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So far today I have seen 5 lads riding bikes with these e conversion kits that mean you don't even have to pedal. When I say lads, I mean 14-16 year olds, and not a helmet in sight. These aren't even the Uber eats/deliveroo riders who are a menace in town centres, I'm talking kids riding to school in the suburbs of a midlands town.
Why does it appear that the use, and presumably sales, of these kits not get more attention from the police or other authorities?
These kits allow the kids to ride their bikes at 30mph without helmets and without any regulation or having to pass basic tests and without insurance. They can go as fast as a moped after all and those riders need to pass a CBT test and pay VED and wear helmets... So if these kits allow for push bikes to be ridden in the same manner why aren't they regulated or police stopping the riders who use them?
This isn't meant to turn into a slagging match, I'm genuinely intrigued to know why the police walk right past them on a Friday night in town, and why food delivery companies don't crack down on their use.
low level crime - low on priorities but I do follow a couple of "rogue drivers" things online and some police are cracking down on these illegal motorbikes which is what they are. Some kits are perfectly legal tho
Holyrood is considering a bill to make food delivery companies responsible for the legality of the bikes the riders use. In Edinburgh there is a firm that rents out illegal ( or I guess easily modified to be illegal) e bikes to food delivery folk. Nearly all riders use this firms bikes
why aren't they regulated
They are regulated, they're an illegal motorbike. The world is overrun with petty illegal activities, always has been.
There was a 5 year old seriously injured in Chester by one earlier this week, so hopefully there will be a crackdown on the ones I see on my commute.
You could contact the school and let them know your concerns. They would probably put a stop to them being allowed on the premises at least or have the police come and get them.
Edit, I don't know how I thought your post meant they were being used as school transport. That last bit may be rubbish.
I'm genuinely intrigued to know why the police walk right past them on a Friday night in town
I suppose the issue from a police perspective is - how do you know by looking what is or isn't an illegally configured bike? The reality is they're not illegal - simply possessing any kind of electrically powered bike isn't a crime, it's the specific circumstances of using one in certain configurations and specifications on a road that might be. Its technicalities of power, method of assistance and so on that relate to the legality of using them on a road and as said, technically they can be 'motor bikes' but motor bikes can be used legally on roads too subject to the right license and so on.
So how do you tell by looking? What's the test an officer can use, as they walk past, to reliably determine what the power output is, what the method of assistance is, whether or not the speed is restricted and so on?
There was a 5 year old seriously injured in Chester by one earlier this week, so hopefully there will be a crackdown on the ones I see on my commute.
Perhaps, and if so, if only that applied to speeding car drivers eh. Illegal mopeds and motorbikes like this are just lower priority for an under-resourced police force unless a council wants to be seen to be 'doing something' that doesn't challenge the average person. We can have war on illegal motorbikes but not war on cars because only attacking minorities is ok in the wider media and policy.
FWIW I see a few of these being used by kids to get to school. A basic MTB with no chain and a massive hub motor, doing 20-30mph. But we used to draft the school bus for a mile or so at that speed on the way home on our Raleigh Mustangs, that probably set off a few local complaints too. Kids do daft stuff but in the grand scheme of things it's hard to for me to be that bothered, just hope they don't get hurt or hurt anyone.
why the police walk right past them on a Friday night in town
Priorities. Violence, vandalism, theft etc. Addressing one issue means you're not available for another.
Perhaps, and if so, if only that applied to speeding car drivers eh. Illegal mopeds and motorbikes like this are just lower priority for an under-resourced police force unless a council wants to be seen to be 'doing something' that doesn't challenge the average person.
Well yes, that should be tackled too and based on the volume of killed or seriously injured, with more urgency. Fair point.
Seeing them buzz around Leeds the other week and I was thinking it's not long before they hit and kill a pedestrian, in fact I was surprised it wasn't happening constantly.
A quick Google for deaths in Leeds caused by ebikes reveals 3, but I think there's an issue of classification - ebike, electric motorbike, electric bike, bike with motor, pedal assist bike, motorbike? What do you search for, what are they called, how are the incidents being categorised nationally under a standard so stats can be captured to easily identify the scale of the problem? I don't think they are because the things are in an unclassified gap.
Everyone knows they're a problem but they're struggling to prove it?
The police need the same tools themselves too - surrons or whatever.
On the flip side I saw an old yeti 575 with triple crown forks blast out of a petrol station at 30mph straight into a council estate no helmet and a fist full of vapes and it made me laugh (a combination of wtf, respect on the conversion, madness, stereotype etc!).
I thought the same when driving from our little provincial town into the metropolis. Hundreds of food delivery riders either on a scooter with L plates (can you really get business use insurance if you haven't passed your test?) or Apollos with massive batteries strapped to them.
Then I thought of the consequences of nabbing a few of them. It's likely you'd be dealing with people who haven't got the right to work in this country, or even be here. So what then? Do the authorities have the resources to do anything with the people they nick? And their families who depend on the meagre wages? How are they going to store and dispose of the bikes?
And how are they going to deal with the outrage of the people waiting for their pizza that hasn't arrived?
Then I thought of the consequences of nabbing a few of them. It's likely you'd be dealing with people who haven't got the right to work in this country, or even be here. So what then? Do the authorities have the resources to do anything with the people they nick? And their families who depend on the meagre wages? How are they going to store and dispose of the bikes?
And how are they going to deal with the outrage of the people waiting for their pizza that hasn't arrived?
That's basically why nothing gets done - or at least not regularly.
You nab a few riders outside a McDonalds on a Friday night (and at the first sniff of a police operation, most of them will bugger off sharpish anyway).
The bike is found to be illegal / modified etc so it's easy enough to confiscate that. The rider will almost certainly need some form of translator, some Home Office involvement around their right to work, residency etc so that's a huge extra resource and a cross-agency operation to coordinate. You'll need vans / lorries to transport the illegal bikes and somewhere safe to store them (safe enough that if one of them catches fire, it doesn't burn down a whole police station), holding cells for the riders while they're all processed...
And then you'll have a dozen folk complaining that their burgers never arrived.
Plus it won't make any difference - you catch 6 riders outside one fast food place, there'll be 500 more outside all the other takeaways.
And ultimately, most of them are not actually doing much harm, if anything they're providing a service. A few pedestrians might get injured every year but that pales into insignificance against the many pedestrians KSI by cars every year and no-one is proposing a crackdown on them - quite the opposite, as soon as you mention anything about safer driving, it becomes "war on the motorist" and "pedestrians should look out for cars".
The people that really need sorting are the scallies and scrotes bombing around on Surron-type motorbikes, balaclava'd up and obviously looking for something to nick, someone to mug.
I'm with BigJohn and Crazylegs on this one.
There are people doing criminal things, and there are people forced into doing illegal work. The two are not the same. Calling for a crackdown on food delivery riders has the same vibe as MAGA cracking down on migrants in the USA by turning up at their place of work.
Seems to be the flavor of the month for crackdowns though, TVP's social media has been full of posts about surons (and the like) and the modified e-bikes the last few weeks. Most don't seem to have had justeat bags though (some have).
So how do you tell by looking? What's the test an officer can use,
I don't know what the criteria is for stopping them, I presume there's some degree of reasonable suspicion? Are they pedaling, if no then it's likely illegal. Or just generally riding on a pavement, footpaths, etc.
Then they just do a quick test of lift the back wheel off the ground and see if the speedo reads >15.5mph as a roadside test.
What usually happens is that the public demands "someone do something" and they authorities react in a knee-jerk fashion and crackdown on genuine cyclists, ban cycling in public spaces, halt or review any new cycle paths, pumptracks etc. Round here they've sent the police and fenced off MTB'ing spots because of surron riders.
Obviously this has zero effect on people riding what are essentially unlicensed electric motorbikes.
The all party parliamentary group for cycling published this recently:
https://appgcw.org/resources/inquiries/unregulated-and-unsafe-the-threat-of-illegal-e-bikes/
Haven’t had the chance to read it yet but it is written by the excellent Laura Laker so can vouch for it that far.
I’ll add my voice to the opinion that part of the solution must be the precarious employment position that delivery people are in. Having folk desperately sweating their way around the city hoping to make enough money to get by isn’t good for anyone, regardless of which vehicle they’re in (see the behaviour of Amazon drivers as further evidence).
I recently saw a vid from the netherlands ( where this as becomer an issue) and they had a small portable dynamometer that assessed speed and power. I have also seen a simple test UK police did - take the bike for a whizz up the road and see what speed it does - over 15mph on electric power and its impounded as an illegal motorbike.
its a question of priorities for the police and IMO the action needed is at the supply end ie crack down on the suppliers of these illegal electric motorbikes
if these kits allow for push bikes to be ridden in the same manner why aren't they regulated
They are - quite tightly regulated, but in the same way that selling scrap to a scrap yard is tightly regulated, ie its totally ineffective - the retailers can just state 'off road use/private land only' and walk away from any responsibility'.
or police stopping the riders who use them?
Again - they are. Follow your local constabulary on facebook and you'll see that theres definitely been a change in the past year or so, they are now starting to target these things and put operations in place. People have been banging on about it for a while but not they do seem to be acting. Both West and North Yorks Police have done various stings on these in recent months.
Bet they were wearing balaclavas (the new helmet). Police are not interested as there is no money in it. However if you have a non compliant number plate on your vehicle, ker ching....... 🤬
its a question of priorities for the police and IMO the action needed is at the supply end ie crack down on the suppliers of these illegal electric motorbikes
I suspect it's far more efficient in police terms to target the users.
As Snotrag said, the loopholes are too large to actually find anything they've actually done that's illegal, you yourself have bought those kits, you're just presumably law abiding enough to not disable the limiter?
Judging by the polices posts targeting the users seems to result in a whole string of other offences from drug dealing to weapons (on top of the no tax, insurance, mot, license). I don't know, but suspect, the Police know exactly who they're going to target. Why spend weeks of detectives time building a case then executing a warrant to arrest them and search their house when you can just park round the corner and wait for them to come past on a Surron (and the PCC get's to tick their box for doing what the public asked).
Hundreds of food delivery riders either on a scooter with L plates (can you really get business use insurance if you haven't passed your test?)
The naivety is strong with this one...
Tinas
I was thinking more of a legislative action to give the police weapons to go after the suppliers / employers. Similar to the legislation thats been proposed in Scotland that would make the employers responsible for the legality of the riders.
As i said in Edinburgh there is a company that hires out illegal e bikes ( or easily converted to illegal) for the delivery riders. Making the employers responsible for legality of the bikes would soon stop this I am sure.
the kids riding them needs a different approach. Yesteday i saw two girls aged around 12 riding an electric motorbike on a cyclepath. I have no idea how that could be prevented other than by making it illegal to sell such a thing - enforcement action would be very difficult but their parents must have bought them it. I wonder if the parents actually realised it was illegal?
Making the employers responsible for legality of the bikes would soon stop this I am sure.
The very nature of all these "employers" is that they're as far removed from it all as possible. Uber, all the food delivery companies - their operating method is as opaque as possible in order to distance themselves from any liability. They have an "I confirm I am riding a legal bike" tickbox which is obviously meaningless but pretty much allows them free rein.
There is a secondary consideration which is that the "employer" almost demands you have an illegal bike cos you simply can't do the job otherwise. Can you get this 15kg sack of food to an address 2 miles away in 20 minutes? Basically no you can't - unless you're riding an illegal bike. You could of course use a motorbike but then you need a driving licence and tests and insurance and it all costs too much cos you're only making £3 per delivery.
Similar way to how Tesla operates. Find whatever loopholes you can to absolve yourself of any blame. In the event of a collision, any auto-drive engaged on a Tesla will (in fractions of a second when the system realises it is going to hit something no matter what) disconnect allowing Tesla to say "nope, the auto drive wasn't engaged at time of collision therefore it's not our problem".
The very nature of all these "employers" is that they're as far removed from it all as possible. Uber, all the food delivery companies - their operating method is as opaque as possible in order to distance themselves from any liability. They have an "I confirm I am riding a legal bike" tickbox which is obviously meaningless but pretty much allows them free rein.
This is specifically mentioned in the APPGCW report on eBikes as being a problem. All Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling & Walking | Unregulated and Unsafe: The Threat of Illegal E-Bikes - All Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling & Walking
Making the employers responsible for legality of the bikes would soon stop this I am sure.
The key thing you're missing there is that they are self employed, or often working illegally via the account setup by someone else.
There is zero chance of that legislation being effective, or at least being any more effective than the current legislation. Even if you could put that shop out of business, what's stopping someone just setting up in their shed, or shipping up bikes from somewhere else.
The only way to do it would be to address the causes, i.e. why are they working illegally (because we purposely made them illegal). Unless you bring them into the legal economy where you can have some influence then it's doomed to fail.
I'm sounding dangerously close to an allegory of the war on drugs 😂
Scrotes will learn once their bikes are siezed and crushed. They're only popular with them due to the perception that the police won't bother them. Most of them don't need them to make a living so won't see it as a cost of doing business. And those that do use them to deliver drugs won't want the fact that they now attract attention.
Then I thought of the consequences of nabbing a few of them. It's likely you'd be dealing with people who haven't got the right to work in this country, or even be here. So what then?
Yes. Leics. Police did seize a number of these vehicles this week, alongside immigration Officers, a number of people were arrested and 20+ bikes seized. A search online shows many Police forces doing the same thing. Leicester has had a problem recently with a few deaths, many robberies, and serious injuries to the victims, most of them caused by Neds on e-bikes, and, of course, with their faces covered. Luckily, a few of them have since been arrested, but the scourge still goes on with many bikes going far too fast in the pedestrian areas.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4y47e8exvo
Good work by both the police and BBC. Well described as "electric motorbikes, throttle bikes and scooters" with a concise explanation of legal EAPC and non-legal.
And no mention of food delivery riders.
Well described as "electric motorbikes, throttle bikes and scooters" with a concise explanation of legal EAPC and non-legal.
That’s astonishingly good of the BBC
Making the employers responsible for legality of the bikes would soon stop this I am sure.
The very nature of all these "employers" is that they're as far removed from it all as possible. Uber, all the food delivery companies - their operating method is as opaque as possible in order to distance themselves from any liability. They have an "I confirm I am riding a legal bike" tickbox which is obviously meaningless but pretty much allows them free rein.
We maybe need an employment legislation approach rather than a cycling approach , focusing on the bikes is overlooking a more broadly exploitative industry practice. Something equivalent to operators licenses for HGVs for all kinds of employment that are principally transport based maybe - whereby both the driver and the person paying them are equally liable for breaches, particular where the vehicles aren't appropriately specced or maintained for use in their workplace - which is 'the road'.
So much of the gig economy is transport/traffic/road related now whether its amazon type deliveries or the inexplicable business of paying too much to have lukewarm chips delivered to your door and we shouldn't really be allowing these businesses to offload responsibility to people who the are barely offering a job to.
I think something is long overdue for the parcel delivery industy - theres times of day on the M8 where you see long trains of Amazon transit vans heading from the depot into Glasgow and Edinburgh. Each and every one of them will have pretty significant collision damage and each and every one of those dents will represent damage to someone or something else , hundreds and hundreds of accidents. Theres something fundimentally wrong with the employment model if your staff are crashing all the time
I'd love for someone from HSE to stand at the gate of the depot with a manager where the accident report for each and every dent is
We maybe need an employment legislation approach rather than a cycling approach , focusing on the bikes is overlooking a more broadly exploitative industry practice.
Again, this is one of the APPGCW recommendations. The main problem is the substitution clause, which essentially means there isn’t an employer-employee relationship and so means the ‘platforms’ aren’t responsible. And in any case it’s very often not the person who’s meant to be doing the work who actually is doing it.
PedalMe (which, granted, has a vested interest in this) was doing a survey but the responses have been… underwhelming thus far.
https://www.pedalme.co.uk/whos-doing-the-work
I'm not sure why going after delivery companies should be a problem, unless the argument is that there aren't the resources to police it, which is true of a lot these days.
We've gotten used to just accepting businesses' versions of reality, in this case the story they are telling us is there are a bunch of self-employed people running around doing illegal stuff and they are nothing to do with us (beyond us giving them money for providing a service).
An employer being responsible for their contractors is not a new thing. Most of these 'disruptive' businesses exist because they have created a legal loophole (a loophole that often only exists in their head) and built a business around this supposed loophole.
In this case the supposed loophole is that as a business the legality of their contractors has nothing to do with them. A relatively small amount of effort would quickly show them that's not the case.
From what I understand, every time you find a delivery rider who doesn't have the right to work the company can be fined up to £20,000. Every time they found a rider with an illegal motorbike they could fine the company £100,000 (don't quote me on that figure but I'm seeing everything from £2000 to £1 million+).
Deliveroo and the like are responsible for ensuring whoever is delivering the food is legally entitled to work in the UK and they are also responsible for ensuring their contractors equipment is legal and safe to use. How they do that is up to them but I don't imagine it will be cheap or easy. If they can't manage it and still be profitable then perhaps it's a business that shouldn't exist.