E-bike crackdowns
Posted by Late-Management7279@reddit | ebikes | View on Reddit | 58 comments
Yesterday in Ealing, round the side of TK Maxx police were confiscating electric bikes (E-Bikes), they had 2 unmarked white vans full of E-Bikes and I saw them loading one in.
It looked like mainly the Allegro's, as I rode past I saw a few of those in the vans but I wasn't stopping so they could try and take my bike.
Not sure if they're just targeting delivery riders but this was around 3:15-3:30 that I saw this happening.
I know this has been publicised that this is happening around the country and around London (see my previous post from last year about my experience being stopped). Seems to be getting a lot more prolific in London as I've heard a lot about city of London as a borough, Stories from Uxbridge, I got stopped just of Portobello road and the same day it was happening in Holland park area, plus Ealing Broadway yesterday, seems like momentum with confiscations is building a bit, but only during the day seemingly...
tomxp411@reddit
Lots of people out there are riding illegal bikes on the road. If you follow your local laws, you should be safe - but you probably still did the smart thing by avoiding the area.
Late-Management7279@reddit (OP)
I think it's a case of trying to avoid attention although on an Engwe E26 that can be difficult 😂 I didn't go for the orange model though but I bumped into a delivery driver who did recently.
tomxp411@reddit
That IS a good looking bike. 👍
alistair1537@reddit
ACABC - Meanwhile the real dangers on our roads - Cars and car drivers who kill and maim thousands each year, who are currently killing the planet we live on with their toxic fumes - can drive with impunity at any power level or speed. I'll change my mind about e-bikes being unfairly targeted when their kill rates match cars...
Rude-Possibility4682@reddit
Because the majority of car drivers are insured, so any victims can claim compensation. As bike riders we aren't licensed or insured. So just by riding a non legal e bike you are breaking a law.
Car drivers face penalties being above the speed limit ,dangerous driving etc. You can't justify an illegal bike on a road .
Lar1ssaa@reddit
Yeah, but the probability of killing someone on your bike is muuuuuuuuuuch lower than in a car. What are you talking about?
Rude-Possibility4682@reddit
60Ibs plus rider weight hitting a pedestrian at 30mph that's either death or serious injury for the pedestrian... What you talking about...grow up
alistair1537@reddit
Show us your e-bike fatalities/serious injury stats and we'll compare to our motorist stats like for like. - The only possibility I see those stats changing for the worse are when current car drivers move to e-bikes and remain entitled dangerous pricks on their phones etc...
Rude-Possibility4682@reddit
And obviously we don't have e bike riders who ride on the wrong side of the road.. Or along the sidewalk wheelying, through the streets,or traffic,looking at their phones while riding with no hands on the bars, not giving a toss as long as they can go as fast as they want wherever they want. Pricks are ruining it for everyone .
alistair1537@reddit
Yeah, those freedom loving e-bikers who harm waaaaaay less people than motorists... Damn them and their flaunting of the rules. On a more serious note; We know which group of people are killing the planet with their emissions - we know which group of people have more entitlement than any other group on the planet, in terms of unlimited power, unlimited speed, unlimited right of way and road space per user. We know that motorists are in no small manner, subsidised by every other group of taxpayer. We know that they are actively killing our planet through pollutants and road traffic accidents, but sure, look over there!!! An e-biker is wheelying!!! Horror!!!
Talk about pricks ruining it for everyone - let's talk about motorists...
Rude-Possibility4682@reddit
Don't worry you'll hit puberty in a few years.
Lar1ssaa@reddit
You start tossing out the insults because you don’t like the facts
Rude-Possibility4682@reddit
The facts are everyone with overpowered e bikes are ruining it for the rest of us and stricter legislation will be enforced. If you want a bike that goes over the legal e bike speed limit , get a street legal e moto, like the Super Soco,(or even a motorcycles) a licence and insurance. Don't complain when your bike gets taken by the authorities or you get stopped by the police. I cycle every day to work 11miles on my pedal powdered bike . I follow the road rules. I don't cycle on the sidewalk, only the road. I stop at red lights and obey the rules of the road. So when I see someone on their e bike ignoring those rules, curb hopping , wheelying in and out,then complaining they were hit by a car,'because all car drivers are idiots`. I've no sympathy, stick to the rules and you're less likely to be in an accident .
Lar1ssaa@reddit
Of course, people ignorantly direct hate towards people who bike electric or not. Have you seen the awful comments on posts of people who have biking accidents? People celebrate bikes getting hit by cars, saying they deserve it just for simply riding a bike in the road. The truth is though even with things being the way they are (ebikes traveling at 30-40 mph) if half the people in a car rode an e bike, motor accidents and vehicular deaths would go down SIGNIFICANTLY, as the probability of anyone but the rider dying on an ebike is 100x lower, especially if we add the infrastructor for that. So if that is what legislators really cared about they would make it easier to bike, not the opposite. If places had better bike infrastructure, the need/desire to have a fast ebike would reduce significantly because you would have fewer angry cars behind you.
As of right now, the cost barrier and hassle to get an electric scooter or register a "moped" are too high and not worth it for a lot of people. Cars have monopolized the transport industry, which is awful for accidents and the environment.
alistair1537@reddit
Sadly, you never will.
Lar1ssaa@reddit
Can you tell me what I said that’s factually incorrect or is it that you just don’t like it? It’s much easier to dodge a pedestrian on a bike than in a car.
Late-Management7279@reddit (OP)
A majority but I was the victim of a hit and run 2 years ago and barely got any compensation because the car was unregistered... Was glad to get something but the motor insurance bureau couldn't trace the car that ran me down to anyone even though I had the exact licence plate number.
alistair1537@reddit
Ask Mark Twain, he'll tell you; "The law is an Ass."
You can't justify an illegal bike on the road? Who wrote those laws? Any bet they were motorists?
stormdelta@reddit
That's a terrible rationale, especially since compensation doesn't help much when someone ends up dead or permanently disabled.
They're supposed to, but in practice the way so much infrastructure is absurdly car-centric (especially in the US) makes it much harder to remove driving rights than it should be. And I'd rather have an irresponsible person on an e-bike than behind the wheel of a car.
OnMyOwn_HereWeGo@reddit
We just had an article come out about a guy who will only get DUI charges after killing an 11-year old girl crossing a street at 7 something in the evening. If you want to be a killer and get away with it, drink and drive like a true American.
MickyBee73@reddit
It's bad when all you can legally ride is a poxy 250w E-bike that's only capable of 15mph...
c3161@reddit
Why is that bad?
MickyBee73@reddit
It's not very safe when you slow down too much on hills, and can barely keep with traffic flow. Would make more sense to allow 750w, and have the Class 1, 2 & 3 E-bike system.
I've been there, and I once owned a 250w E-bike and I never felt safe riding it on our U.K roads. I feel a LOT safer riding an E-bike that has adequate power & speed on tap.
c3161@reddit
European e-bikes have power and speed limits set to make them similar in speed to regular bikes. If you want to go faster than that you should get a motorbike.
I've been riding 250W bikes for years and have never had a problem.
tomxp411@reddit
I honestly wish there was a larger market in the "E-moped" segment. As it is, most of the 1000 watt or larger e-bikes are simply illegal on the roads here in the US. Registering them as mopeds or motor driven cycles (the legal term for "small motorcycle") would fix a lot of problems, but that's not even possible right now, for most of those overpowered e-bikes.
c3161@reddit
Does the US not have mopeds?
tomxp411@reddit
The US does, but mopeds have to meet certain regulations that things like a Surron does not. That's the problem: these higher wattage bikes are simply too powerful to legally be mopeds, but they're also not constructed to meet the legal requirements to be a street worthy motorcycle.
So they're only really usable on OHV areas and private property.
Point being, I think the states and Federal agencies need to take a closer look at what can be done with these higher end e-cycles and designate a specific classification for them. Not e-bicycle, but something like "electric cycle", which would cover everything faster than a Class 2 e-bike, but not fast enough or with the equipment needed to ride on the highway.
c3161@reddit
There are road legal Surrons available, at least in the UK. Police in London are using them.
tomxp411@reddit
There probably are.
Yet here in the US, most of those high power electric bikes are not legal and can't even be made legal.
That's my point... I'd like to see a better path to legality for these things, so you don't see mass seizures because people are ignorant and don't know their 3000 watt "e-bike" is actually an unregistered, illegal motorcycle.
c3161@reddit
Not sure what the situation is like in the US, but over here it's an absolute certainty that every single Surron owner knows that they're riding unlawfully. They do it because they want a vehicle that is fast and nimble and can easily escape from the police in urban areas and be easily hidden. Virtually all of them are ridden anti-socially and many are used for crime (see London phone snatchers for example). I see these things zipping around every day and I think there has been one single occasion where I've seen a Surron being ridden in the same manner that a legit motorcyclist would ride in.
Late-Management7279@reddit (OP)
Yeah this is what I hate about surrons, especially as they get lumped in as E-Bikes by the lazy parisitic media. I did an L E-Bikes vlog on that topic and about Adrian Chiles panorama doc that did exactly the same thing...
tomxp411@reddit
Here you generally see them being ridden by teenagers. The ones I’ve talked to often know they’re not legal, but say things like “the cops never bother me.” Others are mistaken and think they are legal based on false information.
I talked to one kid who was riding a gasoline powered scooter very dangerously in a parking lot. He thought he didn’t even need a license, because the scooter was under 50cc.
So there’s simply a lot of ignorance, fueled by what people want to be true, rather than what is true.
c3161@reddit
They're pretty much exclusively ridden by teenage boys. If the police see you riding one, it's pretty much guaranteed they're going to try to stop you. If they catch you, you're fucked basically, as you'll be charged with a bunch of motoring offences and have to go to court, and the bike will be seized and crushed.
Superb_Raccoon@reddit
So 2 mph faster than a class 3.
What you have is an electric motorcycle.
serialband@reddit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVSfWwLtJiA Voloci was available around 20 years ago
https://tulrich.com/voloci/
Someone has instructions on making them street legal. (supposedly)
https://surrontakeover.com/how-to-make-a-surron-road-legal/
They're also selling the Sur Ron Ultra Bee https://surronebikeusa.com/product/sur-ron-ultra-bee-road-legal/
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Superb_Raccoon@reddit
Most states restrict mopeds to 30 mph... lots of money, 2 mph more than a class 3.
Quit fucking around and buy a motorcycle.
stormdelta@reddit
A motorcycle requires riding in the road with other cars, which is way more dangerous, especially if it can't even keep up with them in traffic.
Superb_Raccoon@reddit
And yet... you want more than 30mph speeds.
A moped is limited to 30 and a class 3 is 28. So what is the point of registering as a moped?
stormdelta@reddit
I never said anything about wanting more than 30mph speeds.
Superb_Raccoon@reddit
Then you are in the wrong thread, because that is what started this one, registering an ebike as a moped.
MickyBee73@reddit
I hear you, and agree.
MickyBee73@reddit
Fair enough if that's what you like then you do you, and I'll do me 👍
HerrFerret@reddit
I have a 250w mid drive and it rips up hills. And I usually have no issues with traffic flow, it feels safer than my non-ebike as I can accelerate quickly.
I disabled my speed sensor on a private carpark, and it felt a little too fast TBH.
I think topping the speed out at 20 would be grand, but I am happy with it as it is.
OppositeRun6503@reddit
My e scooters are capped at 20 mph although according to my speedometer app the fastest I've driven it at comfortably is around 12 mph.
Even at that speed it requires constant balance and weight distribution just to keep from crashing for me so I tend to not drive anywhere near the top speed that's available....even driving at these lower speeds is far better than walking to and from my destination however.
MickyBee73@reddit
Fair play, and yeah 20 would be better.
Sounds like you got a nice E-bike.
If I ever go back to 250w it'll be a mid-drive, heck I've even thought of building a 3 motor e-bike - a 250w front, and rear hub motor, and maybe also a mid-drive motor. 🚲⚡👍
HerrFerret@reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/foldingbikes/comments/1kxthxt/my_tern_diy_ebike/
It's a pretty basic mid drive. Full legal. No funny business.
My only issue is I am running it on drill batteries, and really need to get my act together and get a proper battery!
MickyBee73@reddit
Basic works best I've found, keeping builds light makes them handle better, and more fun to ride with better overall mileage. I like the battery mounted in the box, you should get, or build one that is maybe more centre mounted. Cool E-bike build 👍
HerrFerret@reddit
Thanks. The battery is actually on the best position. It is attached to a cargo mount that is independent of the steering.
It works really well, and you don't notice the weight.
MickyBee73@reddit
Cool 👍
godzillabobber@reddit
We dont limit cars to a given horsepower or speed. But that did happen over a century ago. Guess what speed they limited cars to? 15 mph. Now we mostly regulate behavior. Time to raise the issue with lawmakers.
OppositeRun6503@reddit
I saw a report on my local news last night regarding e bike and e scooter crackdowns in adjacent Loudon county in regards to unsafe behavior by riders. It's the irresponsible riders who are ruining things for the rest of us by riding in large groups in the street and clearly blowing through intersections against the light.
These violators simply don't understand that these vehicles are not toys and can cause serious injury or death to themselves or others by willfully operating them in such an unsafe manner.
godzillabobber@reddit
If the laws focus on the behavior rather than the vehicle, they ruin nothing for the rest of us. It works for hot rod cars, it works for Cafe racer motorcycles, and it should be the same for ebikes.
A high powered ebike capable of 30 mph+ can still be ridden at whatever speed is deemed safe but still have the ability to climb hills or tow heavy cargo. And if a rider disregards the law, fines, jail time, or license taken away.
stinkyclint@reddit
In the UK instead of defund the police, its what, overfund the police?- so they have nothing better to do than harass cyclists. Its crazy there is no crime there though and they instead of shit like this to do with so that sounds like a utopia. No crack heads or fentanyl addicts - just people on supped up bikes. LOL
Late-Management7279@reddit (OP)
Yeah it's definitely not like that here...
Unlikely_Box_2932@reddit
The was a team on the Chester cycle way last week I saw at least 3 confascations in 20 mins
Fair-Discipline-1005@reddit
Be carefull and watch on your bike,many thieves watch out outside.... Buy more multiple protection and ride 250w motor of bike or limit on 250w,and max speed on 25km/h.... Together with throttle,must be limited to 6 km/h,walk mode... Then You dont need to affraid from thieves and police...👍