It doesn’t take much to start riding a motorcycle; $10 Check or Money order payable to PENNDOT, answer 16 questions correctly out of 20, buy yourself a motorcycle and a helmet. Then you can ride legally from sun up to sun down … Once you feel you’re experienced enough to become licensed, you go take your motorcycle driving test and if you pass, you get yourself a Class M on your driver’s license …
There is an alternative, and it’s the choice I made … I elected to take the PA Motorcycle Safety Program … It’s free to PA residents, and once completed, you get yourself a Class M license … You don’t need anything to take the class except the ability to ride a bicycle and the motorcycle learner’s permit … You could have never ridden a motorcycle in your life … They provide motorcycles and helmets … So, you could take this class and upon passing, you can go get yourself your own motorcycle and already be licensed … Or, you could determine whether riding a motorcycle is right for you …
The MSP takes 4 days … 2 days of class and 2 days of riding … The first class is 2.75 hours and gets you acquianted with riding, etc … The second class is 5 hours of learning to ride … The third class is 2.75 hours of more book learning and finally your question test that you must pass to get your Class M license … The last class is 5 more hours of riding … If you pass, you get a card that you present next time you take your license photo and you have the Class M added to your normal driver’s license … Up until then, the card counts as your Class M driver’s license …
You can sign up online for the program … I found that it was pretty much full when I decided to get into it … I had to wait for a sign up date (which is after 8:00AM on Monday mornings) and as I sat in front of my computer, I watched it fill up … I signed up May 22nd for a class to begin July 19th … My only option was a class that happened on Wednesdays and Sundays since I work on the weekends … There were only a certain amount of these classes as well … I decided that I would try to get into an earlier class as a “Walk-In” by going to the class on the day it started and hoped that there were no-shows … If all the classes are full to begin with, you can register as an “alternate” … So, when I went as a walk-in, I had to wait for them to register all the confirmed participants, then register any alternates that showed, then I would have a chance to get in … I showed up an hour and a half early to try to get into this class … Guess what? I got in …
Even though I already have a motorcycle, I am going to use theirs … You have the option of using your own if you want … The thing about it is, the ones they provide are usually smaller in size than something you’d buy so this makes them lighter and easier to drive for your learning/testing … I just took the first class last night … There was a very mixed bag of people there … Men and women of all colors and ages … The guy sitting next to me was 68 … The guy on my other side was probably in his early 20s … He didn’t seem too happy about the class and asked a lot of questions that are already answered on the web site … It seemed an inconvenience to him … ‘We have to go through this to get our license?’ … ‘How long is this?’ … ‘OMG, 5 hours?!’ …
It doesn’t seem an inconvenience to me … I think it should be a requirement … Riding on two wheels out there with other idiots on two and four wheels, I want all the ammunition available to me … I have already learned from riding, there are some simple basics that you should know … They don’t tell you when you buy a motorcycle how to drive it, and the book from PENNDOT just covers traffic laws and basic safety … The number 1 thing that I needed to learn was turning the wrong way to turn the right way … It has to be the most amazing sensation driving the bike … To turn right, I press on the right handgrip … Normally (and any sane person) you’d think that pressing on the right handgrip would turn the front tire left and you would go left … This isn’t the case … Once I came to that realization, I realized that a Motorcycle Safety Program is something that I should definitely take …
I was searching Riunite Blackberry Merlot on the web and came across your site. Interesting reading. I’m bookmarking you to read later. What a coincidence. I saw your link to the Eagles. I’m a diehard fan. Being Eagles fans, aren’t we all. It gets kind of hard and lonely down here. Lots of Panthers losers I mean fans. At least I’m two hour from Charlotte. Anyway, I just like to grab to opp. to speak to fellow Eagles.