PORTLAND, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage has signed a new bill into law, to try to make roads safer for motorcycle riders.
Last year, 32 motorcyclists were killed in crashes on Maine roads.
The new law takes effect immediately. Before, Mainers had two ways they could get a motorcycle endorsement on their driver’s license. Now there’s only one, and it will end up costing Mainers more money.
At 32 deaths, 2015 was the deadliest year for motorcycle riders since 1991. Christopher Moreno, 27, from Poland was killed when an alleged drunk driver failed to yield a right of way and hit Moreno’s motorcycle head-on with his pickup truck. Moreno’s sister, Christie Green, said her brother loved to ski, fix cars and ride his motorcycle.
“He just always wanted to have fun,” Green said. “Whatever he was doing, he was finding something fun about it.”
Under the new law, the Maine Motorcycle Safety Education Course will no longer be recognized by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. That was an eight-hour classroom-only course that allowed riders to get a permit and later take a road test.
Now you must complete a Basic Rider Course to be legal on the road. It’s a 15-hour course of classroom instruction and hands-on training, where riders must pass a written test and motorcycle skills test. The cost of this course is $400.
The state is allowing people who took the other course to be grandfathered in. Even so, motorcyclist Matt Bryant thinks the $400 is money well-spent if it saves lives.
“Most people … need time on a bike,” Bryant said. “They need to be taught. And whether it’s in a class or whether it’s on the street, they need to know how to handle it. There’s a lot of things going on on the roads these days. You know, people texting and driving. And it happens, and they don’t pay attention. So people need to know how to control a motorcycle and what to do.”
One local motorcycle dealer we spoke with says there was no need to get rid of the Maine Motorcycle Safety Education Course. He said that course offered the exact same training only at a lesser cost.