Petition for removal of L plate and 70km/hr limit????

[scumdog]

you have to remember one thing.

if a learner on a bike gets silly and asses off, he is most likely only going to hurt himself.

if a learner in a car gets silly and 'asses off' there is a much higher chance he will hurt other people as well.

But even at a low speed the biker is more likely to hurt himself, especailly as 'most' learners don't buy any protective gear.

The rest I agree.

[muzz]

And who, pray, is going to pay to have all this checked?? And how often??

Who pays now?
You can drive a moped on a car licence as long as it is under 2kw not all 50cc scooters are under that some are higher, so the same rule would apply to bikes up to say 40hp. It would have to work on the factory spec's.
Don't computers do all the checking anyway.

[MSTRS:Me]

Who pays now?
You can drive a moped on a car licence as long as it is under 2kw not all 50cc scooters are under that some are higher, so the same rule would apply to bikes up to say 40hp. It would have to work on the factory spec's.
Don't computers do all the checking anyway.

But how do you check that?? We all know that 250's vary wildly in their power outputs & that many/most can be resleeved/barrelled to increase the capacity, but a HP rating is just impossible to oversee. Look what Burt Munro did with his old Indian - his special magic took a bike capable of 80kph and turned it into a fire-breathing monster capable of over 300kph.
Better to leave the cc thing in place, although perhaps remove certain models ie NSR250, RVG250 etc

[muzz]

But how do you check that?? We all know that 250's vary wildly in their power outputs & that many/most can be resleeved/barrelled to increase the capacity, but a HP rating is just impossible to oversee. Look what Burt Munro did with his old Indian - his special magic took a bike capable of 80kph and turned it into a fire-breathing monster capable of over 300kph.
Better to leave the cc thing in place, although perhaps remove certain models ie NSR250, RVG250 etc

Ok I see your point, Hard one to police. If you are a learner the bike you are riding has to be dinotuned and engine sealed and certified. Lower the horsepower to 30hp to allow for after market air filters and exhausts mods. The police cant really tell whats going on with engines anyway. I know of one chap who put a 400cc engine in his 250 frame and kept it registered as 250 the only way to tell is to check engine No's and they dont do that unless you give them a reason. There will always be someone out there who will push the limits. How can they stop people speeding?

[MSTRS:Me]

The police cant really tell whats going on with engines anyway.

Most can't at least.

I know of one chap who put a 400cc engine in his 250 frame and kept it registered as 250 the only way to tell is to check engine No's and they dont do that unless you give them a reason. There will always be someone out there who will push the limits.

There will always be some who aint happy with any restrictions

How can they stop people speeding?

Realistically you can't. Even my wife's 250 cruiser will do 150kph (although not with her in control)

[Flatcap]

The bottom line on all of this is that if you get rid of the L-plate and the speed restriction, you get rid of the whole learner stage as those are the only differences between Learners and Restricted licences. I think the L-plate is a good motivator to do the Restricted practical test asap. Without the humiliation of an L-plate folk would stay on learners forever and those with no skills beyond the Basic Riding test would never be weeded out

[scumdog]

Without the humiliation of an L-plate folk would stay on learners forever and those with no skills beyond the Basic Riding test would never be weeded out

Never figured out this 'humiliation' thing, must be an immature persons thing??

Would take a shit-load more than an "L" plate to humiliate me these days.

[Wolf]

And who, pray, is going to pay to have all this checked?? And how often??

How do the cops currently deal with the question of which 50cc bike requires a bike licence and which only needs a learner cage licence? Is there something on the rego sticker or are they expected to memorise every nutless bike on the market? Or do they have to radio Comms and say "can you look up that fucking list and tell me if this dickhead is allowed to ride a '74 Nifty 50 on a cage licence?"

Go back to the good ol' days of printing a different coloured rego sticker (and ensuring it is prominently displayed) for those bikes that are suitable for learners - it worked fine in the old days with the different stickers for learner/provisional and full licence holders. Hell, if Lou managed to comprehend it, anyone can! (pt)

The rego issuing authorities all have computers that tell them if the vehicle has a current WoF, it can certainly tell them if it's an approved make/model for a learner.

Surely coloured regos issued by the appropriate authority - Pink = "Nutless PoS requiring only a Cage Licence", Green = "Suitable for Learner/Restricted Licence" and Blue = "Full Licence Required" - would be easier to spot at the roadside. If the bugger is obeying the road rules, well and good. If pulled over for misbehaving or a spot check it would be a matter of looking at the colour of the sticker, ensuring it has the right details for that bike (that is one good thing about the new rego stickers, it's pointless stealing them now) and confirming the rider has the appropriate class of licence.

If coloured regos are a prob, a code on the rego sticker (POS, LRN or FUL) should be all that's required.

I had initially thought in terms of going back to the old way - learner and restricted licence holders having to get and display "learner/restricted" class labels - but that would cause probs with people of different licence classes wanting to share bikes (parent and child) and be yet another target for inconsiderate twats. It would probably be better and easier (rego authority staff not having to ask "Do you want a Learner Label or Full, Sir? Did you want fries with that?") if the labels printed out in the appropriate colour or with the appropriate code by default to show the minimum licence requirement. If the rider has a full licence on a Learner level bike: no harm, no foul. If the rider does not have sufficient licence for the bike: lecture and revenue collecting time!

As to paying for the actual categorising, the Aussies have already done that, just browse to their public site where they list acceptable learner level bikes and select-copy-paste the info. I volunteer to personally interface that information with the New Zealand vehicle registration system and put the appropriate flags on the bikes deemed suitable for learners for the super-low price of a brand new road-legal DR400 or DR650.

That way we keep the young'uns off pocket cruise missiles, give 'em a wider selection of bikes to learn on, because the field seems to be getting narrower these days, and keep it simple for the cop on the streets because all (s)he has to do is look at the rego and licence and ensure there's no discrepancy - "Suzuki LS650 on a Learner Licence - no prob! You with the RGV250, you'd better have a full licence in your wallet..."

Getting rid of the stupid curfew would cost nothing and save the cops having to licence-check people riding around at night and newbie or restricted riders who work shifts or go out to the late session of the movies won't be inconvenienced. Newbies of the "night owl" persuasion can ride around the streets at three in the morning when there're fewer other vehicles around and get their road skills up a bit before mixing it with rush-hour traffic and stressed-out soccer-moms in Remuera tractors.

The "L" plate would cost nothing to lose and would make the learners less of a target. As to the "it's to let people know thay might do something silly" argument - fully licensed people do silly crap without warning all the time and we're expected to cope with it. For some, their stupidity and bad driving/riding practices are ingrained from years of not doing it right, and they aren't required to have a large label (like Hitcher's suggested W plate) to say "I still don't have a fucking clue of the road rules or how to indicate before turning". And there're no convenient warning labels for "I don't give a fuck, I'm going to slowly pull out against the red light and if you hit our car my bros'll get out and stomp your fucking head so you'd better stop arsehole."

We never had L plates in my day, the sharks had to look for the coloured rego sticker and know what colours the R and M stickers were for the current period. Only bikers, cops and sharks knew the colour code because it never occured to cagers that there was a code. Somehow we survived not having people afford us "extra consideration" for our newbie or provisional status. We also didn't have wankers specifically target us for being newbies. The wankers just had to make do with targetting us for being on bikes.

People operating vehicles - newbs and experienced people alike - are going to do unexpected or dickheaded things and I personally don't think the newbs cock up significantly more than the fuckwits, drunks, arrogant arseholes, testosterone fueled hoons, stressed or distracted commuters or just plain tired folk.

Speed restriction? the 70km/h limit never kept us off the "open road", some broke their licence conditions to stay with the flow, some obeyed the restrictions and put themselves at risk. They've increased the maximum speed for trucks and cars towing trailers so that they are less of a hazard on the open road so why not put the top speed up to 90 or remove the restriction altogether. Short of requiring newbs to stay within the "safety" ( ) of the city limits and putting a fucking great fluoro marker (which they will ditch anyway) on them so that they can be spotted if they stray outside, there is no way to stop learners from riding on the open roads and 'twould be safer an they were travelling at the same speed as everyone else.

My personal take is that they would be safer at 100km/h on a quiet open road than they would be at 50km/h in a crowded street where they are more likely to have some dick pull out in front of them or arse-end them or wind up in the midst of a pile-up.

[Ixion]

Ok I see your point, Hard one to police. If you are a learner the bike you are riding has to be dinotuned and engine sealed and certified. Lower the horsepower to 30hp to allow for after market air filters and exhausts mods. The police cant really tell whats going on with engines anyway. I know of one chap who put a 400cc engine in his 250 frame and kept it registered as 250 the only way to tell is to check engine No's and they dont do that unless you give them a reason. There will always be someone out there who will push the limits. How can they stop people speeding?

Sure people could tune their engiens for more power. But ther would only be a few that were legal before and illegal after. And the same problem applies now to the 250cc rule. Apart from complete engine swaps there's quite a lot of bikes can be overbored or have different barrels fitted. That's totally impossible for anyone but an expert to tell without an engine strip down. F'instance, the barrel and piston of a TT350 yammy will fit (almost) straight on Ratty (a 250) . Prolly need the bigger carb, and maybe zorst, but no harder than most hot-ups.

[Flatcap]

Never figured out this 'humiliation' thing, must be an immature persons thing??

Would take a shit-load more than an "L" plate to humiliate me these days.

Perhaps humiliation is too strong a word, however you would have to agree the old L-Plate isn't an ideal accessory for your bike. (although Jap scooterists seem to think so for some reason)

[Ixion]

I agree with Mr Wolf .

A point about the 70kph limit. Many people infer that the reason for it is to keep learners off the open road/motorways. I do not think this is a valid deduction. If that had been the intentioon of the legislators, they could have simply said so. The condition could have been " You are not permitted to ride on any road with a permanent speed limit of more than 70kph". They didn't so we cannot assume that was their intention. We must assume that for some strange reason they thought that 70kph was safer than 100kph.

And the new rego stickers didn't stop some prat stealing my GT750 one! I thought I'd had a senior moment when I noticed the expired sticker (luckily, before a cop did ) and forgotten to reregister it - went to the Post Office to do so and they said "But it is already licensed ?". And kindly gave me a replacement for free.

[muzz]

Wolf : well said, I think that all makes sence.
And I'm buggered if I know how they know what 50 is legal or not.

[Wolf]

Never figured out this 'humiliation' thing, must be an immature persons thing??

Would take a shit-load more than an "L" plate to humiliate me these days.

If they truly were humiliated by the L plate, they just wouldn't display one - so long as they don't act like dicks or get caught in a spot check, who's gonna know? As it is they're ditching the L-plate so they can breach the curfew and travel at 100km/h without sticking out like a white man in Harlem and trading on the fact that the cops aren't psychic.

[muzz]

Sure people could tune their engiens for more power. But ther would only be a few that were legal before and illegal after. And the same problem applies now to the 250cc rule. Apart from complete engine swaps there's quite a lot of bikes can be overbored or have different barrels fitted. That's totally impossible for anyone but an expert to tell without an engine strip down. F'instance, the barrel and piston of a TT350 yammy will fit (almost) straight on Ratty (a 250) . Prolly need the bigger carb, and maybe zorst, but no harder than most hot-ups.

If the bike was dinotuned , sealed , the hotting up you suggest would be hard to do with out braking the seal.

[Ixion]

The bottom line on all of this is that if you get rid of the L-plate and the speed restriction, you get rid of the whole learner stage as those are the only differences between Learners and Restricted licences. I think the L-plate is a good motivator to do the Restricted practical test asap. Without the humiliation of an L-plate folk would stay on learners forever and those with no skills beyond the Basic Riding test would never be weeded out

Easy answer to that one, have a maximum period you can stay on at each stage (I think they do this in the UK). Make it, say, a year on learners - within that time you must take the next stage, or your licence lapses and you can't start over again for (say) 3 months.

Also deals with the folk that get a learners/restricted but never upgrade cos they are incompetant (surprising number like that !)