Maine Motorcycle Safety Course
Verified against Motorcycle Rider Education ·
Compiled and verified against primary state DMV/DPS/BMV sources by GetMotorcycleLicense Research Team — cite-or-deny, with no invented figures. How we source & verify →
Whether Maine mandates a motorcycle safety course by age is not published by the state's own program. This page covers who runs the course, what it costs, how long it takes, and exactly which tests completing it can waive.
Maine's motorcycle safety course requirements are verified against Motorcycle Rider Education (see 29-A M.R.S. §1352 (motorcycle rider education)), current as of 2026-07-28.
Maine Motorcycle Safety Course at a Glance
| Program | Motorcycle Rider Education |
|---|---|
| Who runs it | Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles, which licenses individual motorcycle rider education schools and the instructors, certified to teach the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Basic RiderCourse, who staff them |
| Delivery model | State-approved sponsorsThe state licenses sponsors, who set their own tuition; the rider picks among them at market price. |
| Typical cost | — |
| Course length | 18 hours |
| Mandatory under age | — |
| Waives the riding skills test | No |
| Waives the knowledge test | No |
Maine's BMV describes the course a licensed instructor is certified to teach as a three-hour e-course, five hours of classroom instruction and ten hours on a closed range, for a total of eighteen hours.
The rider education course is a precondition of every motorcycle or moped permit, at every age, under 29-A M.R.S. §1352(1); it is not a route to waiving the Bureau's own written or road test, which every applicant still takes. A motorcycle rider education school is licensed per location for $150 and must submit Motorcycle Safety Foundation Rider Education Recognition Program paperwork and an MSF certificate of insurance; an instructor must hold two years' riding experience, complete a 72-hour Rider Coach Preparation Course, and pay a $121 licensing and background-check fee. Course tuition is set by the individual licensed school and is not published centrally by the Bureau.
What Maine’s course covers
Maine teaches the Basic RiderCourse (BRC), developed by Motorcycle Safety Foundation. Full detail here.
The Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Basic RiderCourse is designed for beginning riders aged 16 and up, pairing about five hours of classroom or online learning with about ten hours of on-motorcycle training, and it ends in a written knowledge test and a rider skills test.
How Maine differs: Maine's BMV describes the course a licensed instructor is certified to teach as a three-hour e-course, five hours of classroom instruction and ten hours on a closed range, for a total of eighteen hours.
Once you complete the course, see license requirements in Maine.
Source Notes
Where a source is stale, conflicting, or required a judgment call, we document it here rather than presenting a single confident-sounding number. See our methodology for how these calls are made.
- Licence, permit, fee and helmet rules come from the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 29-A, as published by the Maine Legislature. Training facts come from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles' own instructor- and school-licensing pages.
- Maine requires every motorcycle or moped applicant, at any age, to complete an approved rider education course before a learner's permit is issued. Completing the course does not excuse an applicant from the state's own written or road test.
- Maine's helmet exemption depends on riding experience as well as age: an operator under 18, on a learner's permit, or within one year of passing the road test must wear headgear regardless of age, and any passenger riding with such an operator must wear headgear too, regardless of the passenger's own age or experience.
means no primary source publishes that figure — left blank on purpose rather than estimated or copied from an unverified aggregator.
Sources
Data last verified: 2026-07-28 (verified by: agent) | Source: 29-A M.R.S. §1352 (motorcycle rider education)