Today I finally kicked a five year old monkey off my back!
In the summer of 1999 I finally got around to obtaining my motorcycle license. It was necessary in order to fulfill my Year 2000 goal of spending the summer motorcycling around Europe. Unfortunately for me, the province of Ontario had instituted a graduated licensing program which increased the beaurocracy, cost, and time consumption of the whole process.
Here is how graduated licensing works currently:
- Step 1: Get your M1 license. This requires a simple written test and lasts 90 days. Restrictions are: 0 blood alchohol level, daylight riding only, no highways with speed limit > 80km/h, and no passengers
- Step 2: Between 60 and 90 days, you must take an obstacle course ride test to graduate to an M2 license. This license lasts 5 years from the date of issue. Restrictions are: 0 blood alcohol level
- Step 3: Between 22 months and 5 years, you must take an on-road ride test to graduate to a full M license. Restrictions are: none (essentially meaning that you can now have a drink before riding!)
Taking a riding training course allows you to slightly fast-track this schedule, but more importantly, it teaches some extremely valuable riding skills that riders need outside of what you need to pass the test. I highly recommend that anyone interested in getting a motorcycle license take a certified rider training course in their area. Some starting points to find them are:
Ottawa Area: Ottawa Safety Council Motorcycle Rider Course
Ontario: Canada Safety Council Ontario
Canada: Canada Safety Council
United States: Motorcycle Safety Foundation
Anyway, since the M2 is essentially a full license, only requiring that you not consume alcoholic beverages before riding (which I wouldn’t dream of anyway), I never got around to doing my M2 Exit test. Until this spring when I received a letter indicating that my license was about to expire and failure to take the exit exam would result in my starting over with an M1 license!
So I quickly scheduled a ride test and scrambled to figure out what I needed to know in order to keep the examiners happy. As it happens, I ride pretty much by the book anyway and I just needed to focus on never breaking the speed limit (which, of course I never do…) and moving my head in a very exaggerated way to make sure they saw me checking my mirrors and blind spots.
Fortunately for me, I passed without any preparation. Perhaps that is indicative of the graduated program working properly. Lots of riding experience has given me the confidence and necessary skills to be a good rider. If I had developed some bad habits or wasn’t a very confident rider, I likely would not have passed the test. Compare this to the old system where a rider or driver learned the necessary techniques to pass the original test and was never tested again, no matter how good or bad a driver he or she may become.
I still haven’t decided whether I agree with the graduated program or not, but I’m sure my perspective would have been different if I had failed today.
I am glad that I am done with my driver testing forever more though! (knock on wood)
