"Illegal e-bikes"

[Bonefishblues]

Saw one today, firstly on an off-road track (disused railway line) and later on the road, belting along at 30mph plus, (going up hill, feet stationary), no license plate. The rider was wearing a motorbike-style helmet.

Where are the police when they're needed?

I'm suspecting a raised palm with 'stop young man' said in a stern tone may not be quite as effective as it was bitd of Dixon of Dock Green. Serious point made in jest though - very very difficult to apprehend these riders off road without significant resources deployed.

[Bmblbzzz]

Where are the police when needed? They're probably attending the needs of someone who they feel needs them more. Or to quote another forumite, a long time ago and far away:

I want more police - I want my own police-person with me all the time... This is different to when I was young, when I wanted no police-persons anywhere near me.

[awavey]

I still fear its too late to fix, because legal ebikes are too synonymous with illegal e-motorbikes as a thing theyre near inseperable in the public & medias mind now, and the genie has been let loose and wont go back in the bottle.

I just don't think that's true. In fact, I think it's more likely the majority of people fail to distinguish between a legal e-bike and a standard non-electric bike. People do not see a Lime bike (other hire companies are available), a commuter on an electric folder, or an electric cargo bike, to take three common examples, and think of them as "illegal e-motorbikes".

Where there is confusion, is between illegal e-bikes (those which do not comply with the regulations or which are made by lashing batteries into the frame of an old mtb using loads of gaffer tape, for instance) and the commercial, potentially legal but in practice unregistered (therefore also uninsured) electric motorbikes being ridden on the streets.

well no thats kind of my point, they look at Lime e-bikes, or the e-scooters for hire in trial locations, and the legal ebikes for sale and think well anything with an electric motor must be legal if you can hire and buy them, they then go searching for them online and buy the cheapest, quickest version they can find which inevitably falls in the illegal side of the definition, or their mates say hey this bike is cool it looks like a motorbike but its electric powered, and everyone just dumps them all in the label of "e-bike", not helped by when MSM continually refer to things that are clearly actually e-motorbikes or e-motorised vehicles,just as e-bikes.

I think even some of the hire bikes break the legal definitions as not all of them require pedal assistance for the motor to kick in, even if theyre then speed limited and cut out as they should do later.

so I think very few get the legal distinction properly, or just dont care anymore, its something they can use for low effort and its quick. and I dont see people riding the really not legal ones remotely trying to hide what they are riding, it kind of stands out when someone is zipping along at speeds between 20-30mph at least on a road and not pedalling at all, and thats before you get the ones with super phat tyres and motocross styling.

So how do you stop something, thats already illegal to use on the roads, but is basically at saturation point now theyre in common use, you cant, the police would have to have a copper on every street corner to do it, or at least one outside every local takeaway perhaps, and even then very few of them would step into harms way to try to stop someone using it, or a single crackdown would simply delay the problem reappearing till the next container load from China turned up.

create a new law, who enforces it ? insist theyre registered properly ? well that opens a can of worms for all cyclists doesnt it.

so I dont think youre ever going to break away and instill the idea there are these nice legal ebikes, that give assistance, but you still have to pedal for them to work, and then there are these other lot of 2 wheeled devices that include heath robinson mash ups and things that look alot like bicycles but are actually classed as motor vehicles given the power of the motor and so on and e-motorbikes which arent legal on public roads.

[Jdsk]

...
So how do you stop something, thats already illegal to use on the roads, but is basically at saturation point now theyre in common use, you can't...
...

You do what you can:
https://appgcw.org/resources/inquiries/ ... l-e-bikes/
viewtopic.php?p=1909458#p1909458

Jonathan

[Bmblbzzz]

Let's remember that the word "bike" specifies neither the presence nor absence of a petrol engine, an electric motor or pedals. It applies equally to a Harley-Davidson and a Pinarello.

Bearing that in mind, think back a hundred years or slightly more. Most motorbikes had pedals and were in fact little more than small engines bolted into reinforced pedalbike frames. Take away the engine and petrol tank, most people probably wouldn't know the difference. Compare that to a moped of the 1970s, which also had pedals and an engine, but was obviously a type of motorcycle even if you removed the pedals.

Once the motorcycle had become a reasonably mature design, say 1930 or a little earlier, it had its own characteristics, which were not the same as those of a pedal cycle. Just as today, if you bolted a little Honda Cub engine to your Pinarello Dogma, people's reaction would not be "Nice motorbike!" but "What on earth have you done to your bicycle?" And if you attached pedals to a Honda Fireblade, there would be a lot of head scratching. So we see that a motorbike is distinguishable from a pedal cycle by more than just the presence or absence of an engine. Similarly, we can tell immediately the difference between an electric (pedal) cycle and an electric (motor) cycle, even if the first lacks pedals. And an electric (pedal) cycle does not become an electric (motor)cycle in taxonomical, perceptual or practical terms because its maximum speed is 25mph or whatever, even if it does in legal terms.

And yet again and again we see "electric motorbike" being used as a put down, a term of abuse even, in this thread.

What you can't so easily tell, of course, is whether an electric (pedal) cycle conforms to the relevant legislation (in whatever country is applicable; and of course something defined as an EAPC in one country does not necessarily meet the same legal definition in the next jurisdiction). And that brings us on to this scenario in which someone wanting an electrically assisted pedal cycle inadvertently, carelessly or through ignorance buys something that, for reasons of maximum assisted speed or similar, does not comply with UK/EU law (or the law of Australia or wherever they happen to be).

This could be a big problem, if they've got themselves an Amazon special that is an electrical and fire risk. But if they've avoided that risk, is there any harm done? Maybe there is, in that higher speeds bring greater risk; but the same applies to a legal EAPC. It's not a clear cut case.

[axel_knutt]

This was on Radio 4 yesterday. Not in relation to bikes, but travel adapters, and dangerous products in general, calling for online retailers to be made responsible for the safety of the products sold on their sites. It's illegal to sell products that don't meet safety standards on the High Street, but not online.

I think the internet has made regulation all but unenforceable though. How many million products are there listed on Amazon? Or Ebay? How long will it take trading standards to inspect and test that lot? Where's the manpower and money going to come from? When they ban an electric bike how long will it take the manufacturers to put the same one back on sale again with a different brand name painted on it?

We live in an era when people have learnt that if the law's broken on a large enough scale there just aren't the resources to enforce it. That's why shoplifting's rife, and selling smuggled fags etc. Penalties, if any at all, are just a business expense. Fraud accounts for 42% of all crime, but only 1% of police resources.

The Chinese online retail platform AliExpress has been fined a record €550m (£470m) by the EU over its failure to stop illegal goods including harmful clothing, cosmetics and kitchen gadgets being sold through its site.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... fake-goods

If we tried to do that they'd just pull out of the UK market, we don't have enough power all on our own.

[Bmblbzzz]

I think they'd be far more likely to pay the fine, make an appearance of tackling the problem for a while, and carry on.

[TrevA]

There was an item on East Midlands BBC local news - an Electric Bike Shop owner in Nottingham is getting people with illegal e-bikes, bought online. coming into his shop, wanting them to be serviced or repaired. He then has to explain to them that they are illegal and the shop cannot work on them. People don’t even seem to know that their bikes are illegal.

[atoz]

Would help if the police were clear what constitutes an illegal bike. Judging from this video it would appear they are not https://youtu.be/oZVD9-bzvtk?is=huFULh_1ZN3ER8-4

[TrevA]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yzy078dklo

This is the story that featured on BBC East Midlands Today.

[atoz]

Would help if the police were clear what constitutes an illegal bike. Judging from this video it would appear they are not https://youtu.be/oZVD9-bzvtk?is=huFULh_1ZN3ER8-4

Update - news from Cycling UK is the police have apologised for getting it wrong.

[pete75]

No company sells illegal e-bikes. It's the usage that determines legality not the bike specification. Machines illegal to use on the road can be used legally on private property.

If a retailer couldn't sell something which may be used illegally, it would cause major problems for car sales. 90% of cars sold will almost certainly be used illegally, by the driver breaking the speed limit, passing cyclists too close etc and a not insignificant proportion for much more serious offences.