Bike Tester Story.

A post in another section of the forum about bike testing and ntta etc had my thinking about someone I knew and a strange story about his bike testing career.


The tester in question had been Moting for years, started on cars in the 80's and then moved to a local garage I used to use in my younger days for tests. When he started due to the nature of the garage which did alot of motorbike tests he was encouraged to test bikes. reluctantly he called the local office (this is in early 90's by this point) and asked about bike testing, he was told no probs just give us a call when your ready and will send the VE out.
VE pops out watches a test and signs him off, or what ever they did in them days before Comp1.

Now forward 17 years later when the tester was unfortunately diagnosed with prostate cancer and he decided enough was enough, he gave his notice to work out, 2 weeks before he was to retire through ill health, The local VE pops in on a routine Spot check and they go through a bike test on this occasion and all is good.

However just after the check and general niceties chit chat the conversation goes'


VE - So what Bike do you Ride then

NT- Bike, Oh no, Bloody death trap them things

VE- So why have a Bike Licence then ?

NT- BIKE WHAT !!! 

   Yes you guessed it, He didn't have or ever have a motorbike licence. Needles to say he wasn't allowed to Test bikes for last 2 weeks. lol. 


Was not great experience for the AE who had a months of issues with vosa finding out why he was allowed to test, turned out to be a vosa fault and nothing ever came of it.