{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/motorcycle-mechanics/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Motorcycle Mechanics",
    "soc_code": "49-3052",
    "category": "Trades",
    "us_employment": 13510,
    "median_annual_wage": 48580
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 68,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 17,
    "embodiment": 20,
    "liability_shield": 4,
    "trust_premium": 14,
    "judgment_accountability": 13
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Shimming valve buckets on a race-tuned inline-four, splitting cases to replace a shift fork, syncing four carbs by vacuum gauge, and then feeling for a headshake at 60 mph on the test ride are tasks with no digital equivalent — the 17 rather than 20 reflects that scan-tool fault trees, torque-spec lookup, parts ordering, and customer estimates are already software, so a real slice of the billable day is being thinned out.",
    "embodiment": "Everything happens at the lift: contorting to reach a rear shock linkage, breaking loose a seized exhaust stud with heat, bleeding brakes, wrestling a tire onto a spoked rim, and road-testing in traffic — and no two machines in the bay share a layout, from a 1978 CB750 to a fuel-injected adventure bike, which is exactly the unstructured-environment case robotics cannot touch.",
    "liability_shield": "There is no state licence to hold or lose — you can open a shop and turn wrenches with zero credential, and the 4 rather than 0 exists only because OEM/factory certifications (Harley-Davidson PHD, Honda, BMW) and EPA emissions-tampering rules under the Clean Air Act put some formal weight on who does the work, but the liability lands on the shop's insurance, not your personal ticket.",
    "trust_premium": "Riders hand over a machine they will be doing 80 mph on and they hand it to a named person, not a brand — the customer who trusts your carb-jetting judgment or your read on a vintage magneto follows you if you change shops, which is why this sits at 14 and not 18: dealer service departments and warranty work do route plenty of bikes to whoever is on the schedule.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Calling a frame unsafe to ride, deciding whether that top-end noise justifies tearing into the motor on the customer's dime, or judging a used chain and sprocket set as good for another 3,000 miles are calls you own with someone's neck at stake — held to 13 rather than higher because factory service manuals, torque values, and wear-limit specs bound most decisions and the owner signs off on the estimate."
  },
  "rationale": "The core of this job — pulling a carburetor, setting valve clearances, chasing an intermittent electrical fault in a 20-year-old wiring harness, road-testing after a suspension rebuild — happens with hands on greasy metal in a bay full of non-standard machines, and no current robot comes close. AI is already eating the paperwork layer: service writeups, parts lookup, warranty claims, and first-pass diagnostic suggestions from OBD/CAN scan data. There's no licensure moat, and demand is discretionary and tied to riding culture, so the real risks are shop economics and consolidation rather than automation.",
  "outlook": "In ten years the wrench work is essentially unchanged, the paperwork around it is largely automated, and the mechanics who invested in EV powertrains and hard diagnostics earn well above the ones doing tire changes and oil services.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State-level motorcycle safety inspection regimes that require a certified technician to personally sign off on brakes, tires and frame integrity — as already exists in Pennsylvania's annual motorcycle safety inspection (a certified inspection mechanic at a licensed station signs the certificate and is liable for fraudulent inspections). If more states adopt motorcycle inspection or if NHTSA/insurer pressure pushes post-crash frame-damage certification, the signature becomes a legal requirement rather than a courtesy.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Manufacturer/EPA enforcement tightening on emissions and ECU tuning: a rule requiring a factory-certified technician to authorize or document any ECU reflash or aftermarket exhaust/tune (analogous to EPA's defeat-device enforcement against tuners), plus OEM cybersecurity locks on ride-by-wire and ABS calibration that only a credentialed tech account can unlock.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Continued growth of the vintage/restoration and custom-build segment, where buyers explicitly pay for a named builder's hand work and provenance documentation (auction houses like Mecum already price bikes on who did the rebuild). This is a real, visible premium but it is a niche within the occupation, not the whole of it.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: as scan-tool AI handles code-reading, parts lookup and first-pass fault trees, the residual work is the ambiguous cases — intermittent harness faults, misfires the scanner reads as normal, deciding whether a 20-year-old frame is safe to return to the road. The call on 'safe to ride' with a customer's life attached is owned by the tech and does not delegate.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Expanded use of independent techs as expert witnesses and insurer-appointed appraisers in motorcycle crash and total-loss disputes, where a written opinion on mechanical causation carries discoverable weight.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "task_resistance (17) and embodiment (20) are already effectively at ceiling; there is no realistic route to raising them further. The genuine downside risk here is not automation but shop consolidation, dealer-network contraction and declining ridership — none of which any of these levers touch. A higher liability_shield score would also not protect against a shrinking number of bays."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 15850,
        "wage": 35680
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 15090,
        "wage": 36790
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 15590,
        "wage": 37600
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 13490,
        "wage": 38010
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 15020,
        "wage": 38170
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 14700,
        "wage": 43370
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 14330,
        "wage": 46270
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 14010,
        "wage": 47200
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 13510,
        "wage": 48580
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -14.8,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}