Cyclists are irritating, but e-bike riders are just plain dangerous
The roads are getting that bit more dangerous now that e-cyclists on illegally converted bikes going at 30mph are added to the traffic mix. Normal electric cycles can’t do that; they breeze along at just over 15mph and are handy for cyclists who don’t do hills.
But if they’re converted, as they easily can be, with a motor of 250 watts, they end up more powerful, faster, heavier, more lethal to pedestrians. Some mount pavements, which means that the elderly don’t have a chance; you don’t hear them coming until someone shouts at you.
In fact, what we’ve got is a bike that thinks it’s a motorbike – and is as lethal as a motorbike – but doesn’t have the legal constraints of a motorbike. It’s terrifying.
In the City of London, police confiscate about five a week, including delivery drivers; outside London the figure last year was nearly 1,000. And that’s the ones they caught; among the ones that get away are snatch and grab thieves – phone snatchers especially – who find electric bikes as effective and more mobile than a motorbike. Sometimes they operate in teams.
To tackle the problem of illegal e-bikes and scooters, the City of London police have brought back their cycle response unit, which is a good move. They’re nippier than cars and can weave through traffic. I’m all in favour of police not in cars; when I encountered Paris police on roller blades a few years ago, I laughed at them, but it dawned on me that they were actually well adapted to city streets. More police might have to take to bikes to catch the illegal e-bikes; they’ve certainly got to get out there and get them.
Indeed, it’s time that police treated e-cyclists like motorcyclists; that means, they should have to stick to the highway code; wear helmets; get penalised if they move onto pavements. They should also have to take out insurance against harm to others. There’s a reason why some delivery drivers are using converted e-bikes.
They don’t have to pay for the insurance and licences and tests you need to ride a moped. Instead they buy a fairly cheap bicycle, and go online to find a kit for £300-£400, get it fixed on to the bicycle, and off they go, at 30mph, faster than the London speed limit for cars. As for penalties, there’s the option of a fine of £300 for riding an illegal e-bike; mostly the police just confiscate it.
Cyclists are already acquiring a reputation for being problem road users, which is unfair on most of them, but is squarely attributable to the ones who regard traffic lights as being for cars. The other day a cyclist knocked me down while I was crossing the road at pedestrian lights. The cheering aspect of the thing was the way other cyclists clustered round him to tell him what they thought of him: “You’re the kind who gives the rest of us a bad name”. He was right.
Now that I’ve learned to look out for cyclists, even when I’m using pedestrian lights, I’ve seen more of them breezing through red lights and pedestrian crossings, and they’re scary. Getting knocked down by a normal bike was bad – fractured ribs – but imagine the same man on an electric bike adapted to go faster than a car. I’d be dead.