Changes to bike test revealed

Changes to the motorcycle test aimed at improving safety have emerged.

Exercises in which many learners have crashed will be conducted at lower speeds to make them safer.

Previously learners have been strictly required to reach at least 31mph before swerving around cones and performing an emergency stop, but trials are underway in which they only have to go 27mph.

They are also given more time to prepare with an 85-metre straight run-up to exercises. In the current test they only have a few metres’ straight run-up.

At the moment the exercises take place off-road on circuits at test centres but the trials simulate how they will be conducted when they are moved to the road within months.

It means learners will sit a single on-road test whereas now they must take two, one off-road and one on.

Roads minister Mike Penning announced his intention to move the test to road in MCN last year but details of how it will be conducted – including the new 27mph minimum speed and longer run-up – have just emerged.   

The speed has already recently been lowered from 31 to 30mph, and rules relaxed so that going too slowly counts as one ‘fault’ instead of instant failure.

The plans are revealed in a document sent to rider training firms taking part in the trials, with real learners on a ‘mock roads’ at race tracks including Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Mallory Park, and Rockingham between now and November.

A Department for Transport spokeswoman confirmed: “We are trialling new manoeuvres.”

Read our full report on the new test in MCN, on sale now.