How many new motorcyclists are there in the UK, I bet it’s down year on year because the new rules make it so hard to get a license.
When I decided I wanted to ride in the early 80s, I went down to the DMV in Utah to find out the requirements. They gave me the written test, instead, which I passed simply with common sense, and that was it.
I was able to get a Japanese drivers license from my Utah one, which included motorcycle endorsement. Japan has three classes: under 250 cc, from 250 cc to 399 cc and then 400 cc and over. (The 400 cc bikes are all really 399.)
They gave me the middle class and said that I would have to go through normal testing for the larger one. That would have taken about US$2,000 so I decided against it.
As the OP states, scooters are popular in Japan (although not as popular as in Taiwan). They are included with automobile licenses, so no additional testing is required. For all motorcycle endorsements or licenses, there is some fairly rigorous testing which includes not only the parking lot stuff, but also track as well.
Even if that is the case it probably makes no significant difference. From here 80% of people who hold a motorcyle licence do not ride, so the long-established pattern continues to hold - take up motorcycling when young, give it up when you can afford a nice car or can no longer afford the regular frights.
Personally I think the tests need to include more long extended chats with people who have been riding for a while and tests on exactly what has caused their spills, just to encourage the mindset that you’d better be damn careful, and even so you may end up on the tarmac through no fault of your own - so wear helmet, leathers and armour.
I know one guy who has been riding his entire adult life and the causes of his spills range from “hit from behind by car while stationary at traffic circle” to “front wheel went over plastic tub lid-lying in roadway”. Bikes are very unforgiving and so it makes sense to make sure people can really ride them before turning them loose - particularly with the 3rd world road surfaces that seem to be prevalent in the US.
The numbers are a bit surprising, as I have always heard that in car/bike accidents, the car is at fault well over half the time – but that’s just talk, not hard numbers.
I can tell you that the reason I personally don’t ride a motorcycle, even though I’d like to, is not because I think I’d crash it on my own, but because I see how inattentive and dumb many drivers are, and I’m not entirely willing to put myself around them on a bike. I’d love to commute on a Ninja 250 – I think a small-displacement sportbike would be a great fit for me and a ton of fun – but I want to go home to my kid after work, and I see too many people doing way too many dumb things behind the wheel to trust them.
Likewise, I’ve heard that although most people who live in NYC do not drive, people who sell their car and move to NYC nonetheless maintain their driver’s license and renew it every few years as before. If you’re not actually driving, it’s ridiculously hard to have your license forcefully taken away.
Drive a car in London and you will see hundreds of them. They filter up between the lanes, overtake over double white lines and run red lights. If you collide with one it will most likely be deemed your fault.
London is a bit of a special case. The traffic is horrendous and the 11.50 GBP ($18) per day congestion charge makes it an even more expensive place to drive. Parking? Don’t ask:) Motorcycles go free.
Not true if you took your road test on a small motorcycle.
Twenty-six years ago in Minnesota (when and where you said you took your road test), there was a graduated endorsement system. That meant that you could most definitely NOT legally ride a motorcycle that was in a larger class size than the class size you took your test on.
IIRC, there were only two class sizes, above and below 500cc, but I may be wrong about that. There might have been three.
The Wisconsin MC skills test is not particularly difficult. I’m an MSF-certified instructor who teaches the MSF Basic Rider’s course next door in Minnesota, but I’m familiar enough with the Wisconsin test because I grew up there and rode there for many years.
The pass rate for the Wisconsin skills test is about the same as that in Minnesota, about 75%.
And while I don’t know whether the bit about putting the left foot down first is a part of the Wisconsin test, I know for sure that even if it is, failing to do so would only deduct your score by 2-3 points, and not be a cause to fail you outright.
People in both states (and elsewhere in the U.S., I’ll bet) don’t take the riding skills test to get their endorsement not because it’s so hard to pass, but because it’s just as easy (and cheaper) to just renew your learner’s permit year after year.
Incidentally, the pass rate for students taking the MSF Basic Rider’s course is about 95%, but that’s because students are fresh off of 10 hours of riding instruction that gives them the skills they need to pass the test. And maybe more important, they test on 250cc motorcycles or smaller that we supply them with, whereas the folks who test at state DMVs ride their own motorcycles, which are usually much larger.
That, and they have bad habits because they were self-taught, or were taught by so-called expert riders who themselves don’t know jack even after riding for several years. (You wouldn’t believe the nonsense I’ve heard from students who tell me about what motorcycle “experts” have tried to teach them about front-wheel braking, counter-steering, skid control, helmets, and the like.)
When I took my motorcycle practical in 1977, there was a facility around Keele St. off the 401 in Toronto. The practice road layout was a square with a center cross with all the accoutrements of a test area - left turn lane, traffic light, two lanes, etc. They preferred helmets with stripes down the back so they could tell, for example, if you shoulder checked when changing lanes, look both way at stop sign, etc. It took about 2 minutes if that. They gave you a pattern to drive. The tester followed your progress from a booth in the middle. (I’m told outside Toronto, often they gave you a route and the tester followed in a car.)
I don’t recall the written test, IIRC correct it was the same as a regular car learner’s permit. You got a permit to drive the bike out to the test and they warned you if you failed, you better find someone else to drive it home or it was a long push. I learned to drive and shift in Kings College circle in the University, where it was restricted access and the police weren’t likely to bother me to see my (non-existent) license.
Funny thing - I never got a car license. I had a “365 permit”, permanent equivalent of a learner permit, written test only, for driving a moped (49cc or less, 30mph or less). It looked like a car license, the guy filling out my new license didn’t look closely, so the handwritten form temporary license I got said “car and motorcycle”. I shortly went out west for a year, and handed that in to get an Alberta license - which, based on the Ontario temporary, also said “Car and motorcycle”. My printed Ontario license eventually was mailed to me and corrected the mistake - motorcycle only, but meanwhile I had a valid car license too. A year or so later, I returned to Ontario and they took my other license and gave me what it said, a car and motorcycle license. It was several years before I drove a car, but I was licensed.
My wife delights in reminding me whenever my car driving warrants it - “maybe you should learn how to drive a car properly”. The funny thing - the same happened to my brother… he went off to Newfoundland with his motorbike, traded in his Ontario bike-only license, and was given a car-and-bike license. Neither of us have ever taken car driving lessons or a car driving test.
I imagine the computer systems are better designed to catch this today.