Absolutely! Which is why I thought fellow motorcyclists would find this interesting. I doubt non-motorcyclists realize how much more skill and practice it takes to ride a motorcycle than a car, bike or moped with proficiency.
Well, yeah, probably not a whole lot better.
That seems to be the case with people taking the MSF course and the instructors know it. IME, the instructors don’t do a great job teaching the total noob and the failure rate among those with zero experience is pretty high because of it (again, IME). Those considering taking the course with zero experience would be better off finding a friend to let him/her practice in a parking lot or be okay with failing the course the first time.
Here in Québec, there was a time when there was no special endorsement for motorcycles on the driver’s license. If you could drive a car, you were qualified to ride a motorcycle. When they finally changed the rule (around 1980 I think), they allowed all existing drivers to keep their motorcycle endorsement active as long as they paid the corresponding fee every year.
Is it possible that a state in the U.S. has gone the other way, just giving the motorcycle endorsement to all car drivers?
The same was the case in Alabama and that didn’t change until May of 2015. Crazy! That was the last state in the US where one could legally ride a motorcycle on the streets without a motorcycle license, motorcycle permit or M endorsement.
Here in NC they grandfathered people to get a MC endorsement if you had 2 years of riding/driving when they added the MC endorsement, I think in 1978 .
I renewed my Pennsylvanian DL 30 years ago and got back my license with motorcycle and commercial truck (30,000 pounds IIRC) endorsements. It was a mistake, not something I’d applied for or needed.
Every renewal since I’ve maintained those endorsements.
I moved from IL to NC in 1979 and got an NC DL. About a month later, my wife and I decided that I would get a motorcycle as a second vehicle to make things a bit easier on us. I had never ridden a motorcycle before. When I went to look at a used Kawasaki KZ400, the owner would not let me test ride it without an MC endorsement. (Remember, I had never ridden before.)
So, I went back to the license office and asked about getting an MC endorsement. She asked me how long I had been riding. Thinking quickly, I lied. “Three years.” She handed me an affidavit to sign and have notarized. I walked next door to a bank, got it notarized, and brought it right back. They printed me a duplicate license with an MC endorsement for $5.00.
Back to the guy selling the KZ400 and I hopped on. I nearly killed myself and he probably thought I was either drunk or a daredevil rider. Paid him $350 and off I went.
I’m pretty sure that the SoL has expired by now. Still got the MC endorsement on my DL.
This is pretty true, my MSF BRC instructor was rather impatient with me and how often I stalled out due to lacking fine clutch control. Yelling at me to “stop popping the clutch” while also telling me to “give it more throttle” resulted in my first wheelie, which was pretty terrifying, I tell you. I almost took his advice to walk away and come back for another session (a second repeat BRC riding session would not cost me extra money, but would cost me extra time).
One other “complete noob” took that option, and spent the time the rest of us used to do the skills drills and evaluations just going back and forth in a straight line, practicing starting from a dead stop.
Even during the drills and skills test sessions I still had more than the occasional stall-out when trying to launch from a full stop (about 1 time in 5), which fortunately for me didn’t count as fails - once rolling, I had no problems with the circles, figure eights, or obstacle weaves.
Afterwards, when I eventually got a Vulcan 750 for my first “standard” motorcycle (I rode a Vespa GT200 and then a Piaggio BV500 for 3-4 years for in-city commuting, then got the bug to do longer trips involving highways), I finally got the necessary practice time to really get clutch control down, including uphill starts and so on. For me it took about a week of intermittent riding to become fully natural.
I will say that that clutch control skill did translate to a large extent when, even more years down the road, I undertook to learn to drive a car with a stick shift. So there’s that.
Alabama is the only state in the US where one can obtain a motorcycle license/endorsement with nothing more than a written test. Before 2016, an M endorsement wasn’t even required. All that was required to ride a motorcycle was a standard driver’s license.
There is incorrect information given online from websites that offer practice tests and information on receiving driver’s and motorcycle licenses where it is stated that an on-cycle skills test is required. The information on the following websites regarding a written test being all that is required are correct:
I called the Motorcycle Safety Program at the University of Montevallo and an instructor verified to me that the written test is all that is required to obtain the M endorsement.
So yeah, like I was thinking in terms of a foreign country that allowed full endorsement/motorcycle license with a written test based permit only, except I didn’t conceive of there being a state in the US that would have that… It was surprising to me that so many states had, within even 10 years or so, much less within 30 years.
That said, I would think there is a residency requirement, right? Ironically, while you might be able to get a motorcycle endorsement based on walking into an Alabama DMV office and taking a written test, I would think they would only issue it to you if you could provide proof of residency and surrendered any out of state license you already had, no?
In NY, NJ, and MD at least (the three states I have gotten driver’s licenses in), I was not allowed to get a license for those states while having a valid license from another state, and also had to show utility bills, tax forms, bank statements or whatnot to show why I was to be considered a state resident.
If Alabama allows any Joe Schmo to walk in, show a birth certificate or US passport, take a written test, and walk out with an Alabama driver’s license with as many endorsements as they can pass a written test for, with no verified address in Alabama but a UPS drop box, … Wow.
My friend lived in Hawaii since his father was in the Air Force. At that time his sister got her drivers license at 15. Right after that they moved to Mass. where the driving age was 17 but they let her have a Mass. license. They probably would not do that now. She spent 2 years driving a lot of her friends around since they had to wait until 17 to drive.
No loophole but my thought would be accident/accidental entry at DMV. Short version is that at one time I was “daylight driving only” and then PA changed the codes. My license came, legal and all, with the daylight restriction removed and tractor trailer added. :smack: I later dropped the additional but I never quite remembered to correct the other error. So barring some in-depth search going back 40 years after I kill all the residents of a small county in an accident, I consider myself safe and legal.
(At the same time (40 years back) a friend got a motorcycle endorsement he didn’t actually have and has used it the last 10 years. Two tickets but no-one seems to have noticed the other little detail.)
I knew how to ride but took the MSF class anyway, the instructor was good. I had to wait 6 months to take the class at the local community college. Most surprising thing was my class was about 80% women. I think it’s because many guys think they can learn on their own.
Another vote/endorsement for the MSF course. I’ve said this before but I took the class even though I had about 400k miles under my belt and a valid license since I was 16. After my stroke I sat out for 10 years and when I started again I remembered basically what to do but not why; and I had a couple close calls. So since its free in my state ------ why not? It worked – barely had any close calls at all and this with a lot of riding in the city and all.
I was the only one in the class licensed and the main instructor was an old friend from the bygone ages. And he used me to help put everyone else at ease during the riding tests.
“For this part I want you to do X. Now remember, you can fail this part and still pass the test. Except for Kopek – him we’ll wrestle to the ground and burn his license.”
“For this part I want you to do Y. Now remember, you can fail this part and still pass the test. Except for Kopek – we’ll notify his HOG Chapter and have him mocked for life.”
“For this part I want you to do Z. Now remember, you can fail this part and still pass the test. Except for Kopek – I’ll have the video on YouTube before the first of you leaves here.”
:smack:
The abuse I take from my friends.
(I actually did get gigged two points. That Figure 8 was never my strong point.)
Ah, so the original question was a reading and comprehension test, and the thread itself became another reading and comprehension test, and it was all about a written test ! :smack:
Yeah, no, I meant that in jest. It’s all on me: I didn’t parse the original question correctly… and then I missed the part where you said “this is the answer” :D.
