• This topic has 8 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by rt60.
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  • Classic motorbike rules?
  • thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Does anyone know of a resource that gives the legal requirements for old bikes (or I suppose cars).

    Dad’s just gone and bought an old Bantam and so far we’ve figured out that
    a) a daylight MOT isn’t actually a thing, you get a full MOT and an advisory not to use it at night as long as it has no working lights at all.
    b) you don’t even need a brake light
    c) you don’t even have to have a speedo to pass the MOT!

    ‘C’ applies to new vehicles too! Although this is where it get’s difficult, as it would (probably) have been a legal requirement that it had on when new. So that’s the list we need.

    It’s old enough that it doesn’t even need an MOT, but still needs to be ‘road legal’, but can’t find anywhere that says exactly what that would entail.

    Rockhopper
    Free Member

    Construction and Use regulations are what you are after.

    mattsccm
    Free Member

    MOT is different to road legal although one usually means the other.
    No such thing as a day light MOT so you basically have it.
    lights have to be all or nothing, roughly. So no lights means no brake light. My bikes actually had nothing as a brake light then creates an incomplete lighting system.
    Speedo has never been needed as you can’t test I without riding.
    Why not contact the owners club or VMCC for the “rules” ?
    A Bantam is easy. I am trying to put a 1922 Watney on the road. That’s got rim front brakes and a hand gear change. At least it has lighting but itsa pain keeping the carbide alight.

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    Sundayjumper
    Full Member

    I remember ‘C’ from a Mk1 Escort I had, that passed its MOT on a re-test and the inspector raising an eyebrow that it had done zero miles between failing and being re-tested despite having been taken home to fix the other failure points 🙂

    IIRC the speedo is in the construction & use regs though, so it *is* a requirement if you’re using it on the road (unless it’s so old it never had one in the first place, I assume)

    zanelad
    Free Member

    I had my trackbike “daytime” MOT’d.

    Just needed horn and a speedo (it was a newish bike). If yuo have a light, you have to have them all that were fitted at the time the vehicle was first registered. You cannot opt for a brake light alone. All or nothing. Indicator need depends on the age of the vehicle.

    Strictly speaking it should have failed the test as I’d left the switch gear on the bike as it was a right faff to remove it as the kill switch was part of the assembly.

    Of course, complying with the construction and use reg is another matter. I never felt really happy using it on the road in case it broke down, (a real possibilty with a Laverda) and I was kept out after dark, or a zealous police office stopped me and went over the bike with a fine tooth comb.

    Still, it was OK for the odd Sunday morning blast for an hour or so.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    dont need an speedo to work for a car either…. so long as if its present its not cracked in a way that obscures it view and it can be lit up.

    how ever get caught speeding and it not working/passed an mot is not a defence.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Yup, its the construction and use rules im after, but I can only find the 1986 version in the road traffic act? Presumably there ahould be a 1940’s or earlier version?

    namastebuzz
    Free Member

    a real possibilty with a Laverda

    Aaaaah…..

    I well remember my mates’s Formula 750 blowing up on the Edinburgh by-pass in spectacular fashion and having to take him down to Donnington on the back of my Fireblade (which didn’t break down).

    rt60
    Full Member

    If it’s pre 1960 it doesn’t need an MOT, which I guess may or may not help with a Bantam

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