DVSA prosecutes UK company illegally supplying unrestricted e-(motor)bikes

Has this been done ? https://cyclingindustry.news/dvsa-prosecutes-uk-company-illegally-supplying-unrestricted-e-bikes/

This is a good thing.

I wonder if they will do something similar for those selling e-scooters?

Totally agree however we need more work on getting things type approved as well.

^ agreed. But the companies looking to profit from them should do this.

^ This.

This is good. But showed how weak legislation is. As far as I can see had they got the design correct then could have sold them legally.

This is good but they are a problem in some places, we have problems with them on the trails, the power of them does way more damage than a normal bike or ebike. The speeds they can do are not compatible with normal riders on tight trails with limited visibility. They are also quiet so difficult to catch and seem to be ridden by the same type of entitled chief pumpkin that rides ICE bikes off road.

As far as I can see had they got the design correct then could have sold them legally.

as a motorbike.

they are a problem in some places, we have problems with them on the trails, the power of them does way more damage than a normal bike or ebike. The speeds they can do are not compatible with normal riders on tight trails with limited visibility. They are also quiet so difficult to catch

This is my tinder bio…🤷‍♂️😉

DrP

and seem to be ridden by the same type of entitled chief pumpkin that rides ICE bikes off road.

Yep. There are **** loads of those **** around here :/

as a motorbike.

There’s some nuance missing somewhere, as it’s entirely legal to sell a motorbike without type approval.

It’s then very easy to register it for use on the road, you just take it for an MOT, phone an insurance company and insure it from the VIN, then send off a form to the DVLA along with a fee and the 1st years tax, where the form asks for a type approval certificate you just write exempt*.

*”competition” vehicles are exempt, so you’d just register it as a trials or enduro bike.

My understanding is that you need type approval or individual approval for imported vehicles and for ones manufactured here. So there will always be someone in the UK, manufacturer or importer, who can be prosecuted.

ETA so I imagine the defendants here were importers (which seems likely).

Yeah, there must be some detail missing from the article, because as far as I know these can be sold for use on private land with no type approval etc needed.

If the person that buys it uses it on the public highway or other public spaces that’s a different matter, but is an issue for the user not the shop that sold it.

I’d be interested to understand the full detail – maybe they were passing them off as road legal or approved pedelecs etc

As others say, this is one of those weird ones where they are basically mis-selling the product as a pedal assist ebike, it won’t stop the sales of those that are outright not trying to fake the ebike route, so Sur Rons etc, same with escooters.

It is just a small trial, the escooter one is the elephant in the room for me, they are being openly sold and primarily used outside their intended purpose, around our area it’s also mainly children who use them, so under the age constraints of the Voi escooter scheme as well.

This is a good thing.

While I agree, Feels like they’ve gone for the very lowest hanging fruit. And it doesn’t quite correlate with the wider motor industry where you can pretty much buy whatever you want in terms of power/speed (for a price). There’s probably a (weak) defence available to at least some of the sellers.

What the customer does with it after purchase is kind of down to the customer.

I also wonder if they’re going after de-restricted E-bikes, because e-scooter sellers have already broadly recognised the use restrictions and tell their customers to ‘only use them on private land’ (knowing they’ll ignore that advice)… E-scooters appear to be the bigger public health risk at present due to sheer numbers and the utter sockets that mostly buy and use them.

Pre-frigged pedelecs must be such a small part of the market anyway, way behind legit compliant eebs from a dealer, and of course Chinese hub motors and old laptop batteries gaffa taped to a brakeless BSO (the true back bone of the deliveroo business model)…

As others say, this is one of those weird ones where they are basically mis-selling the product as a pedal assist ebike, it won’t stop the sales of those that are outright not trying to fake the ebike route, so Sur Rons etc, same with escooters.

I have done some legal digging.

Selling something that needs approval and which doesn’t have it appears to be an offence under the Road Traffic Act. But there is a defence if you believe or have reason to believe that it will not be used on a road, which may be why the prosecution was not under that section.

The news article refers to the Motorcycle (Type-approval) Regulations 2018, which make offences out of breaches of the relevant EU Regulation (168/2013), which *require* importers (into the EU) to obtain approval, so probably that is what the case was about. I can’t find a defence like the one mentioned above. The EU Regulation is still I guess law as a result of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The thing I mentioned above about the manufacturer or importer relates to who has the right/duty to apply for approval of a vehicle or type of vehicle under the Regulation.

I can’t say I have read every bit of all that stuff, so there may be more…