding after a car). Simple 2 smokers with pedals ftted to them. They looked like mopeds and nobody would have mistaken them for motorbikes. Even then the size of the motor was max 50cc. No wof to do, just register the moped once a year and you got a small license plate in the mail (diffrent colour each year).

Fast forward to today and move it to NZ and things are very similar apart from the car (or bike) Learner license. Before the law change where you have to be 16 before you can use a motorvehicle on the road, my oldest boy when 15 got him self a L-license for motorbikes, we got him a bike and he had freedom to come and go. Could not see any reason to put him on a moped. I can see the use of mopeds in cities and for them being cheap on petrol. But apart from that they do not make sense to me. Why ride a 50cc moped on a L-license when yu can ride a 250cc bike on one? (I mean, if you are gonna get a L-license then why not get a bike one??)

Not sure where I am going with this...

[bogan]

Now, no way in the world can a bike with 300 watts of power do 56kmh, meaning that it isn't a power assited pedal cycle. Step up, and because it can do in excess of 50, it can't be a moped either. So it's a motorcycle.

Ah, not so, people have got pedlies over 100kmhr with only leg power, now they probably have more powerful legs than average, but I think on that sort of bike even I could probably do 60kmhr. IIRC the average human is good for around 200-300watts of leg power.

It'd be a lot of work, but I bet I could make a 300W PAPC be good for an easy 70kmhr, pay no rego, then die a horrible death because its stopping distance is measured in hundreds of meters.

[rastuscat]

Ah, not so, people have got pedlies over 100kmhr with only leg power, now they probably have more powerful legs than average, but I think on that sort of bike even I could probably do 60kmhr. IIRC the average human is good for around 200-300watts of leg power.

It'd be a lot of work, but I bet I could make a 300W PAPC be good for an easy 70kmhr, pay no rego, then die a horrible death because its stopping distance is measured in hundreds of meters.

Agreed. I've done 92 on my bicycle. Scary.

What I have written is based on the Canadian standard, and is applied by judges here. At least, it's been used by the very few judgements seen so far.

The purpose of a PAPC is to help a cyclist keep rolling on a flat road. The Canadian standard sees the motor stop helping at around 26 kmh. So it cuts in after the pedals have overcome the inertia, and then out when the speed reaches 26. Remember that it's a power assisted pedal cycle, not a pedal assisted power cycle. For it to be a pedal cycle, the primary source of power has to be the pedals, not vice versa.

Because we don't have a local standard, the judges looked overseas for a precedent, and the Canadian one is what they favored.

Of ourse, all this is simply my interpretation, and what the judges have expressed so far. Maybe we're wrong, only a High court judge can set precedent, and none have gotten that far yet.

Donuts.

[pritch]

Case in point. A dude loses his Licence for drink driving. It happens. He then oes and gets an Ezi Rider, coz he says it's a power assisted pedal cycle, and you don't need a Licence for one. Wrong, but that's what he thinks. He gets pissed again, and falls off his Ezi Rider turning left from Madras Street into Bealey Ave. Smashing the 24 bottles of Speights he is crarrying on his bike. Cool, really good law, this one.

There's a guy I've seen a couple of times at the Supermarket. Rides one of those things and he's dressed like a 1%er. Not a kid either.

Whatever spins your crank?

[FJRider]

... Even bigger fines for wearing spandex.

$200 and 30 Demerits ... ???

[GingerMidget]

Useless facts for you, if its been semi correctly registered, as in done on an mr2b form with all the correct chassis details, this will bring a flag up if you attempt to make it legal by putting it through compliance to get it done as the correct class.

TL'DR its painful. For both sides.

[Willdat?]

A moped is a 2 wheeler with a motor with no more than 2 kw of power, and a design speed of no more than 50. It doesn't have to have a wof, but it has to be up to wof standard. You can ride one with a learners car Licence, even if you have never driven a car ( bet the dude who wrote the law never meant for THAT to happen).

Another weakness IIRC is that someone on a learner CAR licence can carry a pillion on a moped if there's a proviso for pillion pegs...