The guy who bought mine asked questions like; is it a 600? Is it 1 down 5 up shifting? Maybe he'd ridden a small dirt bike years ago. He didn't seem to really understand he was buying a sport bike that was mostly used for track days not street riding. He seemed like he was capable and conscientious, but who knows for sure. I was super green buying my first bike.

 

Well, I just sold the bike.

The buyer was an inexperienced rider, but had ridden a dirtbike, and brought someone with them who actually had an F4i (who test rode it and is the one who rode it home). I felt much comfortable with the 'vibe' they gave, the man buying it was an adult and clearly understood that this was a motorcycle and not a toy.

It wasn't easy to see the F4i go.

 

I would have told them the risks and my opinion on riding a supersport home with zero riding experience, but still would have sold them the bike. I have no duty to protect them.

 

It's a difficult one but I would probably have done the same thing & refused to sell it.


It's one thing for a really inexperienced rider to be buying a powerful bike if they have the correct license, we all have to start somewhere after all & if they have the correct license, who are we to decide they have the experience or not.


It's a totally different scenario for someone with no license to buy a bike & expect to actually ride it home with no helmet.


I wonder whether there would even be legal implications. I know if a driver allows a passenger to be in their car without a seat belt, then the driver can be prosecuted because they are the person responsible for the vehicle & passengers. Same applies to a pillion not wearing a helmet - the person riding the bike is legally responsible for making sure their pillion is wearing a properly fastened helmet.


If you had sold it to them, he crashes & the police investigating the incident discover you let him ride off no helmet, no insurance, no license etc, is there the potential for you to be prosecuted? I'm no lawyer so don't know the answer.


Ultimately, I think you did the right thing.

 

You did the wrong thing. Its not your place to dictate how others use the life they are given.
My F4i was the first street bike I ever rode. Had no insurance, no permit, no registration, no gear what so ever, but it was mine and glorious so I rode it. Guess what? I'm still riding it. Life goes on regardless of what you think it should be.

 

I don't think me choosing to sell or not sell my bike to someone is the same as dictating how they use their life. That kid probably went and bought a GSXR later that day.

I also find it interesting that you put the caveat in there that the F4i was the first street bike you ever rode; does that mean you had ridden dirt bikes before?

If you see my later post in here, I did end up selling the bike to someone else who didn't have a motorcycle license yet, but who had ridden a dirt bike before (and who also happened to be a legal adult, had planned a way to get the bike home, and just in general gave me the impression that I wasn't going to end up getting a call from the local police when they found parts of a bike still registered to me scattered across an intersection).

 

I don't know if there would have been any direct legal implications of me letting them ride off without a helmet, insurance, license, any of that, though there might have been an issue with the bill-of-sale and as-is-condition selling to someone who apparently wasn't 18 (I assume the kid was still 17 because they said 'turning 18'). I can only imagine the kid blowing the transmission up because he didn't know how a manual works, them deciding to take me to small claims court because I sold them a broken bike, and claiming the as-is bill-of-sale isn't a valid contract because the kid wasn't 18...I suppose I probably would have had to try and get the dad to sign the bill of sale (I wasn't entirely sure if the dad was buying it for the kid or what).

Another thing I was considering was, based on their attitude about licenses, that it was pretty unlikely that they were going to register and title the bike. I had that bite me on a used car I sold once; the person who bought it never registered it, and apparently abandoned it in an alley (or the person they sold it to did) a couple years later. It was a huge PIA, even with the bill of sale (which wasn't required in my state at the time, and it was really only luck that I had kept it so long for no real reason), to get out of paying the tickets and towing fees. So I was thinking that when the bike ended up wrecked someplace, the cops would probably run the VIN and give me call...