Electric scooters and the law

[SexyGreyFox]

It's nice that you believe the ebikes and scooters going around are in compliance with current law so you immediately think of your experience with a 250W road legal bike.

I've been eBike commuting for 11 years now but around 9 years ago I had a 3 month period where I had a 1000 watt motor but to be honest it scared the life out of me and I quickly got back to 250 watt. I can't say I could do 30 mph up a bank with it but I reckon 20 to 25 was easy at the time.
Recently I joined this Facebook Group and it is winding me up something rotten where speed doesn't seem an issue for a lot of them, someone recently posted their 120 km/hour eBike - https://www.facebook.com/groups/2233874716836379

 

[Delvis]

This is from a Darlington Police post for instance:

***SEIZED***

We are seeing an increase in the use of E-Scooters across Darlington this summer.

Just a reminder to anyone who owns one or is considering owning one;

Any e-scooter that is capable of exceeding 15.5mph/25kmh is;
* Illegal to use in a public place inc. paths, pavements and
roads.
* You must hold a driving licence either provisional or full.
* You will be required to have valid insurance.
* You must tax your e-scooter and MOT if applicable.

Without the valid documents you could be reported for road traffic offences, receive points on your licence and a hefty fine.

You can also be dealt with under the anti social behaviour act if considered to be riding in an inappropriate manner.

So if I limit one to 15mph, and get insurance, I'm sorted?

 

[Dis86]

This is from a Darlington Police post for instance:



So if I limit one to 15mph, and get insurance, I'm sorted?

No, because there's still the illegal to use in public places bit.
Even the trial scooters can only be used on designated cycle paths and roads. Not footpaths, not motorways. These are the ones that you require documentation for.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

I saw some teen zooming down the road on one today and I live in a very small village. The do seem to be everywhere now, at least 30mph no helmet, t-shirt and shorts with a buddy on the back madness.

Its the same everywhere I think the unnerving thing about them is the unpredictability you know not to step into the road in traffic unless you want to get swatted and everyone knows the rules and obeys them for the most part but scooters zoom out from behind cars, onto the pavement, back on the road good luck to you if you're in their way because you've got no idea where they're going next

 

[nine_tails]

I have lot of anxiety about riding bikes on roads, have had a few close calls and decided it was not worth it.

 

[Hawk Tuah]

I saw some teen zooming down the road on one today and I live in a very small village. The do seem to be everywhere now, at least 30mph no helmet, t-shirt and shorts with a buddy on the back madness.

Take the escooter away and they'd be doing the same on a bike or a skateboard. You can't stop kids doing daft things.

 

[Hawk Tuah]

but you could only ride it on a designated route.
The one in Newcastle Stoke on Trent was around 2 miles long and the built in GPS would stop the scooter if you went off limits.

It wouldn't have a GPS limiter, so you could ride it wherever you dared. Getting away with it is another matter.

 

[Dis86]

Take the escooter away and they'd be doing the same on a bike or a skateboard. You can't stop kids doing daft things.

No but there's big difference between a self propelled toy and a motorised one travelling at a fair rate of knots consistently with no effort.

 

[Deleted User 234324]

I'm with Dis86 here, to propel an EBIKE above the 15.5mph requires some effort and a larger emtb even more so as they weight in excess of 20kg+.

I can just about sustain 16-18mph on my haibike allmtn 3 on the flat, dropping to 8-10 on a climb in full power turbo mode. In comparison I can sustain 20+mph on flat and 10-14mph on a climb on my non-electric road bike that is sub 10kg.

Both require a moderate amount of effort to do and sustain, pushing a button or twisting a throttle is not the same, wonder how many times people accelerate in their car, look down and think oh crap in doing 80 already!

 

[jpaul]

You can't stop kids doing daft things.

Neighbour, several multiples of a kid, was explaining, that his new ebike provider, will give him unlock codes for the speed limiter, but, you have to accept the warranty is reduced/void;
I assume these codes must be coded to his bike.

The police need a hardware scanner, or moreover just a regular radar gun; whether speeding fines would be more renumerative than deploying that on cars.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

It wouldn't have a GPS limiter, so you could ride it wherever you dared. Getting away with it is another matter.

However the point I was making was the Cops would know that an eScooter with the local brand scheme painted on it wouldn't be in the correct place so it would be better not to paint that on and just take a chance.

 

[bainbridge]

No, because there's still the illegal to use in public places bit.
Even the trial scooters can only be used on designated cycle paths and roads. Not footpaths, not motorways. These are the ones that you require documentation for.

The voi app does state this clearly and is also part of the training, however I think the designation of cycle paths is very vague. Very few cycle paths show exactly where the path starts and ends. You get those little blue circular signs, which is fair enough, however there are also many little little arrow signs (and stickers on lamp posts) saying which cycle route is where, and on my pushbike I find myself following them down very quiet cul de sacs and then going through a narrow alley to get back on a longer path. I've no idea if every last bit of tarmac I cover is actually a cycle path, or indeed if there's a difference between a cycle route and a cycle path, but I follow it all the same and would do on an escooter

I guess that's why motorbike use is so clear because if you see a youth on a moped riding on the pavement you know (as do the police) that it's illegal.

 

[Dis86]

The voi app does state this clearly and is also part of the training, however I think the designation of cycle paths is very vague. Very few cycle paths show exactly where the path starts and ends. You get those little blue circular signs, which is fair enough, however there are also many little little arrow signs (and stickers on lamp posts) saying which cycle route is where, and on my pushbike I find myself following them down very quiet cul de sacs and then going through a narrow alley to get back on a longer path. I've no idea if every last bit of tarmac I cover is actually a cycle path, or indeed if there's a difference between a cycle route and a cycle path, but I follow it all the same and would do on an escooter

I guess that's why motorbike use is so clear because if you see a youth on a moped riding on the pavement you know (as do the police) that it's illegal.

The law explicitly states it has to be where the signs are displayed, not just something that has cycle path written on it for example.

 

[Delvis]

It wouldn't have a GPS limiter, so you could ride it wherever you dared. Getting away with it is another matter.

The ones in Belgium (Bird iirc) use GPS on your phone, if you aren't with the scooter itself an alarm goes off. Not sure if they have areas you can't go in.

 

[Energize]

It's nice that you believe the ebikes and scooters going around are in compliance with current law so you immediately think of your experience with a 250W road legal bike.

You were responding to my post talking about the capabilities of legal ebikes...

Take a 20 degree incline for example, at 30mph up the slope you would be gaining 4.6m of height every second, plug that into the equation E=m*g*delta(h) and you get 4,508 joules, so if you assume 80% efficiency that's a 5.6KW motor you need to achieve that speed.

Now at the 15mph speed restriction you would gain 2.28m every second and would therefore need a 2.8KW motor using the same parameters.

None of this is taking into account wind resistance and other factors, I'm just using the bare minimum energy you need to reach a specified height.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

The ones in Belgium (Bird iirc) use GPS on your phone, if you aren't with the scooter itself an alarm goes off. Not sure if they have areas you can't go in.

He's on about buying an identical model and painting it with the same design. If rode out of the designated area there would be many people who would spot it had potentially been nicked and rewired.

 

[Angilion]

[..] What safety standards? Ebikes are often sold without lights, with a throttle and de-restricted, safety standards aren't adhered to in the real world.

The fact that safety standards aren't always perfectly adhered to isn't a compelling argument for getting rid of safety standards entirely, which is what advocates of riding powered vehicles on pavements are calling for. But only if they like the type of engine used to power the vehicle. Which makes no sense, but that's what they're doing. In fact, riding a vehicled powered by an internal combustion engine on pavements is safer than riding a vehicle powered by an electric motor on pavements because the ICE will at least be making a noise that might be enough warning for people to take evasive action in time.

 

[Demon]

I can't believe this hasn't been resolved with the easiest of solutions..

Just make one minor tweak to the current eBike legislation to remove the need to pedal assist and then classify eScooters as eBikes.. same power/speed restrictions..

Why oh why is this being complicated and blown out of proportion?

The trial scheme hasn't highlighted any major safety concerns about using them in the same way as eBikes...

What we need are proper policing of cycles (which if I had my way would cover eScooters by extension), fine people if found riding on pavements, if your eBike/eScooter is suspected of not conforming, confiscate, test and if found out of limits, destroy/hefty fine or something..

How hard does it need to be?

It seems absolutely ridiculous to demand insurance and a driving licence to ride an eScooter, yet jump on an eBike with the same power/speed with no insurance and no licence..

 

[b0rn2sk8]

^^ This basically.

It would be good to have a little more power for hills (350w) but keep the same max speed on both ebikes and scooters but I could live with 250w.

 

[touch]

Just make one minor tweak to the current eBike legislation to remove the need to pedal assist and then classify eScooters as eBikes.. same power/speed restrictions..
Why oh why is this being complicated and blown out of proportion?

It's not really that simple...
If you change the definition of ebike to be a powered vehicle which you don't need to pedal that includes pretty much every vehicle on the road. So all cars are now classed as ebikes and are limited to the same power/speed restrictions?