Really, I’ve never seen advertisements anywhere that say you need a separate license for motorcycles. I’ve moved from state to state quite a few times and never in the process of getting a new license or establishing residency in a new state have I ever seen posters or been told in any way that I’d need a separate license if I wanted to operate a motorcycle.
A great number of bikers do not have motorcyle licenses, for whatever reasons.
I’m really not sure why people seem to care about this at all. It’s a licensing matter and just means Arnold will have to go get a license and possible pay an incredibly trivial fine.
It is still illegal not to have one if you have a motorcycle.
It is a trivial fine now, but you are ignoring that he had an accident without a license before; by this time any other regular Joe should be facing more severe penalties.
So? It’s illegal to exceed 65 miles per hour on the interstate here in Virginia, yet I do it every day. I’m willing to bet most everyone else who drives the interstate does so as well.
In general society doesn’t take it as the biggest deal in the world if you break one of the many regulatory laws out there that result in trifling fines as a consequence.
How many of us have forgotten to get our car’s inspected before the sticker expires? How many people have forgotten to get their registration updated? How many have driven around having forgotten to put your updated proof of insurance form you recently received in the mail in your glove box?
Sure it’s illegal. But that also doesn’t make it a big deal. I agree people should be required to get licenses to operate motor vehicles, but I also typically don’t think minor vehicle regulatory violations are a big deal.
More than likely average Joe still wouldn’t be in a lot of trouble. He’d probably have to pay a heftier fine this time around and would be threatened with losing his regular driver’s license and some other bad things if he didn’t immediately get a motorcycle license.
As it is, it’s possible the police weren’t even aware of the fact that he didn’t have a motorcycle license prior to this. It’s possible that Schwarzenegger settled the first thing without involving the police, lots of people who have collisions with motor vehicles that are parked will just leave contact info and then later compensate the person who’s car they damaged or exchange insurance information.
It’s also possible the police were involved, and they may have just accepted Arnold’s regular driver’s license and not thought twice about the fact that it wasn’t a motorocycle license.
Or maybe they gave him a pass because he was the governor (or was it before he was governor?)
California cops don’t make too big a deal of it either. I was pulled over riding a motorcycle in Berkeley a few years ago. No motorcycle license. The cop didn’t even mention it – just told me I had coasted a stop sign a little too agressively, and to watch it in the future. (I think he was checking to see if I had been drinking – it was around midnight. I hadn’t been.)
**Not true. ** It is only illegal if you drive a motorcycle on a public highway. You can “have” all you want, and even ride them off road, or at a racetrack. And, it is also only illegal if you drive your motorcycle without a sidecar.
Yes, I know- and I’d expect one to know- that you need a different class of license to operate a side-car-less motorcycle on a public highway.
BUT the whole point is- the Governator was driving his motorcycle *with * a sidecar. Generally, only a “class C” license is needed- which he has. I have heard there is some quibble going on about the type of sidecar. Now, that I’d never heard of, and IF it turns out that Arnold’s sidecar isn’t quite the “right” sort to qualify for “only” a Class C license, then this is certainly a tempest in a teapot.
Typically if there is going to be any filming done on public roads that would involve a chase scene or anything like that I’m sure paperwork is filed and “exceptions” made so that standard traffic laws no longer apply.
Otherwise stunt men would be paying tickets constantly for speeding, reckless driving, et cetera.
I’m actually not even sure as to how often the practice of filming road-scenes on real roads actually is, or if it was even done extensively in any of the movies Schwarzenegger filmed.
I do know that the chase scene in the French Connection was supposedly filmed illegally and in real traffic (the baby carriage was staged, though.)
AFAIK, states don’t issue a separate license to operate motorcycles, mopeds, buses, or commercial motor vehicles. You obtain a license, period. The class of license determines what you may legally operate, along with special endorsements.
Apparently there’s a conflict in the CA MVC regarding definition of legally appropriate vehicles for a class C and what defines a motorcycle re number of wheels, etc.
Somebody operating a motorcycle without the proper endorsement fails to get my hackles up. Their greatest danger is likely to themselves. So he tests for a motorcycle, and life goes on.