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From that BBC article,
But what constitutes a road-legal e-bike isn't straightforward....
FFS, it really is! There are 3 main criteria, power, speed and no throttle. Not hard at all.
"We don't think regulation is keeping track with the technological advancements around e-bikes." says Salford Councillor.
The counter argument there is the regulation is fine, it's just not being enforced.
I think most major cities could deal with illegal electrical motorbikes easily. Have police set up checks on main roads with takeaways and pick off the deliveroo crew. If they did this regularly then folk would stop buying them. If they handed out fines for using them then it would counter the the police don't have the funds to do this lobby.
Having said that deliveroo and uber eats riders are great training for the mega. BMX elbows are regularly out on the commute out of Manchester as they seem to think they are riding in a peleton. Still yet to dump one out of a moto but there have been a few close calls!
I've complained to the BBC and included a link to the government advice at https://www.gov.uk/electric-bike-rules . I had a look at a few websites earlier in the day to check whether it was a Sur-Ron or e-bike and it has to be said the referring to Sur-Rons as e-bikes is endemic across pretty much all the media, not just the BBC.
Simples -
anything above 250w = motorbike.
Surron's = bike life ****ers/drug dealers.
Two of them got mangled about 12 months ago at the bottom of our road - road shut off for hours. Car pulled out from side road as these two 'adults' (in their 20's) barrelled down the road at high speed - vision lines are hard due to hedges and parked cars.
Effectively driver's fault, but they weren't doing 20 mph speed limit over the speed humps. Both got nasty injuries. Poor driver was badly affected too. Thing is, the local facebook page went into meltdown as a member of their family came on 'the discussion'. Oh nice lads etc etc. They weren't, they were local scallies that were always tearing about on these Sur-Rons.They actually had lids on fortunately !
It used to happen with MX bikes, but at least you could hear them coming.
.
Here we go again, same issues, same apologists. I have empathy for the fact someone has died, I have no sympathy for those who caused or enabled this which includes the rider. Regulation needs to be on the sale of these, once they are on the road they are almost impossible to stop and when it inevitably ends in tragedy the hand wringer have a field day.
Big question is will this get to 3 pages before it's closed or not.
The police can’t stop them using current resources- it’s no good chasing a bike in a car, so they’re damned if they do damned if they don’t.
Anyway, perhaps we should all start calling them e-cycles instead and maybe try and get retailers of e-cycles to adopt the same name… 🤷♂️
Woffor?
I dunno to stop people thinking e-cycles are a problem when it’s e-bikes that are causing a few issues maybe. Or maybe not, perhaps we don’t really care what they’re called as it probably doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to anyone in reality. Just musing I guess.
Genuine question: is there a legal definition of an 'e-bike'? Is it possible a pedal assist bicycle and an electric moto can fairly be termed an e-bike?
I think the inevitably of the govt/police being forced to properly regulate/crackdown is probably close now
Presumably the regulation is already there. It's a motorised vehicle and treated as such. There's no special regulation for electric cars that I'm aware of? And even if there was, they'd surely have applied the same to electric motorbikes. The issue is a cultural one and with what people think they can get away with. Policing is quite possibly part of that.
Above the age of criminal responsibility, and by 15 should know better.
I was an idiot at 15. I'd be inclined to say the society that allowed a child to feel comfortable blasting round the streets on an illegal motorbike shares a portion of the blame.
Dictionary definition of Darwinism. Hope the ambulance service can claim off the scratters family for the damage.
Pass my microscopic violin.
Two of them got mangled about 12 months ago at the bottom of our road – road shut off for hours. Car pulled out from side road as these two ‘adults’ (in their 20’s) barrelled down the road at high speed – vision lines are hard due to hedges and parked cars.
I had a MX'er bike life ****er ride into the side of my van then bounce into a bus shelter. Heli ambulance involved.
His mate turned up in a Golf R and tried getting the bike away. Was unrolling cash to fix my van door. Rang police.
Police confiscated his off-road bike, fined him 6points plus whatever costs, he lost his job. He then claimed £25k costs against my insurer who didn't contest.
My insurance became unaffordable so I sorned it and pedalled to work for a year. Lost interest in it as I was just about to camper convert it.
I'm miles behind here... whats the differebce between the two names?
The counter argument there is the regulation is fine, it’s just not being enforced.
I will stand corrected ,but I doubt very much that there is any workable 'regulation' in place.
With the speed that the sales of electric scooters (stand on type) and electric motorbikes (Sur Ron types) took off,the police/government has been trying to play catch up (with regards to regulation/enforcement) from day one.
I used to live round the corner from Langworthy Road, where it happened. It’s scrote central even by Salford standards
I’d imagine GMP are bracing themselves for a pretty lively old evening around the precinct
@fasthaggis It would be really interesting to know how many unlicensed electric motorbikes GMP have seized in the last 12 months. I’d bet it’s not a big number.
Usual platitudes on the radio this afternoon quoting his mum. Lovely, charming, happy youmg lad etc.
Bet he wasn't, bet he was your stereotypical yoof. Out late being a knob, hanging round with half a dozen other knobs in tracksuits. Generally being a dick and making a nuisance of himself. I wish for once someone from his school would come on the radio and say, Yep Alfie was a total throbber who couldn't ride the electric motor bike his dad bought him for toffee and I'm not surprised he's crashed at all
I was in Plymouth a few days ago, and was amazed at just how many illegal electrical motorbikes were to be seen being ridden around the centre in a few short hours. Bleedin' obvious too - doing 20-30mph whilst not pedalling, or more if downhill.
In part they need to legislate against sale and import ad it's fhecken obvious they're gonna get used on streets and not private land.
His brothers currently locked up for murder and dealing heroin and crack...
Organ donor in the UK by default, nice young healthy, well subject not being in deep into above, organs for deserving people to receive, make something good out of something you can't really alter, no matter the laws/enforcement.
I don't like some of the attitudes about a 15 year old in this thread.
Until you've walked in someone else's poverty restricted, socially broken and reduced hope life, it's inappropriate to condemn someone so vulnerable and young - no matter how big thier mistakes. He's paid the ultimate price for his mistakes.
Lower Seedley Road is blocked with a constriction. Could the kid have gone down there to lose the Police vehicle?
I saw the news reports earlier; the kid rode into the dead-end road, with the police following. He rode between the bollards heading towards another road on the opposite side, knowing almost certainly that the police couldn’t follow him, and as he went through the bollards, the ambulance, which wasn’t on a shout, came up the road from the kid’s left, and hit him as he went directly in front of it. As a result his head hit the windscreen in the lower right hand corner. It really doesn’t take much imagination to see the exact circumstances behind what happened. I see stupid little shits tearing around on very similar bikes, no helmets, hoods up, often on footpaths as well, including one at the top of my road, which is a shared-use path, and has a tall hedge alongside; the idiots, often two-up as well, come straight out from behind the hedge and onto the road, it’s only a matter of time before the exact same situation happens, because my road is regularly used by ambulances and fire engines on emergency shouts, and they aren’t pissing around when they come past my house, which is barely fifty meters from the B-road, (used to be the A350), that it joins. There will be a tragedy, I’m sure of it - I’ve seen enough accidents already on that junction over the nearly fifty years I’ve lived here.
Until you’ve walked in someone else’s poverty restricted, socially broken and reduced hope life, it’s inappropriate to condemn someone so vulnerable and young
Remind me, how much are these motorcycles again? Enquiring minds want to know.
Is it possible a pedal assist bicycle and an electric moto can fairly be termed an e-bike?
it’s pretty normal for motorcycles and bicycles to both be referred to as bikes.
i think it would be more appropriate in news reports to call them electric motorcycles. this would go a long way tom distinguishing them from electric bicycles.
Remind me, how much are these motorcycles again? Enquiring minds want to know.
Agreed.
I'm not here to defend thier actions - and certainly not a decision to procure a motorbike and ride it in the manner they do. A death of a 15 year old child is tragic, no matter the circumstances. Thier background is an irrelevance.
I had hoped for compassion not vengeance.
I'm disappointed that some seem to think death is a suitable punishment for a child. I wonder if they think we should bring back the death penalty, maybe for theft or dangerous driving, and perhaps they are happy to enact that punishment on thier own children should they find themselves having made a mistake?
I do believe that we need to support these families and communities more - the deaths from riding these motorbikes is the tip of an iceberg of deaths and harm through so many mechanisms. The deaths are a frosting on a broken and unhappy community and families, where society cannot seem to resource and help in he way which is needed.
I'm struggling to articulate this well.
I’m struggling to articulate this well.
I'd say you are articulating it well mate. 👏
I’m not sure anybody thinks death is a suitable punishment (well certainly not me anyhow), but there is an inevitability to kids thrashing these things around.
Overall, it is tragic for all involved.
Personally I think the police need greater powers/to do more/better resourcing to do so
Mixed thoughts (again)
Plenty of people are brought up in difficult conditions and don't become feral scrotes, so I don't think you get a free pass because of difficult upbringings. But I do recognise that the two can be linked (plenty of scrotes with privileged, even dare I say Etonian upbringings, let's be honest)
Taking aside how he / they get these expensive electric motorcycles, there's no doubt wazzing around on them without regard for the law and their own and other's safety deserves some kind of punishment. But not a death penalty, that's a tragedy whatever and anyone celebrating that is a right ****
A few more deaths and maybe the govt will do something?
How much does a Sur-Ron cost? About £100 p/m
How do their loving parents feel after buying them expensive illegal toys that can only be ridden off road and KNOWING their little angels will be caning them up and down the roads. Bottom of the hill near my house yesterday early evening I saw a group of local lads in their late teens. One of them on a Sur Ron had a face mask on and his hood pulled up. Lets just say he wasn't wearing it in last night's heat for protection from the elements.
Personally I think the police need greater powers/to do more/better resourcing to do so
This.
Plus properly funded and supported youth services, education, vocational training, affordable social housing....
But not a death penalty, that’s a tragedy whatever and anyone celebrating that is a right ****
Absolutely. But.....in the reporting of this we need to be very careful that the blame for their death does not get shunted unnecessarily to the police too. It is all too easy to move from 'it's a tragedy' to 'so who is to blame'? Sometimes it can be ok for it to be both a tragedy and ultimately their own fault too. Circumstances (both at the time and long term) might have impacted on them making poor choices but it was still their poor choice. There were countless ways in which I could have had an early bath in my youth (and lets just put legality and illegality to one side for now - stupid shit comes in both flavours), same for most of you I'd imagine. Luck rather than judgement means I'm here to type this drivel today. But if I had been caught out and met an early end it would have been my poor choice that was the overwhelming reason.
Much easier to type than to do, but it does feel like these ELECTRIC MOTOR BIKES should be confiscated on first sight and only released when the owner can demonstrate how they are in a position to use one legally - and very few of us would be able to do that.
Finally - and it's way too soon to make a direct link to the 3 deaths in the last month - but there does seem to be a general link between these bikes and some of them being used by low level end of the chain drug couriers.
Its not beyond the realms of possibilities that his fine, upstanding pillar of the community brother bought him said E crosser.
To help him in his illegal supply and distribution business, which, might have been for the good of the community. However, in my limited experience of drug misuse, really isn't. Its preying on the vulnerable, young and impressionable sector of the community for the sole reason of personal, financial gains. Where, with abit of muscle and a rep large amounts of money can be made.
Unfortunately, as an impressionable 15yr old seeing someone with a brick of cash, fast car, bling jewellery plus street cred is very attractive. Why bother with school and a job when you can make alot more money, alot easier by ragging around on your E-crosser for a couple of hours, doing dodgy deals with little to no chance of getting caught.
Edit. As i was typing convert was typing the same thing, but more eloquently
I had hoped for compassion not vengeance.
Why, these kids are an absolute menance, they put other people in danger, would you be so compassionate about a 30 year old drink driver whk killed themselves. Theres not a lot of difference, they both should have known their behaviour was wrong and putting others in harms way. In this case taking a badly needed ambulance off the road and traumatising the crew.
A kid ragging it around a field with permission, riding a Surron with no helmet and killing themselves is a tragedy, this is karma.
We cant keep condoning this behaviour in our society and blaming the police, all were doing is demonising the police and enabling the very people destroying their communities. The majority of people from deprived back grounds do their best and dont put others at risk, they need the help, that might make a difference, not people like this kid and family.
I'm not condoning the behaviour. In fact, I would really like to see the resources put into this to stop it.
I also don't blame police.
But there is a collective societal responsibility.
Sometimes it can be ok for it to be both a tragedy and ultimately their own fault too.
100%
And yes, even the drunk driver is a tragedy. They'd be someone's son, mother, partner, friend....and it's also possible to be an even bigger tragedy for anyone they have killed as a result.
They deserve punishment, and in some cases severe loss of liberty and rights to drive, etc. But to die....no, and celebrating that as some seem to be doing with their tiny violins, that's not on.