Cycling UK Forum

The 'glorious' EU has being defeated in their sick attempt to enforce mandatory motor insurance for all e-bike users! Not for the first time has the EU meddled in cycling and made poor decisions that are discriminatory and do not reflect the risk that people on bikes pose to others. Their continual push for helmets for people on bikes is another heinous victim blaming exercise as part of their road safety solution

https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/co ... ng-e-bikes

Well no bias in that post then!
The article states that
"Yesterday the Consumer Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (IMCO Committee) voted in favour of the exclusion of e-bikes (up to 25km/h assistance and 250W) from the scope of the new Motor Insurance Directive: a great result, which comes after several intense months of advocacy between ECF, CIE and CONEBI with the members of IMCO Committee."

So it was a democratic decision with representation from cycling groups that was listened to?

For what it's worth I always thought 3 party insurance for pedal cycles was no bad thing.
Put a motor on them and make them heavier and there is some sense in having another look.IMHO.
I know many don't agree.

Far from the EU being defeated, the MEPs simply made the correct decision after listening. That's the EU at work for us. I don't see why that's "a poor decision"! Nor do I see a "continual push for helmets"!

It's a shame CUK isn't an ECF member any more to support work like this, isn't it?

Well no bias in that OP post then!
The article states that
"Yesterday the Consumer Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (IMCO Committee) voted in favour of the exclusion of e-bikes (up to 25km/h assistance and 250W) from the scope of the new Motor Insurance Directive: a great result, which comes after several intense months of advocacy between ECF, CIE and CONEBI with the members of IMCO Committee."

So it was a democratic decision with representation from cycling groups that was listened to?


For what it's worth I always thought 3 party insurance for pedal cycles was no bad thing.
Put a motor on them and make them heavier and there is some sense in having another look.IMHO.
I know many don't agree.

((Ps.
this is a straight unaltered copy of my earlier post that mysteriously dissapeared?))

As I understand it the whole premise and initial claim of this thread is wrong....

The original post makes it sound like the whole plan was to introduce insurance for E-Bikes, which was not the case at all

It was discussing the insurance of motor vehicles, and on the advice of various groups excepted E-Bikes from the need for insurance.

The claim that "So the 'glorious' EU has being defeated in their sick attempt to enforce mandatory motor insurance for all e-bike users! " is ridiculous at best


ON the grounds of the original post cyclists were not the only ones hounded and victimised.......One could also claim that "So the 'glorious' EU has being defeated in their sick attempt to enforce mandatory motor insurance for all electric ride-on lawnmower users!

These are also excluded

..... and it gets far worse!

There are multiple other groups that were the victims of this oppressive decision to look logically at insurance, fairground rides, mobility scooters, agricultural vehicles, museum vehicles, children’s toys, golf buggies, were all excluded in exactly the same callous way

The "problem" was that no matter how you define a "motorised vehicle" there will be vehicles on the edge of that definition that are included by default rather than any intention to do so. This was resolved by excluding those vehicles. E-Bikes being but one of the groups

Some of us remember the day when we were forced by the EU to eat bananas with a 15 degree curve. And the rule demanding we all own dogs in order to travel on the Underground (dogs must be carried on escalator, it states). So it is only a small step to force us to have square wheels and the rest.

PDQ Mobile wrote:Well no bias in that post then!
The article states that
"Yesterday the Consumer Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (IMCO Committee) voted in favour of the exclusion of e-bikes (up to 25km/h assistance and 250W) from the scope of the new Motor Insurance Directive: a great result, which comes after several intense months of advocacy between ECF, CIE and CONEBI with the members of IMCO Committee."

So it was a democratic decision with representation from cycling groups that was listened to?

For what it's worth I always thought 3 party insurance for pedal cycles was no bad thing.
Put a motor on them and make them heavier and there is some sense in having another look.IMHO.
I know many don't agree.

What bias? The EU 'road safety' commission have continually pushed for cycle helmets to be mandatory, they even published their thoughts on that matter very clearly in their recent paper on road safety. They explicitly pointed the finger at Netherlands and Denmark with regards to low helmet wearing rates and made the point that fewer people die in UK (which has high wearing rates) than NL. Utterly ignoring that the Dutch cycle many times more miles per person than the UK, 13x more as a modal share. Their pages are filled with images of encouraging the wearing of cycle helmets and the training they roll out and programmes to get people wearing helmets.

They already decided they wanted to get all e-bike users at the lower output to have compulsary motor insurance without actually looking at the facts regarding risk to others, despite increases in deaths in the older groups in NL at least where e-bikes are massively popular (well over 50% of new bikes sold in the over 60s are e-bikes as of 2016), the risk to others has not changed in any significant factor.
Personally I would rather see the maximum powered only speed reduced to 12mph, this changes the danger for those that cannot handle the advancement in power, it is suffice for MTB and road riders and indeed extends the range.

So if there is any bias/discrimination occurring, then it is the EU commissions/departments that have continually tried to push their erroneous will against people on bikes (within the Eu zones) that has massive negative effects on cycling safety and participation.

But crack on with your misdirected words of wisdom!

Cunobelin wrote:As I understand it the whole premise and initial claim of this thread is wrong....

The original post makes it sound like the whole plan was to introduce insurance for E-Bikes, which was not the case at all

It was discussing the insurance of motor vehicles, and on the advice of various groups excepted E-Bikes from the need for insurance.

The claim that "So the 'glorious' EU has being defeated in their sick attempt to enforce mandatory motor insurance for all e-bike users! " is ridiculous at best


ON the grounds of the original post cyclists were not the only ones hounded and victimised.......One could also claim that "So the 'glorious' EU has being defeated in their sick attempt to enforce mandatory motor insurance for all electric ride-on lawnmower users!

These are also excluded

..... and it gets far worse!

There are multiple other groups that were the victims of this oppressive decision to look logically at insurance, fairground rides, mobility scooters, agricultural vehicles, museum vehicles, children’s toys, golf buggies, were all excluded in exactly the same callous way

The "problem" was that no matter how you define a "motorised vehicle" there will be vehicles on the edge of that definition that are included by default rather than any intention to do so. This was resolved by excluding those vehicles. E-Bikes being but one of the groups

I don't care about fairground rides, this is a cycling forum, their decision making has ignored world data time and again in their push for helmets, and again they've not looked at risk when it comes to e-bike users, if they had then there would not have been the proposal in the first place.
I bet having motor insurance for all e-bike users would have gone down a storm across the Eu and beyond where it not for active groups like ECF fighting the battle.

The utility cyclist wrote:What bias? The EU 'road safety' commission have continually pushed for cycle helmets to be mandatory, [...]

There is no such body. I suspect you mean the ETSC, which is as much a part of the EU commission as the RoSPA or Headway helmet-pushers are UK government departments - in other words, not at all!

I already pointed that out a while ago in viewtopic.php?f=41&t=97189&p=1298661#p1298661

The utility cyclist wrote:

Cunobelin wrote:As I understand it the whole premise and initial claim of this thread is wrong....

The original post makes it sound like the whole plan was to introduce insurance for E-Bikes, which was not the case at all

It was discussing the insurance of motor vehicles, and on the advice of various groups excepted E-Bikes from the need for insurance.

The claim that "So the 'glorious' EU has being defeated in their sick attempt to enforce mandatory motor insurance for all e-bike users! " is ridiculous at best


ON the grounds of the original post cyclists were not the only ones hounded and victimised.......One could also claim that "So the 'glorious' EU has being defeated in their sick attempt to enforce mandatory motor insurance for all electric ride-on lawnmower users!

These are also excluded

..... and it gets far worse!

There are multiple other groups that were the victims of this oppressive decision to look logically at insurance, fairground rides, mobility scooters, agricultural vehicles, museum vehicles, children’s toys, golf buggies, were all excluded in exactly the same callous way

The "problem" was that no matter how you define a "motorised vehicle" there will be vehicles on the edge of that definition that are included by default rather than any intention to do so. This was resolved by excluding those vehicles. E-Bikes being but one of the groups

I don't care about fairground rides, this is a cycling forum, their decision making has ignored world data time and again in their push for helmets, and again they've not looked at risk when it comes to e-bike users, if they had then there would not have been the proposal in the first place.
I bet having motor insurance for all e-bike users would have gone down a storm across the Eu and beyond where it not for active groups like ECF fighting the battle.

I think that this is more about bias than misunderstanding what has happened

THERE WAS NO PROPOSAL FOR E-BIKES TO BE INSURED

... and of course you want to exclude fairground rides, lawnmowers, mobility scooters etc because they unequivocally disprove your claims

What happened was looking at Motor vehicle insurance, each definition of transport accidentally includes vehicles that were unintended, they simply recognised this and excluded a whole range that were never intended for inclusion

It is no more complicated than that

The UC enjoys the buzzing of a bee in his bonnet. It is a harmless pleasure and quite entertaining for those watching as he swats madly at the bee, which is often imaginary and merely a buzzing in his brain.

Of course, were he a Daily Mail "journalist" spouting such daft, I would have a different attitude!

Cugel