A story from the late 80's when I worked at a Kawasaki dealer. A kid came in (19-20ish) and wanted to buy a brand new Ninja ZX-10. in showing him the bike we were talking and he told me he just got his license the day previous, and he had never even rode a dirt bike. I flat out told him that he was not ready for this bike and I would happily show him the 600's or something else that he could start on.
Well he got pissed off at me and left the store. 2 days later he was the front page of the news, he had went down the street to the Suzuki dealership and bought him self a brand new GSR 1100, and within 3 hours of the purchase had jumped the curb and hit a power pole head on at speeds the cops estimated at 180kph+.
When your young your bulletproof in your mind, and have no real ideas about mortality. I really feel that someone should step in and make sure young riders do not become statistics.
My first street bike was a Suzuki 250 enduro which I had for about 2 weeks before I traded it in on a 1982 Kawasaki LTD 1000, so I may be throwing stones in a Glass house here, but that being said I had also been Riding Dirt bikes since I was 5 years old, so had Hundreds of hours on two wheels.
My son has a Triumph TT600 that is his starter bike, and hes had the benefit of me telling him for 18 years that you need to respect your bike and drive like no one can see you. And hes been really responsible so far, for which I'm very grateful.