Restricted Licence

[v.ros`]

mate... if u think that was a waste of time...
I just completed my defensive driving ./ riding course to shorten my time period from restrcited to full from 18months to 12 months...

paid 120 NZ and 10 hours and I WAS the only one doing the defensive for a motorbike... he didnt even mentioned ONCE, i repeat not even once, anything bout motorbikes..i mean this is soo stoopid considering i paid 120NZ and didnt learn any shit regarding motorbikes. And to top it all off, the fool was talking bout ways to grow WEED in the last class...

seriously, this people are just trying to make money.

Hopefully i pass my full in april now

[Dr Bob]

Didn't have any of this new fangled graduation thing. I fronted up and answered 5 oral questions about a motorbike, jumped on my commuter bike while the testing officer was on a scooter - lost her in the traffic. She saw me do the hill start and nothing else. She takes my licence off me on the side of the road (the old booklet type) reaches into her pocket and pulls out a rubber stamp and hey presto - bike licence.

.... those were the days.

[Wolf]

Back when my great-uncle Owen got his licence must've been fun - his first bike was a 1340cc H-D, no helmet, gravel roads. And my uncle Ray once got snarked at by a cop for wearing a helmet - cop thought he was a bit of a boy racer.

Those would've been the days - OK, there were also less people on the roads so they didn't need half the restrictions back then that we have now. Would be great having less traffic again.

[Lou Girardin]

You don't even have to have experience in traffic enforcement, driver training or anything to do with driving/riding to become a testing officer these days.
You just have to pass a very basic course that deals with the administration of the test.
It was an LTNZ initiative to remove any subjective judgment from the test procedure, but we all know that driving well is a very subjective issue.
The success of these new tests is shown by the highly skilled and safe drivers that we encounter everyday.

[MikeL]

You can seriously question whether the $80 fee is justified. In the old days there was no suggestion that the fee should do any more than cover the cost. Now the agency which has the contract is a profit-making organization but where is the competition to keep the price down??
And of course if I had the licence testing contract, I would find it necessary to fail everyone at least once...

[Jonty]

While on the topic, I managed to get mine on Saturday. I was as hungover as ever (smelt like a brewery), speed through road works at 50km instead of 30 km (damn sunlight), forgot to check my blind spot during a lane merge and the guy still gave me the big OK.

Alright so I did ride well and most casues of concern were minor but yeah one more to go!!!

[Aaron]

While on the topic, I managed to get mine on Saturday.

Excellent, good on ya

[Dutchee]

Ah, the joys of the licence thing.

I got mine about 20 years ago (just under) and rode to the cop shop on my nifty fifty. I didn't quite hear what the cop told me to do, so rode till I got bored with Greys Ave (not long) and turned around (the cop had gone back inside, uninterested in actually seeing if I'd fall off). I then walked into the cop shop & got my stamp or licence or whatever it was back then. I also told them it was bullshit that I got a full motorbike licence riding an auto scooter & couldn't even ride a real bike. They insisted that the moped class was for something else & I had to accept my full licence.

The cage licence was another matter (10 years later) as originally on the plastic "lifetime licences" (remember those?) it gave an expiry date of a year. They managed to get me to pay twice (I refused to go to Grafton to go for my cage licence, it wasn't convenient) as the expiry date was a mistake on their part.

The good thing now is I don't have to go through the bullshit friends are going through as I'm totally legal (even though I'm only learning).

I just know I'd fail the basic handling course

Good on ya guys & congrats

[Lou Girardin]

You can seriously question whether the $80 fee is justified. In the old days there was no suggestion that the fee should do any more than cover the cost. Now the agency which has the contract is a profit-making organization but where is the competition to keep the price down??
And of course if I had the licence testing contract, I would find it necessary to fail everyone at least once...

The converse happened in practice while the AA had the contract. They were so concerned about the negative public reaction over the whole photo licence debacle that they were applying subtle and not so subtle pressure to raise the pass rates. Towards the end of their tenure they even proposed that Testing Officers should conduct tests in cars without WOF's.

[Wolf]

The converse happened in practice while the AA had the contract. They were so concerned about the negative public reaction over the whole photo licence debacle that they were applying subtle and not so subtle pressure to raise the pass rates. Towards the end of their tenure they even proposed that Testing Officers should conduct tests in cars without WOF's.

Well, now we know why there are so many fuckwits out there that don't appear to have earned their licences! Here was me blaming Sanitarium when it was AA's fault...