Um, you can legally ride around without your endorsement, at least you could before, that's why they call it a "learner's permit". The whole point was that I could ride around my backstreets to get some practice in, before my exam.

Additionally, the permit is restricted to only daytime riding and no passengers and is good for 90 days, renewable. Instead, people now have to pay $200 to take the course, they're going to have to learn how to ride a bike in a single afternoon (rain or shine, Floridians), then they walk out with a fully unrestricted license, regardless of how well they actually did.

Now the skills test isn't all that difficult...but because everyone's getting it done in a shotgun manner, half of the people I met today JUST started riding within the week, and most of them failed because they could not balance in the tight maneuvers, some of the guys failed because they walked the slalom.

I haven't had my permit all that long, but I have put well over 1000 miles on my bike because I practiced for the first two weeks, and I drove it to work every day. I also did drop the bike on a back road when I hit some sand taking a corner. I just scraped my hand, but at least I know what it feels like.