Could bending the rules risk the entire category?
It doesn’t bear thinking about, but the reality is that electric bike tampering is seen to hold a very real risk of jeopardising the entire electric bike category in legislative terms.
Cycling UK’S Roger Geffen holds a firm view, saying, “If we end up with persistent complaints of electric bikes traveling at unsafe speeds, in particular in shared spaces, the threat to e- bike- riding as a whole is very real. More so if the reports are widespread and amplified in the press. This is why the rules must protect rights to use pedal cycles and electric bikes within the current framework.”
It’s fair to say the mainstream press has already become like a dog with a bone on the subject, incorrectly reporting high profile incidents such as Simon Cowell’s electric motorcycle crash under the headline ‘e-bike crash’. Arguably, that’s already too much undue scrutiny for a vehicle that is upping cycling rates and bringing into focus the possibility of hitting new levels of active travel modal share.
The threat is deemed to be so great that in September, 68 of the leading electric bike businesses and 15 national trade organisations, including the Bicycle Association, clubbed together to pledge to tackle the issue through physical barriers to modification, education campaigns against the practice and retailer training. As it happens, shops offering to modify your e- bike could find themselves in hot water too.
“Tampering of e- bikes can have detrimental consequences for the overall image of the bicycle and e- bike industries and may lead legislators to the decision that stricter rules on e- bikes – such as a mandatory type approval – may be necessary,” says Anna- Lena Scherer. Type approval is the avoid-at-all- costs scenario given the generous categorisation as a bicycle that exists presently.
With the aforementioned enhanced public and product safety, liability and fire risks comes greater levels of overreaching scrutiny for a device that has done a lot of good for the population, both directly through enhancing the appeal of cycling and by bringing about positive externalities such as reduced congestion and pollution.
ecycleelectric’s Benjamin concludes: “Such things could easily and unfairly damage the credibility of the industry as a whole, and give us an aura of dangerous vehicles.”