The rise of takeaway apps like Deliveroo and Uber Eats means fleets of moped-riding delivery drivers are now a familiar sight in Britain’s towns and cities.
But while they are certainly helping to meet our desire for convenience, one issue is concerning road safety advocates – why do almost all of them have learner plates?
Unlike car drivers who must spend months preparing for practical and theory tests to gain a full licence, anyone over 16 can ride a moped with no test whatsoever.
A provisional licence and a certificate attesting to the rider’s completion of a one-day training course—which does not even assess riders’ basic understanding of the Highway Code—are all that are needed.
The rub? You have to continue to display an L-plate on your moped.
While these relaxed rules have long been a boon for youngsters looking for a cheap way to get around, critics believe they have become a loophole that’s allowing full-time professional takeaway drivers to ply their trade on busy city streets without any ‘proper’ road safety qualifications.
They claim that this ‘crazy’ situation is putting other road users at risk, not least because these drivers usually work long hours and have to rush around to meet tough delivery quotas – increasing the chance of an accident.
There doesn’t appear to be any disagreement with the assertion that full-time delivery drivers who aren’t even close to becoming learners are regularly using red and white L-plates.
Over two hours one midweek evening on Clapham High Street in south London earlier this month, MailOnline only saw two delivery mopeds without L-plates out of the dozens that whizzed past.
On Newcastle’s Grainger Street, all of the six mopeds that passed by in an hour had the plates – although they were considerably outnumbered by riders on electric bikes.
People without a driving licence who want to ride a moped have to attend compulsory basic training (CBT), a one-day course costing between £110 and £200 that does not include a test element.
While instructors can refuse to issue a certificate to anyone who has not completed all parts of the training or they consider unsafe, the pass rate is generally high – 84 percent according to the latest available statistics.
Vast numbers of moped drivers are being handed certificates after completing this training every year, with 188,125 issued in the financial year 2023 to 2024 and 104,900 in the financial year 2024-25 up to September.
Internet forums are full of people bragging about how easy they found the training, with one writing on Reddit: ‘I did mine in under two hours.
‘One hour riding around a car park and then 40 minutes on the road. Never ridden or even sat on a ped prior to that.’
Official figures show 248 serious injuries caused by crashes involving mopeds (categorised as having an engine under 50cc with a max speed of about 30mph) across Great Britain in 2023. Two of those led to fatalities.
Making a small change to the rules governing trainee drivers could address the issue. This is one of those circumstances where adequate enforcement of the current laws and regulations suffices; no new ones are required.
Campaigners and politicians are all too eager to try to fix issues by passing new legislation. Instead, they should simply enforce the ones that are currently in place.
At the moment delivery schedules are handed out between drivers and then they borrow each other’s mopeds – it’s like a free-for-all. Also, check their right to be in the country in the first place.
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