South Carolina now requires a seperate license for 3-wheelers
Click above for high-res gallery of the Piaggio MP3 400 and 500
While some riders of three-wheeled vehicles are having problems getting their vehicles registered in Ohio (help is on the way), riders in South Carolina are about to need additional licensing. There seems to be some sort of waiver available for riders who already rode a trike before this new law went into effect, but any new riders will need a specific endorsement on their licenses. There will be separate endorsements for vehicles with two wheels as well as vehicles sporting a third, which will likely include bikes with sidecars, trikes and reverse trikes, like the Piaggio MP3 and Can-Am Spyder.
Interestingly, this law is said to exclude "a tractor or automotive three-wheel vehicle." That sounds more than a little ambiguous to us, and we wonder how it will be interpreted as this law goes into effect. What about the Aptera? We're thinking that perhaps a steering wheel or a non-saddle seat may be required to pass as an "automotive three-wheel vehicle," but it would be best to check with the proper authorities in South Carolina to be sure.
Gallery: Piaggio MP3 ride pictures
[Source: South Carolina DMV via The Kneeslider]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
on3wheels.net 10:42PM (6/20/2008)
This is very interesting. I believe currently in California a literal reading of the code would imply that an M1 is _not_ needed to operate the MP3 (as it does not fall into the sidecar/hack category), so I wonder if we'll be seeing some rewriting of the codes to remove ambiguity as relating to the MP3 and other "tilting" 3 wheelers.
-On3Wheels
http://www.on3wheels.net
Reply
on3wheels.net 11:17PM (6/20/2008)
Upon further research, there is already a line in the code relating to the MP3 as falling under the catagory of "motorcycle". Still, as this post shows, there's lots of confusion all around:
http://www.modernvespa.com/forum/topic25430
-On3Wheels
http://www.on3wheels.net
Reply
slk23 12:33AM (6/21/2008)
I don't get too excited about typos in the body of an article. But in the title? It's spelled "separate", not "seperate".
Reply