Biggles, I would suggest that your motorcycle courier operation had riders all with invalid insurance - "hire and reward"?
I would agree with you Whirly, the guys we used worked on a self employed basis and got paid per mile. It was their responsibility to make sure their insurance was valid. The company had insurance that covered the cargo and actually had to call on it once when I personally lost an item on the M4 whilst riding my bike on a run to London. But there was no regulation imposed on the riders from our point of view. However, this was many years ago and things may have changed, but somehow I doubt it, as I have noticed that most of the bikers that deliver Pizzas for Piza Hut are riding bikes displaying "L" plates
To come back to the aviation discussion, which I'm enjoying, I have to say that I do acknowledge the need to have laws to regulate what could become a dogs breakfast if it was a free-for-all. But having said that, I am also very mindful that many regulations that abound today, seem to be unnecessarily restrictive and in some cases designed to increase revenue. But I do think that there may be some cases where a PPL should be able to claim the
full cost of a flight on say delivering "stuff" that did not involve the carriage of personnel, apart from the pilot of course and was flown in conditions and airspace conducive to his PPL status. If the money received did not exceed the total cost of the flight it would not be commercial and therefore no threat to any of the aviation businesses.