Is Motorcycling dying?

[special one]

I am having to fork out £696 (luckily that was discounted) for my Direct to Access training and Licence. It's one big money making racket. Lucky I have money put away for this. No wonder the numbers are declining.

Mate let me tell you that it is not the trainers who are making the money.I have been doing it over 20 years now and things have never been so bad. We used to charge £99 for CBT including bike hire in year 2000. What do we charge today £100! 13 years later we are charging £1 more. The cerificate we give you costs us £5 more than in year 2000, the bikes and insurance that we supply is more expensive as is fuel, tyres, spares, road tax etc.thats without talking rent, business rates,phone, heating, lighting, public liability and professional indemnity insurance etc, etc needed to operate a school.Professional DAS instuctors expect to earn around £100 or so a day which is the going rate, more if using their own bike as you would expect.
Legislation has pushed up costs, we now have to run 50cc,125cc,500cc (A2) and 600cc (DAS)bikes.
You have theory test £31, mod 1 £15.50, mod 2 £75 included in your training fees 20% of what you pay goes to the VAT man (15% VAT in 2000). Our most expensive (6 full days) course is £799 which is a fair amount but when broken down is in all honestly not enough.
The best days for training schools were in the early 90's when people were paying £425 for a 5 day course on a 125cc bike.
Don't think thank we are all driving Bentleys around on our days off!

You are cheap, too cheap tbh.

Most places in brum charge around £130 for cbt now, i paid £120 for mine in 2008.

[-Ralph-]

Thanks for the info Simon & Freeloader, you learn something new every day!

[minkyhead]

were stuck with it ...
but when your ready tp move up you have already had the training and past the test once ...when its time to move up you have two more years expieriance

so taking another test on a wont be as big a deal as everone is making out
it will cost 90 quid to retake it
i honestly dont see the big fuss about riding
a basic route safley with no serious errors for 35 minutes ??
lets be positive about it it isnt hard to do B)

[Simon_100]

Thanks for the info Simon & Freeloader, you learn something new every day!

Date I mention straight bananas and square tomatoes

[jonny955]

were stuck with it ...
but when your ready tp move up you have already had the training and past the test once ...when its time to move up you have two more years expieriance

so taking another test on a wont be as big a deal as everone is making out
it will cost 90 quid to retake it
i honestly dont see the big fuss about riding
a basic route safley with no serious errors for 35 minutes ??
lets be positive about it it isnt hard to do B)

The test itself may indeed be quite straightforward. It's the logistics that may be the issue.

Does that £90 include both modules and hire of the bigger bike for both modules too? Does it allow for the bike to be delivered to the test centre because you cannot ride it unless under instruction? I imagine the bike training schools will offer packages to get you through the next stage, including hiring you the bike and some additional instruction (refresher) lessons at the same time. I don't think £90 will cover it.

Taking the cost aside, the new regulations are an incentive for the most vulnerable of all riders (125cc learners) to ignore the test altogether and simply re-do the CBT every two years. If the aim was to reduce casualties in this group of riders than it's an epic fail.

Jon

[Buellie]

You are cheap, too cheap tbh.

Most places in brum charge around £130 for cbt now, i paid £120 for mine in 2008.

We charged £130 from 2007 to 2008 but due to a price war around the London area people just go elsewhere if you ask £130 now, they are price conditioned @£100

[Buellie]

Dead right minkyhead no young riders will bother with A1, and yes £90 is just the fees to the DSA, that is probably the main reason we are faced with extra tests.

Also the fact that DSA do not trust training schools to provide a uniform training programme to upgrade licences via the training route.

[Freeloadeur]

were stuck with it ...
but when your ready tp move up you have already had the training and past the test once ...when its time to move up you have two more years expieriance

so taking another test on a wont be as big a deal as everone is making out
it will cost 90 quid to retake it
i honestly dont see the big fuss about riding
a basic route safley with no serious errors for 35 minutes ??
lets be positive about it it isnt hard to do B)

See that's the kind of thinking legislators want you to have, when in fact regulations are changed constantly, and governments (particularly this omnishambles) have bowed to public opinion on a number of occasions (and between roundly criticised for doing so).

Are we stuck with the current system of licencing? Probably yes, although some European governments haven't even adopted it (making a mockery of a supposed uniform licencing. For the UK to pull out now, we'd probably all have to vote UKIP.

Are we stuck with the current testing system? We don't have to be, as long as certain standards are shown to have been met, the method of transition can be changed at will by our elected politicians.

Will the politicians do anything to change? No, not while they think the system in place works, and not while they think there's a lack of public interest in changing it. Show them that there is, offer them an alternative that passes their cost-benefit analysis (the benefit largely being that they get to stay in power) and there's a chance of change.

This is where lobby groups should come in, but sadly they don't, there's been little publicity in the Biking press about the changes other than to say "oh look this happened, here's a different bunch of bikes for us to test" and I've seen nothing from MAG about it, preferring as they do to focus more on threatened changes to the bikes they ride than whether the next generation will bother with bikes at all.

As for the comment about a quick 35 minute jaunt, and a £90 fee, have you seen the current two part test? The requirement to do it at one of the new motorcycle test centres? I live in West London and realistically to get there in time to have a pause, a calming ciggie or two and a cup of coffee I'd have to book a bike and an instructor to accompany me for around 3 hours, remember I'd have to do that twice because there's two modules. Six hours bike and instructor will set me back more than £90.

Add into all that the general faff of booking, maybe getting time off work, the nerves many of us feel at the thought of a test, and it's yet another thing to put anyone off biking, let alone a youngster whose parents probably don't want him or her on a bike anyway, and whose mates are all going for their car licences, so they can listen to the stereo, drive their friends about, and frankly, shag on the back seat of mum's school-run-mobile.

[Freeloadeur]

On the subject of cost/benefit analysis, it makes far more sense for a youngster wanting to get into bikes to get the bank of mum & dad to pay for lessons to drive a car, seen as a useful life skill unlike hobby biking (mum will like that anyway as those bikes are dangerous), and then after do a CBT and get a cheap scooter when their parents realise that putting their off-spring on their car insure has quadrupled the price, pointing out that later on they'll do the mature and sensible thing and buy a proper vehicle with four wheels and a roof.