Does something need to be done about illegal/unlicenced/uninsured electric vehicles on our roads (and pavements)

need to cut off the sellers who make no mention whatsoever of the need for any licence, insurance, illegal on roads etc. These Sur ron bikes are clearly not legal on the roads and those riding them without helmets need to be stopped and the bike confiscated.
 
Dis86 said:
www.chroniclelive.co.uk

E-bike rider, 30, tragically dies after collision with car in Sunderland

A 30-year-old man has sadly died after suffering serious injuries following the collision near The Bridges shopping centre
www.chroniclelive.co.uk www.chroniclelive.co.uk

Been told by a friend who was nearby this one's down to the rider.
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It's a bit daft linking to an e-Biker who has been killed when most normal cyclists can go way faster than a 15.5 mph e-Biker.
Now if the e-Bike was illegal with a 1000 watt motor doing 30mph on the throttle it would be a story.
Those ***heads wind me up and so far I know 6 people who have had them confiscated.
One young lad who I had seen for years on my commute came flying past me with somebody sitting on the back of him, a few weeks later I asked where his bike was and he said the police had taken it.
I told him that you can't act like a **** on them and went on my way.
About two months ago he was on another one and again decided to race me but when he's got a bike that does 30mph on the throttle he's overtaking no problem.
He came past and I shouted he'll have that confiscated and he has :)
 
SexyGreyFox said:
It's a bit daft linking to an e-Biker who has been killed when most normal cyclists can go way faster than a 15.5 mph e-Biker.
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Funnily enough I find the eBike incentivises me to stay under the 15.5mph, to keep the motor assist. Plenty of times you can push past that under your own steam, but you soon get knackered (well, I do :p) without the assist, so the net effect is to make the 15.5 mph my upper speed limit, everywhere except downhill.

The only difference between being on a (legal) eBike and being on a regular bike is that I'd be crawling up the hills at 5mph, and stopping at the top for a 5 mins rest :p The eBike just keeps me moving at a fairly constant speed (typically 24.5kmph, just below motor cut-out).

It's a shame that these non-legal bikes are all lumped in with the kind you and I have. Without the eBike conversion kit I wouldn't have been able to get back into cycling, as an aging fat man :p
 
Electric bike laws are too strict if anything, you can easily do over 15mph just pedalling, I reach 40mph just coasting down a hill on the way home. A 250W derestricted bike will only get you about 25mph on the flat and the momentum and kinetic energy is far lower than a moped in a collision scenario.
 
Energize said:
Electric bike laws are too strict if anything, you can easily do over 15mph just pedalling,
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This is the first time I've heard of this and I really thought the guy was mistaken but he says his bike will only do a maximum of 15.5mph even going downhill.
He claims there's something in the motor that only allows him to do that speed no matter what surface he's on.
He came down mine to try one of my bikes and repeated that he can't go any faster on his.
When I see him next I'm going to find out what he's got and hopefully try it
 
40mph on a push bike would scare the carp out of me :p 30 is bad enough :p

Bearing in mind the only protective gear you have is your helmet.. And frankly the roads down here are so full of potholes that 40mph would probably end badly quite quickly..
 
Energize said:
Electric bike laws are too strict if anything, you can easily do over 15mph just pedalling, I reach 40mph just coasting down a hill on the way home. A 250W derestricted bike will only get you about 25mph on the flat and the momentum and kinetic energy is far lower than a moped in a collision scenario.
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I agree. I often get up to 24 mph cycling to work on my 13-year-old budget mountain bike. I even got up to 50 mph on it once coming down a very long steep hill on the road between Haltwhistle and Alston in rural Northumberland.

Having a cut-off of 250W for a legal e-bike (no insurance or MOT requirement) is also rather crude for this day-and-age. For example, I pull a trailer capable of transporting 60 Kg of cargo behind my bike when I go for my weekly grocery shop and I am 6'5" tall/over 100 Kg myself so the law would limit me to the same motor power as a 5' tall/under 50 Kg woman with no cargo or trailer to pull.

I have a work colleague who has a 6' long by 2.5' wide bespoke trailer for his e-bike which can carry about 150 Kg of wood. He uses it regularly to collect firewood for his aga and biomass boiler. (He goes round with a chainsaw trimming people's trees for them to get firewood too.) He has a 1 Kw rear wheel electric motor mounted on his bike and so when fully laden he can still go up hills at 15.5 mph. He has never been stopped by the Police on it despite using it around a busy city for the last 3 years because he doesn't speed on it and he doesn't look like a boy-racer since he's in his mid 50s!
 
The import of such vehicles need to be stopped at ports by HM Customs & excise and the govt. needs to put a full ban. Our pavements are for walking and are not wide enough ffs
 
I recently saw the one of the most dangerous things related to escooter on the roads. I was driving home the way I normally do and there was a young lad riding one of the big escooters on the road. So I slowly went to overtake and noticed a little pair of hands holding onto the front. There was a toddler stood up between the lads legs holding on to the escooter while he was going full pelt down a main 30mph road at rush hour. I pulled back in and pulled over and called 999. They said they will get someone to look but likely gone when they got there. If there was a car, van or lorry following them and it hit a bump and the toddler fell into off it would have easily been killed. What are some people thinking? Now I am sure changing the law wouldn’t do anything in this regard but maybe if they couldn’t buy one this wouldn’t have happened.
 
I didn't think the law limited you to a 250W motor, exactly? It limits you (IANAL) to 250W "sustained output". Last time I checked, there was a specific clause for bursting above that, such as when going up a steep hill.

A 5000W motor could comply with 250W sustained output quite easily. All depends on the controller.

In any case, good luck using a 250W motor eBike around Cornwall. Uphill in every direction. Especially if you're a tiny bit on the heavy side.
 
FoxEye said:
I didn't think the law limited you to a 250W motor, exactly? It limits you (IANAL) to 250W "sustained output". Last time I checked, there was a specific clause for bursting above that, such as when going up a steep hill.

A 5000W motor could comply with 250W sustained output quite easily. All depends on the controller.

In any case, good luck using a 250W motor eBike around Cornwall. Uphill in every direction. Especially if you're a tiny bit on the heavy side.
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De-restricted e-Bikers, and I 100% know this, will put 250 watt stickers on their motors so if pulled over it may fool the Cops because anything above a 250 watt can be seized even if restricted back to 250 watt.
 
Rai200 said:
No it wouldn't. Still plenty of people doing a CBT to ride mopeds.

They should be legalised, up to 15 mph should be unrestricted; I could go that fast on a kick scooter and a fair bit quicker on a bike. How it's being powered is largely irrelevant to safety.

Over 15mph should require something similar to a CBT, insurance, lights, helmet etc.
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Not on the pavement.

1. Training and education - a must for people's safety.
2. Insurance and identification mandatory - sorry but have a crash into my car and my car insurance company is coming for you. Just waiting for the jail time case due to someone causing a death etc due to a scooter. Make it also mandatory (and finable/jailable) to sell without registering the scooter.
3. Selling and owning one - should require demonstration of the above.

It's like people riding bikes on the road or pavement cycle lanes. All good but there's a large number of idiots - especially in London where the traffic light stop signal seems to be optional and they have to put police on them on a regular basis.

In this country - no enforcement or penalty simply means people use that as a self justification that breaking the law(s) is acceptable.
 
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SexyGreyFox said:
This is the first time I've heard of this and I really thought the guy was mistaken but he says his bike will only do a maximum of 15.5mph even going downhill.
He claims there's something in the motor that only allows him to do that speed no matter what surface he's on.
He came down mine to try one of my bikes and repeated that he can't go any faster on his.
When I see him next I'm going to find out what he's got and hopefully try it
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The computer on ebikes sold legally in the UK cuts power to the motor when a speed of 15.5mph is reached, this makes for a pretty terrible experience as you can be pedalling in a high gear at a comfortable level of effort, then the motor cuts out completely and it becomes massively more difficult if not impossible to continue pedalling, an utterly stupid law that was implemented without any regards to the basic mechanics of cycling.

It is usually a very simple matter to derestrict the computer by pressing a few button combinations on it.

The other stupid law was not allowing a throttle, how are you supposed to start pedalling a 25kg bike up a steep hill from a stationary position? Even in the lowest gear it is very difficult if not impossible to do this safely with traffic behind you. The law not allowing the use of a throttle is quite frankly dangerous.
 
Energize said:
The computer on ebikes sold legally in the UK cuts power to the motor when a speed of 15.5mph is reached, this makes for a pretty terrible experience as you can be pedalling in a high gear at a comfortable level of effort, then the motor cuts out completely and it becomes massively more difficult if not impossible to continue pedalling, an utterly stupid law that was implemented without any regards to the basic mechanics of cycling.
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You misunderstand, my computers have done exactly this since 2010 and at least 25 conversions I've done for people.
This motor won't let your bike go more than 15.5mph even if you're pedaling which I've never heard of before.
So I can be doing 30mph down a bank freewheeling but his motor will only allow him to go 15.5mph.
Very strange but when he tried mine he said his doesn't do what both mine do.
He's now thinking of getting me to convert one.
 
NickK said:
It's like people riding bikes on the road or pavement cycle lanes. All good but there's a large number of idiots - especially in London where the traffic light stop signal seems to be optional and they have to put police on them on a regular basis.
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Here in Stoke when I'm out driving, if I go through 5 sets of traffic lights on my commute I'll see at least 2 cars going through on red.
Yesterday I even had a car behind blasting their horn to go through on red.
The main problem is cars going through on red can cause death or serious harm, a cyclist going through on red will only harm themselves and a dent in a car.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
You misunderstand, my computers have done exactly this since 2010 and at least 25 conversions I've done for people.
This motor won't let your bike go more than 15.5mph even if you're pedaling which I've never heard of before.
So I can be doing 30mph down a bank freewheeling but his motor will only allow him to go 15.5mph.
Very strange but when he tried mine he said his doesn't do what both mine do.
He's now thinking of getting me to convert one.
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Odd, maybe some sort of gearing in the motor, or some controller embedded in it?
 
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