So, after everyone's kind help and advice on mobile phones in trying (blank posting) circumstances, stepson has a new passion...
Gone is his burning desire for a swanky phone or ludicrous trainers. No, now he wants to blow his money on a "'ped".
I always thought that having my girls riding 2 tons of Tesco burgers over giant fences would be the scariest parenting got, but apparently not.

Before I get too far, I should point out that I'm not at all anti motorcycling or bikes. I know my own limits and therefore I've never ridden bikes myself, but I have many friends who love them and most of them have not had more than a couple of dozen life-threatening incidents.
However, if you had to compile a profile of a teenager with no concept of danger, no common sense, deeply susceptible to peer pressure and addicted to speed, you would be face to spotty face with my elder stepson. Fun he might be and talented at lots of things, but safe on a moped? Never.

If he was my kid, I'd be pushing a variety of schemes to try to get him to learn to drive a car and help him get his first 4-wheeled transport, but MrsC is more laissez-faire than me. The lad's dad is a keen biker, so I really hope he is able to at least persuade him of the responsibilities of safe biking - even on a moped.

Knowing my stepson (who, I should add, has only just turned 15, so his enthusiasm is a little premature), he will try to buy the most souped up, thrashed-and-trashed buzz-box, based on what "sick" stickers it has on it. For someone who reckons they want to become a mechanic, he really has not demonstrated a lot of practical nous.

So... Apart from "No, don't do it!", can anyone here offer me advice on such things as models of moped I should try to persuade him to look at, insurance (presumably horrendous), running and other expenses and - possibly crucially - training?

Many thanks everyone, I think this could be a battle...

Found this:

Grim but useful reading...

Any comments?

Jim

As a long time biker I fully appreciate your concerns. My youngest who certainly isn't the brightest or most sensible of my two bought himself a (few) ped(s) off ebay. Encourage your step son to do the same, as it would appear ebay peds don't work, or if they do, not for long.

I rode his ped and frankly it scared me. All the talk of restricting young drivers yet we allow 16 year olds with a death wish ride a death trap

Offer to help him buy a car at 17, but make it conditional on him having saved a fair chunk himself. Incidentally my youngest moved straight on to a car at the earliest opportunity without any significant offs..

I know it is not what you have asked for, but...

Jim, you could tell him you will agree on one very small condition - that until he has passed his driving test he has to wear a high-vis jacket whenever he rides it. That is the condition for him being able to keep the moped. It may be the sort of thing you would get backing on from Mrs C and the kid's dad as well.

That will put him right off, but if it doesn't it will make him safer.

Thanks RK, the eBay plan sounds like a good ruse. Although he is already talking buying a 'ped from a mate of a mate (possibly hard life lessons to be learned if it's been nicked, too...). Part of the problem is that he currently has about £500 in his pocket and knows he will pi55 it away if he doesn't do something "sensible" with it. Our definitions of sensible differ somewhat.

I've offered to help him move into 4-wheeled relative safety, but he is only just 15 and wetting himself with excitement now he has his big idea, so his ability to reason and see the point of view of someone he already regards as the dictionary definition of "kill-joy" is rather limited.

I spoke to a guy at a highly regarded Motorcyclist training company in Cambridge and he said that they offer nothing other than CBT and that from 16 onwards. His advice was "get him to read the Highway Code". Really? That's the best we can do?

It'll work fine, Emjay, right up to the first corner away from our house where he will take it off and stuff it in his pocket. The number of kids on push-bikes I pass on my way to work with helmets and hi-viz kit on their handlebars having been hastily removed to avoid looking "gay" beggars belief.

I bought and fitted lights to everyone's bikes about a month ago and they've all broken/lost or had nicked at least one. And that includes MrsC, who had her front light nicked from outside out-patients at Addenbrooke's hospital.

My calling as Safety Monitor is sorely tested...

Funny, I was just thinking on the way to work this morning, how much I lusted after one of these 50mph machines in the mid-1970s

Garelli Tiger Cross

What did I have, was this 35mph piece of $hit:
Puch VZ50

Oh the shame

However, it did look good with the whole fuel tank stripped back to chrome

You are absolutely right Jim. As soon as he thinks he is out of sight he puts it away. But that is why it is a condition of him keeping the moped. The first time you become aware he has done this, your job is done and it is 100% his fault.

Of course you then have the joy of a surly teenager with his own warped sense of injustice now even more deeply ingrained.

All join in the teenage mantra: "It's so unfair!"

I had the inevitable arguments with my parents about getting a bike.

When I was sixteen there was none of today's mollycoddling, you could ride anything on two wheels on your sixteenth birthday so long as you put on L plates.

Survivors could drive cars at 17.

My first bike at age 16, but bought well beforehand, was an old 250cc BSA , but I did also have an Italian 1959 Itom Tabor which I used to go to school on.

Strictly speaking it wasn't a moped as it had no pedals, a 65cc engine and a top speed of around 60 mph. It used to rev to around 11k rpm and with an open megaphone exhaust it was about the noisiest thing on 2 wheels for miles around.

I believe Mike Hailwood used to race one of the competition 50cc Itoms in his early years.

A more typical moped of the time was the NSU Quickly.

A little (vastly unreliable) googling indicates that in 1970 there were 15m cars in the UK, doubling to over 30 million by 2012. That's twice as many opportunities for teenagers to throw themselves under something.

Also, Pete, I'd put what little money I have on the fact that you were at least more competent than my stepson at 15, if not more sensible!

I do understand the desire for individual transport with an engine, I just would like it to be less likely to end badly.

How about a skateboard or scooter or roller skates ?

Oh wait, it says the skates are illegal, oh well

There are some battery powered skates instead?

How about fitting a motor to an existing bike ?

I could compile a lovely array of very graphic 'ped/bike related injury photo's for you, Jim... Including my own. Seeing what I did to myself many years ago with a comparatively small bike would put off all but the most masochistic of people.

I own two of those. Was there ever a worse misnomer?

FWIW, i believe people under a certain age will pose a danger to themselves regardless of the chosen transportation.

Or this

Black Segway

Still trying to spot the Segway in the main pic

Mum kept me off a bike by promising a car and insurance when I passed my car test.

Are you sure he's worth that much Jim?

Classic last night as the moped subject was resurrected, when stepson said:

"I'm not saying that having a 'ped would make my GCSE results better, but it would, you know, help."

Nice try...!

"I'm not saying that good GCSE results would make your chance of a 'ped better..."

Just to spin this around to a different perspective Jim: at 16, I was categorically told "No" by my parents in response to my wish to become independently mobile, on the basis that if I didn't buy myself a 'ped at 16, they would pay for my driving lessons and test at 17 and I would have the use of a family car. I stuck to my side of the bargain (absolutely, and not once, at the age of 16, did I ever borrow a mate's Fizzy and ride it with his non-photographic provisional licence in my back pocket, not once, I tell you), and at 17 I passed my car test and started driving.

However, undoubtedly as a result of the above causing some sort of reverse-psychological reflex action, I currently own <counts up…..> 6 motorcycles, and I have got up to all sorts of motorcycling shenanigans, including maxxing-out a 1000cc sportsbike quite a few times, completing multiple motorcycle track days (and failing to complete a couple), riding across the Sahara a couple of times, and I shall soon embark upon building a custom bike.

Maybe better to let him have the 'ped for 12 months now and get it all out of his system!

Mark, I take into account your point (and yours, Neil, but I'm not sure where we would set the bar...).

On the other hand...

My best mate at school was taught to ride bikes by his dad, sitting astride an old Panther when he was nobbut a lad. At 16 he bought a BSA Beaver (can't see that name flying these days...) and since then has gone on to own probably as many bikes as you - he regularly races 600cc machines and has been to the IoM more times than I've had hot dinners.
He has (nearly) always been sensible and safe in his riding and has only been knocked off by car drivers a couple of times. We used to marvel at his instinct for traffic awareness and road surfaces when we began our own driving careers on 4 wheels.

So, you can be bitten by the motorbike bug at any age and go on to have a larger collection than is strictly necessary, whether encouraged or prohibited by your folks.

What you and most of my still breathing motorcycling friends have in common is some form of common sense, an awareness of the world around you and my fears for my stepson are that he doesn't appear to have that in any discernible measure. I've done some things in cars that make me cringe with shame and horror at my foolishness and thank physics and good fortune that I got away with them. My stepson will probably end up getting a moped and will probably do daft things but survive to become a wiser young man. But I just want to be sure that I've done as much as I can to ensure that he at least sees the option of being safe and sensible, whether he takes it or not.

As I said at the start of the thread, my daughters both compete in showjumping and Equestrian eventing that are statistically about as dangerous as sports get and I've watched aghast as they've fallen off the bloody animals through (literally) 5-bar gates. It terrifies MrsC, but I suppose I'm used to it. I guess it's the same in this stepson/moped situation, but I know that if he goes out on the thing, a part of me will fear the worst until I hear him return and the front door close behind him.

Parenting, who needs it?!

You could encourage him to take up, say, paragliding.

It's statistically safer than either horse or motorbike riding, and has the added advantage that there are only three days a year when the conditions are good enough to do it!

Excellent idea, Neil. How will he get to where this paragon of safe sport takes place...?!

12:45 Cambridge Station - 13:35 London Kings Cross

London Kings Cross - London Victoria (Tube)

14:23 London Victoria - 14:56 Woldingham

A mere bagatelle to a young lad of enterprise.

He'll be stacking a lot of shelves to pay for rail fares...!

Then maybe a better paid part-time job... I hear there's good money in delivering pizzas.

but he would need a moped for that

Uh-oh, humour overload. You guys!

Buy him a nearly-spanking, low mileage Kinroad XT 50 for a few hundred notes off the Bay of Flea.
You'll spend hours together bonding, as well as replacing the missing (shaken-loose) nuts and bolts and resetting the valve clearances.
This worked so well with my son, that he now rides pillion on my supersport 600 ..
He now has a sensible car for the GF and 2yo son.
Also has nearly finished the ground-up rebuild on ma bea5tie too.