Inexperienced e-Bike Riders [Local Problem?]

[classic33]

So - as usual - the only people who suffer from any new regulations are the people who obey the law and pay for the registration and license etc etc
and everyone else, who causes all the problems anyway, carries on as before
or has a removable "cheat device" that over-rides the limits but they can remove it for the test and then put it back afterwards

In Ireland, roadside checkpoints can be set up as and when, on any stretch of road. If you or your vehicle is found to be illegal at the checkpoint, then the Guards can remove it there and then.
UK police do not have those rights.

How many e-bikes have you seen with the rider wearing a motorcycle helmet?

 

[All uphill]

I go by the example Nelson Mandela set.

Not the blowing stuff up terrorism bit. That is not something to be emulated.

No, I copy the simply existing quietly and not going away thing. I ride my bike regularly. I do so safely and diligently. Eventually someone else might do the same. And someone else. And one day we will be, if not the majority, then certainly a user group to be reckoned with.

I can't see and legislative or political solutions to our status as third rate scum. The only alternative is to not go away, to keep at it, to set the example, and like molecules in a vacuum we'll slowly attract others and perhaps one day coalesce into something to be taken seriously.

In doing so we should distance ourself visibly and loudly from illegal electric motorcycles, ebikes that have been illegally hopped-up. Even the Daily Mail and the like refer to high performance electric motocrossers as "ebikes", and we get tarred as a user group with someone else's brush,

I agree with you.

The influence we can quietly have on our friends and neighbours is significant. A neighbour got me cycling longer distances when I retired seven years ago; since then I have helped four local people start commuting and shopping by bike.

Joining in with the doom and gloom is not good for my happiness, or for the cause of cycling, so I don't do it.

 

[Slick]

I agree with you.

The influence we can quietly have on our friends and neighbours is significant. A neighbour got me cycling longer distances when I retired seven years ago; since then I have helped four local people start commuting and shopping by bike.

Joining in with the doom and gloom is not good for my happiness, or for the cause of cycling, so I don't do it.

Absolutely this.

Life is just too short.

 

[Slick]

So - as usual - the only people who suffer from any new regulations are the people who obey the law and pay for the registration and license etc etc
and everyone else, who causes all the problems anyway, carries on as before
or has a removable "cheat device" that over-rides the limits but they can remove it for the test and then put it back afterwards

Better targeted enforcement would be a most excellent idea, like the link posted by @HobbesOnTour

Ah, we all know the rule applies not to car drivers because they're such a powerful financial lobby with enormous voting clout. Central government rarely look beyond the next election and for that reason would never dare push them too hard as a user group. That being the case motorists are the big exception that proves the rule and not a good example to cite to disprove my statement.

Conversely, as has been discussed elsewhere, PSPOs are being used to penalised sensible cyclists who present little risk in the first place, while the loons and those on illegal ebikes can't be caught (or refuse to stop for council wardens who have no actual powers to stop them anyway) and they go unaddressed.

Legislation is littered with examples of new laws that penalise those who were foing nothing wrong in the first place, while those who were breaking the law and are responsible for the introduction of invariably tighter new legislation now have a new law to ignore...much like they did the first one. They will carry on as before, while those who were never a problem in the first place now risk being criminalised because they're easy pickings compared to the actual dangerous offenders the new laws were intended to target.

Airgun laws in Scotland are a good example. Some total arrisholes were responsible for some nasty incidents, and were already breaking some quite serious laws (as serious as murder in some cases.) This prompted the introduction of airgun licencing (because we all know thar licences make people behave themselves...) so now people are being knocked off for minor, unintended or accidental infringement of the new licencing laws while those that were being idiots are not suddenly becoming law abiding and getting licenced and are carrying exactly as before.

Now when something happens the McDibbke are simply shaking down the nearest licence holders because its an easy thing to do when there are no genuine avenues of investigation, and law abiding people that are no risk to anyone are being hassled and having to jump through hoops whike the real dangerous folk are carrying on breaking the law.

Those that are breaking the law already don't suddenly become law abiding when another ,as takes its place.

I use that as an example,e because being a Scotsman and a shooter it's of interest to me and relevant to friends of mine spback home, but look around you and there are literally hundreds dress of examples where the law is tightened, often using tough terms like "crackdown", so those doing no harm are further inconvenienced while those breaking old laws simply carry on breaking new ones instead. It's a strangely British phenomenon.

I grew up a huntin and shootin type, never took to the fishing thing. I always feel like when I say this I need to quantify it by saying it was done within the law of the day and with the landowners permission. I reckon that subject is worth a thread on its own, although I doubt some would get it. Plus, I have now got to an age where I couldn't possibly point anything more at some of these beautiful animals than a camera, but I still love getting on a hill to find them.

It doesn't have to be that way.
The Dutch will test your bike on the road.



Balanced views? Yes, you're definitely an optimist!

I find threads like these to be so negative and depressing. Lots of hot air but no-one actually doing anything or making suggestions to make a difference. Nothing will work. It's all doom and gloom. Hell in a handbasket is just around the corner. Let's all talk about the Mad Max future.

A simple "Whoah, you're going a bit fast there", delivered in the right tone would probably have been more effective and more cathartic than sitting down to calculate meters of travel per second using gps data and writing a long post online.

Unfortunately, once we 'other' someone we're less likely to talk to them as an equal. They're wrong. They're inferior. Once that comes across in the communication there is little hope of a positive connection.

An e-bike rider is a person on an e-bike.

Love the link, although I still think its a bit of a shame as I also love your last comment.

Its my final day out here tomorrow as I head for the boat back, but I've loved seeing the myriad of contraptions you can get out here,and yes some are obviously Illegal, but on the proper Infrastructure, they aren't doing an awful lot wrong.

 

[PedallingNowhereSlowly]

Why would we face restrictions because of the illegal actions of others?

What restrictions do you envisage?

Most likely the banning of cycling from more places via PSPOs. Without the same exceptions that are employed where exceptions are made for drivers under such schemes (loading/unloading, disability etc..)

Don't forget that advocates in many places are campaigning to get some of these restrictions eased or lifted and the type of cycling from a usually small but visible contingent is not helping matters.

Central Government are too slow to deal effectively with the problem. The Police are under-resourced. So local authorities will continue take matters into their own hands. Law abiding cyclists will respect the bans and thus be penalised. Those that don't care will continue to flout the restrictions as they do now.

You have to bear in mind, it is illegal to loiter in any of our parks. One of the precise reasons for going to a park is to sit on a bench and pass some time without particular purpose. Which is, to all intents, loitering.

 

[classic33]

Like restriction of legal ebikes and normal bikes due to the activities of people on illegal bikes??

With regards the new law coming into place on Monday, in Ireland, those with an e-assist pedal cycle may find themselves having to prove it meets current EU regulations for e-assist. Fail to be able to prove it, and I'd say at best a telling off at worst it's seized.
Those with one that falls into the light moped class will find themselves in trouble.

I think everyone that has replied on this thread, has mentioned at least once, how they've seen illegal bikes being ridden over here. And just like the piece earlier about testing at the roadside, the Guards have the ability in some places to do just that.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

The question isn't about the ability to perform the test - although I would question that in the UK - but on the ability to get people to stop in the first place

I have seen reports of "enforcement officers" trying to stop people riding through a pedestrianised area - and basically the only people who stop are the ones that were not causing a problem
I saw on place where the journalist asked a masked teenager about it and he said that him and his mates were doing circuits through the shopping street because it was funny having the uniformed "officer" shouting "STOP" and just riding off
Nothing he could to to stop anyone that was actually causing a problem

The manpower needed to make it even slightly likely that you would get stopped if you were riding a 1000W electric moped are minimal unless you cause an accident and can't ride off

at the moment

 

[classic33]

The question isn't about the ability to perform the test - although I would question that in the UK - but on the ability to get people to stop in the first place

I have seen reports of "enforcement officers" trying to stop people riding through a pedestrianised area - and basically the only people who stop are the ones that were not causing a problem
I saw on place where the journalist asked a masked teenager about it and he said that him and his mates were doing circuits through the shopping street because it was funny having the uniformed "officer" shouting "STOP" and just riding off
Nothing he could to to stop anyone that was actually causing a problem

The manpower needed to make it even slightly likely that you would get stopped if you were riding a 1000W electric moped are minimal unless you cause an accident and can't ride off

at the moment

I'd agree with you with regards similar stops being made over here. The police on the UK mainland don't have the same rights of mounting a checkpoint as the Guards do. So we'd be less inclined to stop, whatever vehicle was in use. The random checkpoints are a common enough feature of road use in Ireland. Maybe that will make a difference in the mindset of those who see them.
I've been stopped at one myself, the only cyclist, on the road at night(8pm in December). Later the same week I got a wave from the guard in a squad car as it passed me.

The new rules coming in place on Monday also apply to e-scooters.

The local elections are on the 7th June, so we'll see how it goes down in the 18 days before.

 

[PedallingNowhereSlowly]

Lovely sunny morning and as usual, I went out for my morning ride. This is a ride i do most days and for the last few weeks, I've been following the same loop which has some busy road sections, some quiet road sections, some off-road cycle route and some along-road cycle route. There's even some gravel. It's a fairly relaxed ride as I do most of it in zone 2. Otherwise, I wouldn't be riding on sections where there are pedestrians around.

One section takes me along a 'main road' with shared pedestrian/cycle footway on either side of it. I spotted a youngish fellow absolutely bombing along on the other side of the road, in the same direction. I was doing about 18 km/h along most of this section and he made it look like I was standing still. Much closer to the speed of the motorised traffic. He hopped onto the road ahead of some traffic lights, shot the red light and then turned right using the pedestrian crossing, dog legged his way around the pedestrian refuge and made his way across another crossing before I lost sight of him.

Fortunately there were no pedestrians around to speak of, on account of it still being quite early on a Sunday morning. Kind of curious to know whether he would have slowed down to pass pedestrians. I couldn't really see much of the bike, but it looked like an after market conversion.

It's really curious to me that he dropped onto the road - almost as if he wanted to jump a red light - he could have continued on the shared cycle way and reached the crossing without doing that.

Sadly, drivers having confirmation bias assume that's the way we all cycle. They'd have seen him, conspicuous by his speed and RLJ but not noticed the responsible cyclist in the vicinity not doing anything to draw anyones attention.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I have noticed that the vast majority of ebikes that I see doing suspiciously high speeds - or riding along at a reasonable speed but with suspiciously little pedalling - are on bikes that look like they have been converted
Especially the ones where the battery is held on with tape

and they are the ones that mostly are ridden badly

However I have seen bikes that are very clearly illegal - you know the ones, hub motor the size of a large dinner plate - ridden perfectly responsibly

The main thing that worries me about a lot of them is the state of the brakes
if a cheap bike is converted then it will still have cheap brakes - and if it is now heavier by the weight of a big motor and a big battery then its stopping power is likely to be rather limited,
And only the Gods know how quickly the motor cuts out if the rider hits the brakes!!

In my opinion the authorities have let several cats out of bags by not clamping down on them being sold all over the place with little, if any, attempt at regulation
but lets not get sent to "the other place"

 

[PedallingNowhereSlowly]

You are absolutely right about the brakes. There are plenty of conventional bikes around that people ride in a poor state of repair and the only saving grace there is that they tend to be ridden quite slowly. Just this morning I passed someone riding a bike up a hill at about 4-5 mph on the small cog - the bike was making a loud grinding sound on each pedal revolution. That got me thinking that bike maintenance should be tough in schools - an ideal STEM subject.

I do find myself wondering if it is legal to sell the conversion kits and bikes already converted with the kits that make them illegal to use on the public highway without type approval etc.. when the seller knows full well they are going to be used on the public highway?

I could of course look that up, but I haven't found the time as yet. There are a number of people slinging them in my locality on bookface market place etc..

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

You are absolutely right about the brakes. There are plenty of conventional bikes around that people ride in a poor state of repair and the only saving grace there is that they tend to be ridden quite slowly. Just this morning I passed someone riding a bike up a hill at about 4-5 mph on the small cog - the bike was making a loud grinding sound on each pedal revolution. That got me thinking that bike maintenance should be tough in schools - an ideal STEM subject.

I do find myself wondering if it is legal to sell the conversion kits and bikes already converted with the kits that make them illegal to use on the public highway without type approval etc.. when the seller knows full well they are going to be used on the public highway?

I could of course look that up, but I haven't found the time as yet. There are a number of people slinging them in my locality on bookface market place etc..

As far as selling them is concerned - I heard that the local bikes shop ( the only one around here apart from the big stores) mutters "you won;t be using it on the roads will you" at some point in the sale
and even then he is doing more than most people bother with in his position

He did ask me at one point if I had "done anything to speed my ebike up"

You can;t really blame him - the shop has to make a profit - although the e-scooters that use to take up half the window have gone and he seems to concentrate on higher price proper ebikes now so I presume that is where the money is

If someone is after a cheap ebike they are probably going to go to Halfords anyway

 

[albion]

One solution with regards to delivery companies is to make them liable.
It is farcical that they will even know who is riding them illegally.
It being a fairly simple algorithm.

 

[PK99]

A legal ebike is no quicker than a regular bicycle, and in many scenarios a goodly bit slower.

You often make similar comments.

It seems to me only partly correct.

Put a fit and experienced cyclist on the bikes and what you say is correct.

BUT, an inexperienced cyclist would not be able to keep up the speed for long, if at all, on a normal bike. On the other hand, on an e-bike even a novice can ride at the limit speed indefinitely - but they do not have the road sense or cycling knowledge to ride with due care and attention.

Inexperienced e-bike riders are much more of a hazard.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Around here is seems that most fast food delivery people are now using cars

I have not seen one on a bike of any kind for ages

No idea why - there are enough houses near the "fast food heavy" town centre streets - but the ebikes have all gone!