Motorcycles offer more freedom than other transportation. While savoring especially new or inexperienced riders who don’t know much about traffic and road laws make mistakes that lead to penalties. Let’s find out the riding mistakes that can lead us to penalties.
1. Not knowing the local laws
The main mistake in getting penalties is not knowing the local laws about motorcycling properly. The common laws of every state such as speed limits, mandatory gear wear, carrying a driving license and insurance, correct use of lights and horns, or other motorcycle riding rules. There are also laws such as road legality, fitness of the motorcycle, and legal modifications most riders don’t know about.
2. Over speeding
Almost all of us motorcycle riders know that crossing the speed limit will result in penalties but still, we can not control ourselves to overspeeding. Most of the time in the circle of overtaking we forget about speeding which leads us to penalties. In addition to getting a ticket for overspeeding, your driving license can be suspended and if an accident occurs, your driving license can be revoked for a lifetime and imprisonment also happens. The majority of the time riders lead to penalties for overspeeding.
3. Reckless driving
Accidents are not always caused not only by speeding but also by reckless driving. Reckless driving includes stunts on the road, waving, lane splitting, overtaking with close calls, improper signals, breaking the traffic rules, and running through red lights or stop signs. A motorcycle rider shouldn’t drive such recklessly. This type of driving put your and other lives endanger. It leads to hefty fines, legal trouble, and revoked driving a motorcycle for a lifetime.
4. Not wearing protective gear
In every state, to prevent penalties you must have to wear a helmet when you are on the highway. In some states you you will see along with helmets, wearing shoes has also been made mandatory. Not only beginners but also many old motorcyclists get penalties for not wearing safety gear as required by their local road laws. Wearing appropriate gear prevents getting penalties and also works as a lifesaver.
5. Riding under the influence
If you get caught driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, in consequences you will face Severe fines, license suspension, and imprisonment. Drunken driving is illegal and strictly prohibited In every state, according to their laws. A drunk rider gets out of his normal sense and that can lead to any kind of accident that could be fatal for him and others on the road.
6. Riding without papers
By papers I mean, motorcycle ownership, driving license, insurance, etc. Most of the raiders forget to carry papers with them and some don’t even have required papers. When the highway police want to see the papers, they do fine if those papers are not shown. This has happened to me several times. I left my house in a rush and forgot to take the documents, resulting in a fine. Twice in between was happened to me that, I called my brother and once to my father to get the papers as I was close to home which saved me from getting penalties. Since then I started carrying papers under the back seat of my motorcycle. If you have forgetfulness like me you should also find a place to keep the papers like I did.
7. Illegal modifications
By modification, you can make your motorcycle as per your thoughts. Modifications are legally valid up to a certain limit. There are some changes we do to our motorcycles like installing excessively loud exhaust, removing looking glasses, removing nameplates, and many more like this fall under illegal modification. Modifications like these are enough to get penalties.
8. Carrying excessive weight and passengers
Motorcycles are usually very compact and easy to transportation system. They are designed to carry a limited number of passengers and weight. Where excess passengers and weight are carried in violation of the law, accidents occur due to loss of control. Due to these riders get penalties and in some cases also suffer imprisonment and license revocation for life endangerment. Most state laws do not allow more than 1 passenger on a motorcycle. You will get the legal weight limitation information for your motorcycle from your motorcycle user manual.
Mainly these are the most common mistakes that we make in motorcycling and get penalties. When you are aware of your local laws not only will you be able to save lives, but also penalties and legal troubles as well.