• ChrisFhey@kbin.socialOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m not American though. I’m from Belgium, but I’m 35 so I immediately went for my full A licence which allows me to ride any motorcycle.

    • Pisodeuorrior@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      The way I got my full A was… interesting.

      So, in Italy (where I’m from) they changed the law two months before I got my B licence, in 1991.

      Before then, a B would allow you to drive any bike, whereas after the change you had to take a written and driving test for the first A (125cc I believe?) then another for 600cc etc.

      Long story short, I couldn’t drive bikes above 50cc with my B.

      Fast forward many years, I moved to the UK, converted my B to its British version, stayed there 12 years, then moved back to Italy and made the conversion again.

      I didn’t pay any attention to it, until a couple of years later when I walked to a shop to buy a scooter.

      They needed a copy of my licence, so I picked it up, turned it around and noticed that it included the A as well.

      “Hold on a second, what can I drive with this?”

      "The guy has and look and went “EVERYTHING”, so I said to forget about the scooter and bought my first bike instead:)

      Basically someone at the licence office fucked up when they converted from British to Italian, I never took any test. Oh well.

      • ChrisFhey@kbin.socialOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, the way it works around here is that every licence is age-limited. So you can get an A1 at 18, which allows you to ride a 125. A2 at 20, which allows you to ride up to 35kw I believe, and full A at 24 (or 22, and owner of an A2 licence for 2 years).

        • blindbunny@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Is this just for Belgium or all of Europe?

          How new is this? Was this reformed after brexit?

          35kw is a very strange limitation I wonder how they came to that number.

          • ChrisFhey@kbin.socialOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            It is generally standardised across Europe as far as I know, although the age limits can differ across countries.
            No idea when this was introduced as I never really looked into it. And I don’t really know why they chose 35kw either, but they had to draw the line somewhere, I suppose. :)