Bikers' safety requires all to take tests

With 42,000 among 100,000 drivers licensed to operate motorcycles in Saskatchewan so far content to stick with a learner's permit that doesn't require a road test of their skills, reforms on the way for 2011 are welcome.

However, even the three-step graduated licensing system being proposed by SGI falls short of delivering true public safety in a province that has recorded more than 200 motorcycle-related injuries in each of the past two years, with five deaths in 2008 and two in 2009.