UKC

It is really bugging me that,  despite all their reporting resources,  the media,  and I mean the entire media,  are misreporting the type of bike which has been involved in fatal accidents recently. The most recent fatality,  which was tremendously sad, involved a young lad on a Sur Ron electric motorcycle and from the cctv images,  that would appear to be what the recent deaths in Cardiff were too. 

Calling them what they are puts a whole new slant on things; motorised vehicles being driven illegally,  no insurance,  helmet, licence and, in the Cardiff case, with an illegal pillion.  

I find it bizarre that these facts are just ignored.  We were in Newport last weekend and watched  2 young lads tear along a pavement at what must have been 40mph - they were going faster than us and we were doing the speed limit.  That is blatant,  criminal behaviour but the media seem incredibly reluctant to call this out.

Absolutely, the BBC have been super guilty of this. They published an article explaining ebikes but still managed to make a hash of it.

If it were 20 years ago these kids would be razzing around on svrambler bikes but electric motorbikes are conveniently quiet.

Was thinking similar thoughts myself the other day.  It's not been uncommon in past years for gangs of youths on illegal, cheap trail bikes to spend their summer holidays terrorising some of the less salubrious neighbourhoods in Edinburgh, with the police often being criticised for having difficulty clamping down on their illegal and antisocial behaviour.  Successfully shutting down the activities of these gangs seems to involve a lot more effort in surveillance, intelligence gathering and so forth, rather than just chasing them around the streets.

Somehow, with the arrival of cheap, illegal electric motorcycles the scrotes seem to have magically transformed from being annoying, bored teenage delinquents into 'sweet, lovely kids', very likely being enabled in their criminal behaviour by their doting families.  It probably doesn't help that many members of the general public don't understand the difference between a legal EAPC and an illegal electric motorcycle.  There seems to be a view that if it's not got a noisy, smelly petrol engine then it's 'just a toy', and the users are 'just kids having fun'.

The media should definitely be guided to understand the difference between an EAPC and an electric motorcycle, and make it clear in their reporting of such incidents, rather than just calling the vehicle involved an e-bike because it's got two wheels and has an electric motor for propulsion.

I think the police are in a rather tricky position.  I believe most forces have already made it policy not to pursue motorcycles, due to the number of riders who ended up killing or seriously injuring themselves (with the concomitant risk of doing the same to innocent bystanders) while attempting to evade pursuit.  The scrotes know this, of course, and use it to their advantage.

I believe the rider in the latest case was reported to have been riding at 50mph along pavements while attempting to avoid being apprehended - criminally dangerous on their part, but obviously 'all the police's fault'.  It does look like the police are going to need some education and guidance themselves, in recognising when an 'e-bike' is in the class or vehicles it is unsafe to pursue, and deploying alternative strategies (which will almost certainly be more time-consuming, and therefore expensive, and thus further draining their already overstretched budgets funded by us).

Agreed.  The reporting has entirely misled the public.

As long as you’re riding on the road sensibly, there doesn’t appear to be any enforcement against people with electric pedal cycles that clearly exist out of the category that exempts vehicle registration, driver licensing and insurance, MOT and VED etc.  Plenty of delivery bikes with the motor audibly engaged and no peddling, and rather more subtly those with more powerful motors or those with motors engaged over the legal cutoff speed. 

I’ve seen illegal conversions (*) discussed on here.  I’d love to make a pedal electric bike with 1 kW of power and a 30 mph top speed for assist.  Technically trivial and cheap too.  I can’t risk the legal consequences hunch whilst apparently low probability would be catastrophic.

(*) - it doesn’t have to be illegal, if I could get the vehicle through SVA, I could register, tax and insure it, and I have a full category A on my drivers licence.  Would have to ride if in a motorbike helmet though which would be awful.

The local scallies still razz round the fields and footpaths on petrol trail bikes but one day they’ll nick an illegal electric bike I’m sure and then wise up to the advantages.

eBike (possibly derestricted) is a fairly solid fact for the BBC report as that's what the witnesses will have said. They won't have said motorbike so motorbike isn't a solid fact for the BBC report.

Mmm, so the new BBC department is working well, not. What do they have the new dept for if it is not for reporting better?

‘BBC Verify is transparency in action – fact-checking, verifying video, countering disinformation, analysing data and explaining complex stories in the pursuit of truth. This is our promise to consumers - we understand that their trust must be earned and we will show them how we are doing that each and every day.

— Deborah Turness, CEO of BBC News” - source BBC’s website.

I'd say at best it's potentially dangerous mis-indentification from witnesses and the BBC should never be involved in spreading potential rumours about such criminal behaviour. . The vehicle will have been clearly identified following the crash.

Cardiff showed how badly things can go wrong when a local population reacts to rumours.

All the city roads around me are 20mph. An illegally driven vehicle killed the driver and passengers on the main street next to my estate... we gained suspension destroying vicious speed bumps now (even if driving 10mph). About half the e scooters I see are illegal, most are illegally driven on pavements (I have some sympathy if the rider slows near pedestrians, given the state of potholes and care taken by some drivers around them) we even occasional get scrotes roaring around on trail motorbikes and quads. The police are almost powerless given resources.... and chasing them just adds risk to all.

These increasing trends of underage illegal driving are not new...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-43044822

....but the potential range of vehicles to use illegally has expanded.

... and the barrier to criminality has dropped from going TWOCing with a coat hanger and your favourite flat bladed screwdriver in the 80s to ordering a few parts from fleabay or Amazon for less than the price of a mobile phone and changing a bicycle wheel.

More capable electric pedal cycles could be transformative for people who can’t afford a car for work, and for city centre traffic - especially if the Sinclair C5 format gets revived with modern tech and auto-feet for stopping.  

"so motorbike isn't a solid fact for the BBC report."

The most recent report states it was a Sur Ron and a quick Google identifies this as an electric motorcycle.  Also, the cctv footage from Cardiff shows 2 people, no helmets, on a bike with no pedals being driven considerably faster than 15kmh - which a quick Google would have told any journalists that was beyond  the top speed of a legal E-bike. Those are solid facts. 

Cardiff showed how badly things can go wrong when a local population reacts to rumours.

Surely Cardiff shows how badly the local population reacts when the police lie about their involvement in road deaths.

The police said that they were not involved, they were not chasing the boys on the bike.  Locals knew that was not true and that the police had lied/obfuscated/misinformed.  When cctv emerged showing the bike being chased by a police vehicle, the police changed their version.

The BBC have given up on any kind of accuracy, today it reported that Snowdon (yr Wyddfa) was the highest mountain in Britain until you got to Ben Nevis. Not a serious gaff, but one that’s easy to check and reflects a lazy attitude to reporting facts.

On ‘electric bikes’ I too was passed by a youngster wheeling an electric motorcycle, sans helmet, at high speed down a residential street. I’m all for a bit of adventure, but unless some of the fuzziness is taken out of this electric bike/electric motorcycle stuff we’re going to see more sad incidents.

And don;'t forget these 'lads', are, or were, "well loved pillars of the community and would do anything for anyone".

The 'e bike' was seemingly an electic moped (from video clips...see Metro article below for example) and social media rumours were not helped by misleading news reports. I'd agree the police don't come out of this well, nor the local Police and Crime Commissioner. In my view such chases are nearly always a terrible idea. In the end policing for such deprived areas needs to change.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Cardiff_riot

https://metro.co.uk/2023/05/27/e-bike-involved-in-fatal-cardiff-crash-was-b...

I see a lot of electric motorbikes these days. Nearly got wiped out by two on my push bike as they shot up a closed road, on the wrong side, in the dark with no lights. They know the police won't chase them. A scally on a scrambler on the ring road revved his engine to get the attention of the police on the other side, then wheelied down the road. The death toll is sad but unexpected.

They need to clamp down on the sales of these things.

Surely anything on two wheels with an electric motor is an e-bike, so reporting any of these vehicles as such is factually accurate?

We could clear up the confusion if we started calling bicycles with electric motors e-mopeds, but I feel that might bruise the egos of some riders 😁

That's simply not the case as there are strict rule and age differences on the road in terms of licencing, registration and insurance. Also in the legal requirement to wear a helmet or not, or rights to use certain paths or not.

Did the BBC say it was an eBike or a legal eBike?

Now, now let's not be demonizing anyone. As for those lovely Kray brothers, salt of the Earth, 'elped my muvva when she 'ad her do ....

In which BBC report when?

It was an e-moped being ridden illegally, that sadly led to an accident and tragedy.

There a different rules and so on between a standard peddle bike and an 1100cc petrol motor bike too, it doesn't mean they are not both bikes.

Any bike with an electric motor fitted to it is a motorbike.

The laws only differentiate on the power of the motor.

A 'bike' is just a general word for a form of transport. Types of e bikes have clear different legal definitions and motor size is only part of that. Anything that does not meet a strictly defined EAPC (electrically assisted pedal cycle) specification is classed as a motorbike or moped and requires registration, tax, insurance and a helmet.

https://www.gov.uk/electric-bike-rules

Yes and the government calls all of them "electric bikes" for which, surely, e-bike is short?

E-bike does not equal EAPC - an EAPC is a type of e-bike that meets certain criteria.

From your link:

"Other kinds of electric bike

Any electric bike that does not meet the EAPC rules is classed as a motorcycle or moped and needs to be registered and taxed. You’ll need a driving licence to ride one and you must wear a crash helmet.

Getting vehicle approval for your electric bike

An electric bike must be type approved if either:

it can be propelled without pedalling (a ‘twist and go’ EAPC)

it does not meet the EAPC rules

This should have been done by the manufacturer or importer before you bought it. If it’s been type approved, it will have a plate showing its type approval number."

Yes but there lovely caring lads and butter wouldn’t melt blah blah blah 

You have completely lost me in the point you are trying to make here. My point was I would expect the BBC and other media to be clear on what was being ridden, given the significant legal differences on formal classification, as opposed to lose generic descriptions. In particular the legal requirements of an e-moped that were clearly being breached, which would not have been breached for (a normal reader assumption of it being) an EAPC.

I guess my point is that the reporter cannot be held responsible for the reader's erroneous assumption.

I would have thought most readers would be aware of the fact that electric bikes come in many shapes and sizes - powerful electric dirt bikes are everywhere these days.

Whole thing just seems to me like a classic example of UKc ranters looking for something to rant about.

Not really.  Setting aside the issue of what an “e-bike” means, that’s a red herring, many media reports have said the victims in each recent case were riding a machine of some sort (which they described as an e-bike).  What they didn’t state is the many ways in which the victims were breaking the law whilst doing so.  Information which has a critical baring on why the police were safely following them from a distance vs ignoring a clearly legal cyclist.

the problem is,  there are many ebike owners who bypass the 15mph limit.  there are indeed companies that sell the tools to do so.

as far as the world is concernced

E stands for electric.  so an E motorbike,  and a Pedal assist  are both the same.

all you can do is suck it up.  it wont change,  and as long as E bikes continue to get more powerful batterries (750kw, 900kw).  and the chipping continues,  the lines between the  pedal assist and the pure e motorbike will continue to blur.

 

i have to say, if you trust the bbc to be accurate,  your a little naive,  especially after the last couple of yrs!

I don't, but they should aim for accuracy under their own code. I also recognise how the the BBC have been damaged by political interference in governance appointments, public attacks and poor budget decisions. At lot of the impact of cuts seems to be poorly understood.

https://pressgazette.co.uk/comment-analysis/bbc-local-radio-cuts-comment/

Hardly an "accident" - accidents are something which cannot be avoided. In the latest case of illegal and dangerous riding, the illegality only came to an end when they hit an ambulance - hardly something which can't be seen or avoided by anyone even moderately competent on two wheels.

As for tragedy - some scrotes who were early in their career of criminality have been taken out of the gene pool by their own hand. Not something I'm going to have sleepless nights about, and nor will their unlucky neighbours (who probably daren't say so in case they get attacked by the "dear souls" family).

So says someone who does know what it can be like with such scum living nearby - and I'm also a biker who doesn't particularly like such toe-rags giving us true bikers a bad name.

Had anybody noticed that they present photos of the deceased as children, many years prior to their demise.

Funny how they're scrotes rather than innocent until convicted in court like Prince Andrew.

It bugged me enough that I submitted a complaint about the misleading and damaging reporting. About an hour later that “What is an e-bike?” Article turned up.  They still haven’t corrected the original reporting. No doubt under pressure from police or government, in case it inflames things again.

has anyone contacted the BBC?

Yes, I'm getting pretty sick of the vendetta that appears to be growing up against electric assist pedal cycles aka e-bikes, which are really rather a good thing in enabling Dutch style utility cycling in the hilly UK (and have been for years - we got my Grandad an e-assist conversion for his old 1940s boneshaker 20 years ago so he could continue to cycle to his allotment, which no doubt did wonders for his mental health in his last few years).  A typical fit road cyclist can easily ride a decent road bike far faster than the 25km/h above which the assistance drops out, in any case.

What pretty much all of these cases involve, as you say, are illegal non-type-approved, uninsured electric motorcycles being ridden by someone who does not hold a licence to ride one.  No different from the illegal petrol trail motorcycles that these kids used to ride.

I looked at lots of different reports on Friday though and no one was reporting it was a Sur Ron then. The Manchester papers had pixelated the crashed bike in their photos although the BBC hadn't. I could see what looked like foot pegs as opposed to pedals but then the suspension looked like a mountain bike suspension fork so I wasn't entirely sure. I suspect to start with many journos genuinely didn't know what the lad was riding. 

Are you saying that the kid in Salford deserved it? He was 15 , he could be a nice kid and still make really stupid decisions. He was a kid after all FFS, it's kind of what teenage kids do. 

And massively expensive I believe. Probably nicked?

I would imagine there is a considerable difference between a Ducati superbike and an e-bike which you physically have to pedal to opperate but which makes climbing those hills a bit easier.

I would define a motorbike as a bike where the motor does the actual work where as the latter is motor-assisted. Classing them all as motorbikes is just confusing for all concerned

On the balance of probabilities I think people who razz about 2 up on illegal bikes and end up smashing into an ambulance probably aren't 'nice lads'.

The two on a Sur Ron was Cardiff though wasn't it, not Salford.

I teach kids who are incredibly difficult to like and I know some have been in trouble with the police for behaviour outside of school which is absolutely no surprise at all. I suspect that those who aren't teachers or cops don't actually have much experience of just how difficult (and occasionally even scary) dealing with these kind of predominantly young men and boys can be. I know at least one who has told me about his e-motorbike, and there have been plenty of problems with youngster on bikes and quads around where I live too. So I'm very far from naive about the sort of kids who are razzing around on illegal e-motorbikes and have been involved in the two fatal accidents in recent weeks.

But despite that - I get incredibly angry at the idea that anyone can shrug their shoulders and say with next to zero knowledge of the people killed 'they had it coming', or 'who gives a shit, I bet they were scum anyway'. Those exact words haven't been used above, but that's clearly the sentiment of some of the contributions.

Riding a motorbike on the road whilst underage and therefore presumably without the legal minimum training is in the eyes of most people an accident waiting to happen. Of course they didn't deserve to die, but it sounds like the police had good reason to be following them (but no excuse for lying about the fact).

Maybe mummy and daddy should be asking themselves if someone that can't be trusted to wait till they turn 16 to ride their present and understand that they can't give rides to their mates is mature enough to be trusted with a motorbike? I'm not saying the parents are too blame, but whoever bought the bike and trusted them with it clearly made a bad judgement.

The way the regulations are written, if it's manufactured as an e-bike then assistance only works when the pedals are turning. If it's a kit, then throttle only operation is permitted (I'm not saying it makes sense). Having an e-bike conversion kit, I checked, as it's nice to be able to go to the supermarket and back just by pressing a button.

Yes, agree entirely. And the police are in a shitty position because anti-social motorbike use of all types causes hell for people in often already marginalised and deprived communities. I tend to get most annoyed by anti social motorbike use when people are riding illegally places where I am legally mountain biking, but that's because I'm privileged enough to not live on an estate where those kids I teach - and perhaps cause problems with their bikes - live. But clearly if the police "police" the problem by trying to stop such bike use it can and does lead to fatalities.

I'm sorry but I don't believe that's the case.  By law, an ebike can only have a throttle that operates at walking pace when the pedals aren't used. On many bikes it's called wall mode. A throttle that allows full speed operation is illegal unless being ridden as motorcycle and obeying relevant laws. 

Yet more of this today.  Headlines like "ebike industry body supports restrictions".  If you read the article it is the MOTORCYCLE industry body who has said that, an industry potentially harmed by electrically assisted pedal cycles.

This must be resisted - ebikes are a brilliant development in encouraging more cycling in the hilly UK and need to remain regulated as per pedal cycles, not motorcycles.

But if the Police don't try to stop these "persons" illegally riding what they do then how many innocent people are going to get mowed own and killed by them.

Furthermore just how many of these "persons" are also using these as getaway vehicles following crimes of theft/assault/ mugging/etc..

Is this not just a variation of car "joy-riding", where everybody else is at risk due to the selfishness of a small number of "persons" who have absolutely no consideration for the lives of others, and no knowledge in how to drive properly.

This is directly from the UK government:

Electric bikes: licensing, tax and insurance

You can ride an electric bike if you’re 14 or over, as long as it meets certain requirements.

These electric bikes are known as ‘electrically assisted pedal cycles’ (EAPCs). You do not need a licence to ride one and it does not need to be registered, taxed or insured.

What counts as an EAPC

An EAPC must have pedals that can be used to propel it.

It must show either:

the power output

the manufacturer of the motor

It must also show either:

the battery’s voltage

the maximum speed of the bike

Its electric motor:

must have a maximum power output of 250 watts

should not be able to propel the bike when it’s travelling more than 15.5mph

An EAPC can have more than 2 wheels (for example, a tricycle).

Where you can ride

If a bike meets the EAPC requirements it’s classed as a normal pedal bike. This means you can ride it on cycle paths and anywhere else pedal bikes are allowed.

Other kinds of electric bike

Any electric bike that does not meet the EAPC rules is classed as a motorcycle or moped and needs to be registered and taxed. You’ll need a driving licence to ride one and you must wear a crash helmet.

Getting vehicle approval for your electric bike

An electric bike must be type approved if either:

it can be propelled without pedalling (a ‘twist and go’ EAPC)it does not meet the EAPC rules

This should have been done by the manufacturer or importer before you bought it. If it’s been type approved, it will have a plate showing its type approval number.

“Other kinds of electric bike

Any electric bike that does not meet the EAPC rules is classed as a motorcycle or moped and needs to be registered and taxed. You’ll need a driving licence to ride one and you must wear a crash helmet.”

So, it is an e bike that is classed as a motorcycle. 

As a youth I rode unregistered scramblers and enduro bikes around pit heaps, old works etc.. often with a mad dash along a couple of miles of public road between. If i crashed and hurt myself, yeah my fault (just like on an mtb now) but it doesn't really mean I'm scum of the earth. 

We aren't any better or worse than these kids, we are just fortunate that we likely had slightly better parents, lived in a slightly better area, went to slightly less overloaded school, with slightly better motivated teachers etc.. the margins are slight, have a few tip against you and you've suddenly got nothing to lose thrashing down the road at 2am! 

For clarities sakes, I think the mail online somehow got footage of the Salford bike/rider before the incident and it does look like a Sur Ron. 

And I fully agree with you about the ‘tone’ of many of the above posts. Ive worked in some of the UKs most ‘deprived’ communities, where decades of poverty has a big impact of peoples lives and the decisions they make. Not excusing any of it though (eg he shouldn’t have been given the bike, end of), but a young lad has died and he shouldn’t have done. Sad. 

Well said. 

It's a motorcycle. 

The OED defines scrote in this context as: "A worthless or despicable person; a yob or hooligan."  The overwhelming majority of other reputable dictionaries have similar definitions.  It is a derogatory term indicating the user's low opinion of a person and/or their behaviour (whether or not you feel that opinion is justified is entirely another matter).  In that regard it is roughly equivalent to terms such as arsehole, tosser or perhaps "feral youth".  It does not in itself indicate any assumption of guilt under the law.

AFAIK Prince Andrew has not been convicted by any court, other than the court of public opinion.

Kind of irrelevant, you've grown up with not the best parental support, perhaps mental health challenges, school didn't go well, job market is dire, your only role models are footballers and stupid influencers.... why not do something daft, what's to lose? Yeah many kids over come these challenges and 'come good', some don't. It reminded me of R2 Vine about 16 year olds joining the military, loads rang in saying it saved them from taking the wrong path, 99% who said it should be 18 hadn't served and weren't in the position these 16 year olds were with literally near zero life / career options. 

While an electric motorcycle can be abbreviated to e-bike, just as a normal motorcycle is often just called a bike (with the type obvious from the context), I think calling these illegal devices e-bikes helps nobody but the anti-cycling lobby, so we really need to avoid this and call them "illegal electric motorcycles" - they aren't legal as motorcycles either because they aren't type approved, but they are definitely within licence class A, AM, A1 or A2.

Clearly it's in the interest of the motorcycle industry to campaign against EAPCs because they are massively hitting the sales of class AM mopeds/scooters - pretty much all delivery bikes used to be class AM petrol vehicles but are now mostly either EAPCs or illegal modified electric motorcycles.

Has this happened? If so where and when? 

I don't know but I presume neither do you. There has been no suggestion I've seen that in either the Salford or Cardiff cases the riders had committed other crimes beyond the illegal use of e-motorbikes.

It may well be although I remember a number of cases of people being killed hit by joy riders in cars, I've not heard of such cases with e-motorbikes. 

My 'its a motorcycle ' comment was not at all irrelevant in the context the reply was given.  However,  I do question whether the 'poor, deprived kids' angle is totally appropriate here. Bikes like the Sur Ron cost £5k new - £3k used - and other similar bikes are several thousand pounds at least.  

I would like one also, but the thing that puts me off, is on a proper motorbike I'm wearing a proper helmet, Kevlar, padding a leather etc.

I know I wouldn't have this gear on a pedal power assisted bike.

The grip, brakes and handling will not be a reliable, effective and sturdy as a proper motorbike so it is so much more likely to go wrong, and hurt more for the above reasons.

All of which points to a requirement for further regulation / clarification of certain vehicles. I would also be quite happy cycling around at 25 - 30mph on either a pedal cycle (in days of yore when I was younger and fitter) or elecrically assisted one at the same speeds with only a helmet on. i have direct personal knowledge of the effects of a spill from a motorbike at 65 - 70 mph whilst not wearing full protective gear, and its not an experience i'm willing to repeat. So where is the happy ground, given tech advances? not easy, as you can get up uninjured from a 25 / 30mph spill, or be killed from same, whereas the starting point of a 70mph one is that, as a starting point, its going to hurt a lot.

Where do you think all the stolen bikes go ? A quick scan through facebook market place will soon reveal several teenage scrotes that have a selling history of top end bikes and components worth tens of thousands. The parents are complicit as little Johnny doesn't get that much cash from a paper round and fixing up shopper bikes.

The role of stolen Ebikes and county lines drug dealing is another factor, Its easy to stop people in cars transporting and delivering drugs but its much harder catching them on bikes.

I've seen that sort of speed suggested a couple of times now in this thread but it's not actually that easy to do 30 mph (48.28 kmph) on a pedal bike except when doing downhill. Quite a lot of my commute to work is downhill, and I ride a relatively aerodynamic bike (drop bars, and I use the drops when going fast downhill) and even on the fast downhills I rarely get a max speed much about 55 kmph. This article https://www.bicycling.com/tour-de-france/a20037750/you-versus-a-tour-de-fra... suggests the average flat speed for a tour de France rider is only 25 to 28 mph and that presumably accounts for riding in groups that help considerably. I used to be able to keep at an average 30 kmph for two hours (i.e. doing over 60 kms in two hours) only when I lived somewhere much flatter than where I live now, being 10 or 15 years younger probably helped too!

It's not easy to do 30mph on an EAPC either.  They're typically heavy and wide-tyred, so when the assistance drops out at 25km/h (15mph ish) you won't get much faster without a lot of effort.

You can ride an electric motorcycle at 30mph, but that's not an EAPC.  You can bodge an EAPC into an electric motorcycle, but that's still not an EAPC.

Yup there do seem to be a lot of world class riders who arent collecting medals. 30mph is doable on the flat but for most of us only as the equivilent of the 100m sprint. Aint going to maintain it for long.

On the going downhill bit whilst its not so bad with the sur rons and the like I do have to wonder how the converted bikes handle the higher speeds especially around braking. Having ridden reasonably quickly down some longish tracks unless you are using downhill specific brakes they generally start struggling with overheating.

Would it be that different from pro roadies tanking down an alp or a pyrenee at 70+ kmph? I remember hearing a lot of talk about brake fade from overheating when hydraulic discs were still a new thing on road bikes but that chat seems to have gone away. I've had hydraulic brakes on mountain bikes going back to the mid 2000s and on my gravel (commuter) for five years - I've never had a problem with any of the brakes I think had anything to do with heat, and very few problems generally. I'm not particularly light, I do reach 60 kmph downhill on the gravel bike and I bet I drag my brakes more than a pro would, but I've still not ever found the brakes stop working. Yep, EAPCs will be noticeably heavier, and e-motorbikes more so, but will it make that big a difference?

A good tailwind is a wonderful thing. I agree 30mph in still air on the flat is hard to sustain for any length of time unless you are very very fit. 25mph on the other hand isn't unreasonable for the weekend warrior cyclist with a slight tailwind to maintain for a decent length of time.

I think Ian W was making a point about being mentally comfortable travelling at those speed without any special protection in much the same way some climbers might feel comfortable soloing an E3.

As for the Tour riders, well that's for 100 miles nearly every day for three weeks.  I bet they could all do 30mph for 20 minutes at the drop of a hat.

Yeah they generally dont slow down though You can definitely get brake fade from heavy usage plus of course how quickly they can wear away.

Not if the hat is being dropped at the bottom of, say, La Planche des Belles Filles or Mont Ventoux.

Admittedly its during those three weeks but we can get an idea by looking at their time trial and sprints.

Time trials tend to be up to 35ish mph and sprints into low 40s.

True, but as discussed there are plenty of illegal bikes out there also.

Even with a legal EAPC, the key difference is if there's a hazard ahead that might mean you need to slow down, on a standard pushbike, you're much likely to cruse up to the hazard to avoid wasting more energy.

With power assistance, you're more likely keep your speed up and brake if needed. So you are more likely to be hitting trouble at higher speeds.

Don’t believe I said he deserved it did I? And personally, no I don’t believe it’s generic teenage behaviour to be chased by the police with a stolen E-bike. Perhaps you had a more colourful childhood than I did?

Have you ridden one, out of interest?  Because it's assistance and not full power replacement, I don't find myself doing that.  The main thing I've found myself using the assistance for is as a means of getting ahead of traffic at lights in London, and that makes you safer, not less safe.

The existence of illegal bikes and scooters is a symptom of inadequate on the ground policing, and the fix is to police properly.  Imposing a number plate requirement would only affect those who use them legally; illegal users would fit fake plates.

Only a little play, not as a daily commuter or anything. 

I haven't heard in either cases suggestions that the e-motorbikes being used were stolen. Have you or is that a presumption?

It's pretty easy to spot illegal ebikes already. If they're not already being stopped and checked I don't see what imposing extra requirements will do...

The cardiff one was reported as being a birthday present for one of the two youths.

Exactly this.

It stands to reason any parent that has the cash to legitimately buy a £5000 Suron will also buy the body armour and helmet and ensure its ridden legally, after all if caught on the road they would know its at risk of being seized and crushed. You wouldn't want that for such an expensive birthday present.

They’d also need to register it, get legal number plates; make sure all riders have insurance, motorcycle helmet etc: else it would still get crushed

Yep, I read the same. I don't think they were legally old enough to own/ride it though were they? But not stolen anyway. 

There's no muppet filter for parenthood.

Having re read this thread umpteen times, and had a scan of the like/dislike ratios, the UKC consensus is:

It was a stolen motorbike, being driven by a scrote/scum/scally, for criminal activity most likely county lines drug running, at 50 mph on pavements. But at least the fatal crash, which wasnt really an accident, means he has been took out of the gene pool. 

FFS. 

Unfortunately not. I've long wondered why you have to have a license for all the activities that have the potential to adversely affect society, only to then let any ar*ehole who can bung one up someone/get it bunged up them breed in a wholly unsupervised manner. 

And they were also lobbing rocks off Stanage

I heard they were on their way back from climbing on bird banned crags. 

They weren't old enough, although there is a very grey area around 50cc equivalent or 125cc equivalent. I've had a go on one of the 125 equivalents, and they are pretty impressive. Top speed not quite up there with 15bhp 125 petrols, but acceleration very strong in comparison; there needs to be a rethink of the equivalence between petrol and electric motorbikes.

I've also had a test ride on the big energica electric bike. Insanity. Almost the same torque figure as a Skoda Octavia 1.6 diesel (UKC benchmark), but available from zero revs, and with 1/6 the weight to pull. 

Electric motor bike/Petrol driven motorbike:  same thing

This is slightly curious, because the only thing you're required to wear while riding a powerful motorcycle at 70mph is a helmet of the correct specification (and clothes of some kind, though a pair of shorts would suffice to comply with the law).  Leathers are optional, but pretty much every rider does choose to wear them because they're a good idea.  Thus why wouldn't you make the same choice if riding what is essentially an electric version of the same thing?

Don't you trust yourself to do so?  If not, perhaps you should stay away from such vehicles.

I don't think I'd throw in the "gene pool" bit (because many of these kids have been coerced) but the rest of it is true.

If we had enough on the ground policing, the illegal motorcycle would have been confiscated and crushed, and the rider be serving a prison sentence for drug dealing.  And this would be the expected outcome of doing this for any length of time.

Fundamentally, we need more Police on the ground and to stop just enforcing everything with cameras, because it just doesn't work.

We should also (media included) not be stirring outrage by referring to illegal electric motorcycles as "e-bikes", a term which is universally used to refer to an EAPC with a 25km/h assistance limit.

Please provide evidence that the bike was stolen and that it was being used for criminal activity. If not, you’re simply making stuff up. I’m going to wait to find out the facts, unlike most other folk in here. 

Because you move a lot more on a pedal bike.

Padded leather isn't going to work. It would restrict movement and on hot days you'd boil to a crisp.

Yes. Any how many people have you seen wearing such gear on pedal e-bikes? I'm guessing none.

Would you have the same views if the "little dear" was your neighbour ?

What you on about?

BC's point is we know next to nothing about the people killed beyond they were killed. Did you not do anything stupid when you were a kid? If you have them, have your kids not done anything stupid when they were teenagers? 

Were you a neighbour of Saul Cookson? If not how do you know what he was like as a neighbour? From what has been reported he was much loved by friends and family. You just seem to be making up reason why you shouldn't care about a kid being dead. 

It's like reading a copy of the Daily Mail.

There isnt any. The cardiff bike had been bought as a present for one of the two (as per previous post upthread), there has been (afaik) nothing said about the leeds one. The only "criminal activity" anyone has referred to / reported is the undisputed fact that the bikes were being ridden illegally (not licensed / insured etc etc).

Not really. Daily Mail reporting on the Cardiff incident seems pretty good.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12119607/Two-teens-died-e-bike-cra...

"The pair were known for riding the electric motorbike around the streets even though there had been a clampdown on illegal riding."

"Friends described them as 'motorbike heads' who had grown up together on the tough estate in the west of Cardiff and were 'just enjoying themselves' when they died."

There is a dig at Labour in the article, but it's a very mild suggestion.

Salford not Leeds unless there was another incident I haven't read about.

From fred99 above: "As for tragedy - some scrotes who were early in their career of criminality have been taken out of the gene pool by their own hand. Not something I'm going to have sleepless nights about, and nor will their unlucky neighbours (who probably daren't say so in case they get attacked by the "dear souls" family)."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65893769

...The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said gross misconduct notices had been served on the driver and passenger in a marked police van seen driving behind two boys on an electric bike on 22 May....

To precisely which incident are we referring, for avoidance of confusion?  Beeb artlcle link will do.

If you're talking about the anecdote at the bottom of the opening post, they were clearly modified vehicles.  It is VERY hard to ride a pedal cycle, particularly a really heavy one like an EAPC, at 40mph other than down a steep hill.  You need to be a professional cyclist to be doing that.

If you're talking about the incident to which the opening post refers, it confirms the victim was riding an electric motorcycle (a proper one sold as that).  Legal (if licenced, insured, helmeted, not drunk etc) but of no relevance to EAPCs which are what most people understand when the term "e-bike" is used.  But it does sound like these legalities weren't quite 100%.

Which incident exactly, please?

There's very little point wearing it on a vehicle that isn't going to exceed about 15-20mph, as is the case for most EAPCs.  They're rather heavy so pedalling them much faster is beyond most people.  You need a lightweight non-powered road bike to be going 30mph+ for any length of time, unless you're superfit.

Or if you're talking about illegal electric motorcycles, then why would someone already riding something they know not to be legal do anything else sensible or legally required?

I’m primarily marking reference to Salford, but which ever one you state the person would be  ‘serving a prison sentence for drug dealing’. 

That was a hypothetical one in connection with comments about an illegally modified e-bike being used to do county lines drug deliveries.  Not a specific incident.

Thanks for clarifying. 

Radio 1 had an update on the Cardiff case today - bigged up the internal police investigation without noting it’s standard practice when there’re deaths and failed to note that the vehicle was apparently being ridden illegally.

I'm simply saying that those persons, such as yourself, who are regarding these "little dears" who go around riding vehicles at high speed to the great danger of anyone nearby, are doing so with absolutely zero chance of being the victim of their so-called "high jinks".

If you lived near them I'm sure your view of the danger they pose to everyone else, both from such riding, and the highly likely other "activities" these "little dears" indulge in might be slightly different.

Both BC and I stated above we work in deprived areas where exactly these things are big issues. I noted above I had students tell me that they have e-motorbikes which I'm pretty certain must be illegal for them to have. Where is your insight (and seeming indifference to children getting killed ) coming from?

My bad - salford, not leeds......

To be fair, the police were trying to enforce the law on the ground which is why they ran. As far as I'm concerned, unless you (general you, not necessarily you, you)  are going to say that the police shouldn't enforce laws why should people running from the police not get pursued? You wouldn't say that a burglar shouldn't get pursued so why should this lot be different. 

Up to the point they ran they may have been angels or they may have been scrotes. They ran so they knew they were doing something wrong. The police didn't want them to die but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be apprehended. 

Working in such an area is one thing - you can go home at night.

If you live there then it's an entirely different - and more dangerous - kettle of fish.

Look at the riots that followed the deaths - locals who owned cars had them torched. Such things can't happen to people sleeping comfortably in their beds 10, 20 or more miles away.

This is fair.

It used to be that police couldn't chase scooter riders if they weren't wearing helmets, so criminal gangs would intentionally remove helmets to avoid being perused.

If memory serves me well, this rule was changed a few years ago to avoid this sort of behaviour. So I'm not sure what exactly the police did wrong here. Unless the rule didn't actually change and I'm just miss-remembering.

Assuming the rule did change, we shouldn't now change the rules back again because of this incident.

If you run form the police in a dangerous way and die as a result, it may be sad, but it's a consequence of a bad decision.

The blame here relies with either the community or the parents or both or just bad luck that those kids felt the rules didn't apply to them.

Riots against the police however will only make such incidents more likely in the future as it creates a really bad relationship between the police and the community. Good effort. 

With regard to the Cardiff incident, I've now read an article in the Times (can't quote, sorry, the app doesn't let you any more) confirming that the "e-bike" in question was in fact an electric motorcycle.

The media seriously needs to stop calling these "e-bikes", it's misleading.  "E-motorbikes" would be a better term.

But you still haven't said do you live in an area with anti social motorbike use? Do you know any teenagers who have motorbikes and likely to use them in that way? Do you have any contact with type of kids who are getting involved in these sort of issues?

You keep sarcastically calling the kids who got killed "little dears", you called them scrotes, said it wasn't a tragedy, that it was good they had taken themselves out of the gene pool. Where is that all coming from? 

edit: I have had a car torched before. Again have you?

The Met changed its rules so that its specialist drivers could pursue and if necessary knock them off in certain circumstances. Other forces may or may not have similar rules but it wouldnt be any random copper and it seems unlikely a van would count since they aint known for handling.

Its also rather unclear whether the police were actively chasing them. The Cardiff case seems to have settled on.

Riders were heading opposite direction to the police van. They then turned round and the van was behind for a while (but several seconds and no lights etc and no obvious attempt the catch up).

Riders went through some bollards. Van turned off and doesnt seem to have been making any active attempt to catch up.

So I suspect the riders were fleeing someone who wasnt actually chasing them.

As a driver I hate getting a police car right on my tail. Vehicle is totally legal, but it still leads to a raised heart rate and me being extra paranoid about speed, traffic lights etc (guilty conscience?).

If I was driving a vehicle that I knew was going to get flagged up if they did an ANPR check, I would be extra keen to avoid them following me. Keen enough to drive/ride recklessly to evade them? Hopefully not.

Maybe it was a series of bad coincidences and poor judgements. Boys were given access to a vehicle they were not mature enough to have, Police happened to see a bike with two youngsters and legitimately followed to ensure they were riding it legally (fair enough, especially if antisocial use of motorbikes is a problem in the area), boys panicked and drove off at speed, boys due to lack of experience in handling the bike crashed.

Had they written off the bike and ended up with a few broken bones I'd say good lesson learned, had they killed a pedestrian it would be a tragedy. Instead it's just a really sad incident, with two lads having their lives cut prematurely short due to a series of silly and immature decisions.

No, you’re the one using that phrase, albeit in inverted commas. I’ve no idea what they where like, because I try not to make judgments.

I live in Wigan. I’ve worked in both the Gorbals and Ruchill (near Possil) and I’ve lived in Sunderland’s East End (Weargarth). I’ve been stabbed and had a brick through my car windscreen.  The other year one my best friends died and three people arrested on suspicion of murder.  A year before that one of my volunteers was stabbed 35 times, the perpetrator is in prison.  The last few are Googleable. So I’m more than familiar with criminal and anti social behaviour, but you’re right that so far I’ve not been at risk from an e motorbike.  

Their driving was illegal. But your obvious belief that they were involved in crime, that it wasn’t really an accident, but at least they’re out of the gene pool !!!! But your view does seem to be the majority one, and by some margin. 

I think that's oversensationalised.  Rather, I suspect the majority view is that they were likely involved in crime and that sometimes effective law enforcement has collateral damage, sometimes of property but also sometimes, sadly, of lives.

That it involves kids makes it harder, but people often die or are seriously injured in car chases who wouldn't have been had the Police not given chase.  However, most would recognise that crime is enough of a problem that, in so far as it can't be avoided, that collateral damage is to be accepted.

Pure speculation, nothing more, nothing less. You, I and everybody else on this thread know absolutely bugger all about these individuals. 

What we do know is that in the Cardiff incident they were riding a Sur-Ron electric motorcycle, this is reported on several news sources.

Taking a look at the Sur-Ron website, they appear to make one road-legal model, the Light Bee L1E.  That is a "proper" (ish) motorcycle with a top speed of 45mph, it is not a 50cc equivalent.

As the minimum age to ride a motorcycle is 17, and the childrens' ages are quoted as 15 and 16, we absolutely do know that a crime was committed, though it may only have been that of riding a motorcycle on a public road without licence or insurance.

However, and this is speculation but with grounds, if you ask a Police officer, they're very likely to tell you that when they stop a vehicle for a minor offence, they have a distinct tendency to find evidence of other more serious ones too.  Which is why, as an aside, I think they should at present be stopping and writing up every single privately-owned e-scooter they see.

Now I'll give you that riding a motorcycle without licence or insurance doesn't have the death penalty, but one does need to accept that if breaking the law there is the risk that the resulting enforcement activity could cause injury or worse, e.g. if there's a chase.  This is easily avoided by not breaking the law, and if the Police do try to pull you over then to comply immediately.

Equally if the officers were guilty of dangerous driving, that should be prosecuted too.  But the fact remains that had they not been breaking the law they'd be alive now.

I had a real problem neighbour, caused hell and a lot of sleep disruption, I ended up weighing in late one night when he attacked his girlfriend in the street, I gave evidence in court against said neighbour.  Third such conviction.  Two weeks custodial suspended for 6 months.  Back to loud music till 3 am that night and an ambulance removing a non responsive party guest.

It’s no surprise to me that people selectively loose their empathy when on the receiving end of persistent low level crime and nuisance.  It’s not a good thing, and it drives people in to the arms of those preaching claimed simple blames and solutions, particularly where race is on the cards.  Nobody wins from this.

I’ve reflected before that you clearly have the patience and outlook of a saint, and another poster is joining that list; I expect the rewarding side of your work helps build that patience but there must also be some filtering in terms of who enjoys your kind of role and stays with it; so it’s perhaps no surprise you’re a relative outlier to many on the empathy side.

The answer? Funding where it can make a difference, and I’m sure you know better than I where that is.  It’s not in scraping dead kids off the road. I’m sure many of us did something very dumb in their past and survived by luck not judgement. 

 

One of the answers is that we need to go back to having a sensible level of on the ground policing day to day.  If kids riding motorcycles (or for that matter privately owned escooters) illegally knew that within a few minutes of hitting the road the motorcycle would be confiscated, they'd not bother.

Low level crime breeds more serious crime.  We've underfunded the Police for decades, as a result we seem to have moved to a system where the only crimes that are dealt with are ones that can be dealt with automatically, e.g. speeding via cameras.  That needs resolving.

For instance, motorway Traffic Officers have no enforcement ability.  That job used to be done by Police Officers who could e.g. pull people over for hogging the middle lane, obvious speeding, aggressive tailgating etc. Now, motorways basically have zero enforcement other than speed cameras, and the result is utterly appalling driving standards pretty much across the board.

In reply to fred99:

?!

In reply to fred99:

It’s no coincidence that these sort of issues disproportionately affect deprived areas. The problems are at a societal, not individual, level. Addressing inequality and properly funded social support and healthcare/mental healthcare would go a long way and take a huge burden off the police.

Bitterly cheering people’s deaths isn’t a route to a better society; it’s no less toxic than any of the other behaviours you complain about. Why would someone care if they are being anti-social if that society thinks they are scum wishes them dead?

I do try my best to empathise and understand the root causes of peoples behaviour. But my main gripe is that there does appear to be huge stereotypical generalisations going on about the lives of three recently deceased young men, with no evidence whatsoever. Zilch. Feck all. They’re dead. It may be their ‘fault’, but to basically label them as scum scaly criminal scrotes, terrorising their neighbourhoods etc etc is way out of order. It’s double standards with what normally happens on this forum when there is a climbing fatality - we wait for the evidence and show respect. If it turns out they were robbing pensioners and selling smack to toddlers then I would understand why folk are expressing their views etc, but for all we know, they were just teenagers who badly screwed up. 

Cut to the chase: do you reckon the three deceased were involved in crime when they where on their  e motorbikes?

Teenagers who were breaking the law, certainly in the Cardiff case.

I don't know about the case outside Cardiff.  In the Cardiff case they were, as a minimum, committing the offence of riding a motorcycle without licence or insurance, as we know the type of motorcycle involved and their ages.

That is not the act of people who care about the law.

Were they otherwise involved in lawbreaking?  I don't know, but they absolutely were committing a crime, and that crime needed enforcing.

I'm not happy they died, unlike some, I think it's tragic.  But we cannot slack on law enforcement just because car and motorbike chases and the likes are dangerous and sometimes cause deaths and injuries - it's very important that road traffic law is enforced, it saves more lives than not enforcing it.

And the simple fact remains that had they not been illegally riding an uninsured motorcycle underage, they'd be alive now.  If such kids knew that they'd be severely punished (confiscation etc) if caught doing so, and that being caught would be near certain, fewer would do it and those lives would not have been lost in vain.

All good points. 

 I have been retired for a dozen years now but before then I was a police officer in a traffic department for many years.

Even back then the police used to turn themselves inside out about the merits or otherwise of chasing vehicles that failed to stop. Back then individual police officers would be happy to chase anything, they thought that they were helping the public that way. Senior officers and Control Rooms took a more balanced view.

The problem then, and now as far as I can tell, is that you don't know why the vehicle is failing to stop. Is it just a couple of kids on a bike they are too young to ride? Probably best not to chase.

Stolen bike? if it was yours would you want the police to try to get it back?

And all the way up the scale to terrorism, the IRA were active in my time or say child abduction. If you knew that you would chase for sure. The problem is you don't know and you need to decide now. Not in 10 seconds but now.

Policies and guidelines can help the decision making process but they bring their own problems. When the Met introduced guidelines to halt chases once they passed a certain level of danger it was common for the people being chased to deliberately court danger to push them over the threshold curtailing the chase, not wearing helmets for example.

So I don't think there is an easy solution, certainly not one that will please all sections of society all of the time.

I imagined that this was because they had failed to follow the correct procedure. 

No. Its because they might have failed to follow the correct procedure. Its notification that they are under investigation.

That the police havent suspended them suggests they arent convinced they have done anything wrong.

I was trying to reply to fred99's message that has now been removed. But he did accuse me and you I think of:

So my reply was: I don't and never said I do. I have said I teach very difficult kids, often from very disturbed backgrounds, and know how difficult and sometimes even scary it can be. I also know that at the same time they will be someone's son, someone's brother, someone's friend. They might do awful things sometimes, treat others badly but also do decent, kind or caring things at other times. In other words they are complex human beings. 

I won't repost the hateful bit or my response to it now but it was a very bleak view of the world, and a bit disturbing that anyone could be that indifferent to the lives of others. 

Bet you never thought you'd get a post deleted on here. I tried to reply to fred99 a few times and never got as far as the post button. 

Persistent low level nuisance and criminality eats away at empathy.  Not funding and supporting enough interventions - support and enforcement - is building up a lot of negativity just waiting to be used by some demagogue politician who gets bored of othering migrants etc.

Well, the 'natural party of law and justice' have a long track record on picking on defenceless targets and demonising them. Do you recall the 1980's onslaught on those worthless scourges of society, single mothers? I mean look at Angela Rayner. She should know her place.

I remember it well. There’s a book often referred to in community work training, ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics’ iirc, which looks at how other social groups got the blame for everything in earlier decades. Standard practice amongst many ruling powers. 

By the great British criminologist Stanley Cohen - oddly I was reminding my Sociology students to cite it just yesterday as they were going into their third and final sociology A level paper! 

Cohen was writing about the mods and rockers and the seaside resort "riots" that never really were in the early (?) 60s. 

A later work with similar implications and lasting impact on sociology is Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order - by Stuart Hall, the great Jamaican-British sociologist who worked mainly at Birmingham Uni. He showed how the figure of "the mugger" racialised and gendered, was used to create public consent for new policing methods needed for control of the population at time of economic difficulties and political tension. Sound familiar much?

I perhaps should say, my reply wasn't deleted - by the time I finished composing what I wanted to say when I hit post, it wouldn't post because the message I was replying to had been removed.

Oh I get that, but I'm pretty unconvinced that Fred had suffered it that much more than most of us living in modern Britain do. I'll keep this general, but many schools seem to be going through terrible problems with quite extreme behaviour since the lockdowns. Let's just say this is something that I absolutely recognise. It's hard to maintain empathy in the face of such situation, but if you lose sight of other people's basic humanity, only really dark places await. 

Sorry for the accidental slander - a reading comprehension failure on my behalf.

Totally agree.  

I'm glad you pushed back. I know I called scrotes scrotes but I've done small bits of scrotish behaviour as a teenager myself and some friends of mine were major scrotes once but now are regretful model citizens. Genuinely believing they deserve to die is just sad and wrong. However, it's bloody awful if you have to live near major scotes where policing is inadequate... a bit of ranting to relieve frustration is inevitable. Paul points out the police rules, above, which really emphasise risk ....the government have consulted on this (see below)... my view is property is worth less than lives, so if in doubt don't chase if risks will be high. Higher police numbers could just mop up much bad behaviour afterwards... my old village PC certainly knew everyone...  we cant go back to that level but more community policing benefits everyone in such areas.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/police-pursuits/outcome/the-law...

There's something else that's eating away at empathy at the moment, and it's this covid-era popularization of eugenic ideas.

I didn't like Fred's comments any more than BottomClinger or TobyA, but what actually had me closing the thread and logging out of UKC thinking, I don't want to read any more of that, was the bit about removing people from the gene pool.

I mean, people in the UK are generally aware that funding for youth services has been slashed as catastrophically as everything else. But when they're making the leap to eugenics rather than fixing those services, the demogogue's poison is already at work.

Yes, I stand corrected. I always imagined that there was a failure to follow protocols when the Chief Constable denied a police vehicle was chasing the lads and then the video footage emerged. I'm guessing that at the time he believed that was the case because the officers in the van had not called in the fact that they were following.

Indeed; I get the sense we’re a decade behind the USA in our descent but it’s still happening.  It turns out liberal democracies in challenging times need a lot of care and attention else they all drift the same way, we’re by no means the only examples.

It’s mostly talk though - if you take almost anyone talking about shrinking the gene pool and give them a knife and legal immunity they’re going to change their view on the spot.  What I find really depressing about that angle is the lack of empathy in realising it’s almost entirely luck and not genetics; and that luck is shaped by society.  Which is why it’s so easy for a self perpetuating problem to nucleate and grow with othering, withdrawal of funding and segregation of communities.

Slight tangent but I see lots of deliveroo folk on bikes who zip along pretty fast with nary a touch of the pedals, the bikes all have a mass of duct tape wrapping around something in the triangle bounded by the seat tube, top tube and down tube.  What's that in there and why wrapped in duct tape?

I'm assuming that the Police vehicle had GPS tracking and that it showed that it wasn't in the vicinity of the accident when it happened. 
People have to remember that the events leading to the riot situation happened very quickly in response to a video on Social Media and the Police wouldn't have had time to ask the drivers of their vehicles if they'd had any incidents - They would have just looked at the GPS data and determined that no Police vehicle was near.

Battery.

Because its cheaper than a proper fixing.

And there are so many of these, like scooters, that the mind just utterly boggles as to why Police don't just mount a sting once or twice a week (random days, obviously) around areas with lots of restaurants and get all these illegal uninsured motorcycles (for that is what they are) off the road.

The effect of getting rid of these illegal vehicles would be that the only e-bikes remaining would be proper 25km/h EAPCs, which are probably one of the best developments in environmentally-friendly transport there has been since the bicycle itself was invented, because they remove the fitness barrier to entry to cycling, particularly in hilly places, and they also (I rode a "Bozza e-bike" across London last night) mean you can, without being superfit, ride pretty much with traffic in a 20 limit and are so, absent segregation, much, much safer.

(I'd like to see a trial of increasing that 25km/h to 30km/h - I think it might actually improve safety as then there's no excuse to overtake a cyclist, though to be fair I was pedalling the one I was riding up to about 28km/h on the flat most of the time)

Some discussion on classification and laws here https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/16/softer-tactics-calls-for-uk...

The headline in that article is calling for a ban on police chases of children on e-bikes.
In both cases, they weren't being 'chased', but merely followed.
Also in both cases, no police vehicle was actually in the vicinity of the incident when it happened. 

Police car behind you taking whatever turns you take. Are you being chased or followed? Or is that just semantics?

Interesting article. It would appear that the solution to the problem is to blame the police! 

Standard.

Totally agree.

Followed....  Technically any vehicle driving behind you is following. As per a previous post of mine, most drivers dislike being followed by the police, even if totally road legal.

Chased.... Suggests concisely following you and most probably using speed to catch-up.

Pursued.... Most certainly suggests an active attempt to catch/stop the driver 

No, it's not just semantics.  

If a police vehicle is following me with it's lights and siren on, it's very clear that I'm expected ti stop for them.  If a police vehicle is apparently following me from a distance there is no expectation for me to stop.

Something of a guilty conscience could erode that distinction, but you can hardly blame the police for that.

Following is following, no attempt to catch up or stop. Ideally wait for the followed vehicle to stop of it's own accord so you can deal with matters safely. Probably adhering to the Highway Code where possible

Chasing is trying to keep right up with the vehicle which is probably driving in a manner to try and escape.

I'm not sure it's really as bad as you think. The Darwin Awards, etc, are a 'celebration' of people removing themselves from the gene pool. I'm not sure this is much different. As mentioned above, it's mostly empty rhetoric, and I think we're still a very long way from people actually doing anything with knife, gun or gas chamber.

A battery. It's an illegal, unregulated electric bike. As mentioned above, the lack of pedalling, and speeds in excess of 15mph are the other giveaways.

And if we had enough on the ground policing, there'd be none because they'd all have been confiscated - because it's obvious to the eye which bikes these are.

Not sure what specifically you are referring to by "last couple of years". But I'd be interested to know which alternative media outlets you trust to be more accurate, or indeed less biased, than the BBC.

Martin

ok, i  will be more specific

every media outlet is  biassed,  all producing rarely more than clickbait articles designed to raise blood pressure.

i cant think of a single one i would trust with any story,  they are so sure to be bending that story to fit their political allegiances. 

 

That's sadly cynical. I would trust the BBC, and our main broadsheets - including both Guardian and Telegraph - to be pretty accurate on the facts, and not lower themselves to clickbait, On opinions, obviously, the Telegraph and Guardian have different perspectives, and I prefer the Guardian. I believe the BBC does try to be balanced and impartial (while accepting that these two are not always compatible) and, judging by the way it gets criticised pretty equally from both sides, I think it succeeds reasonably well. I wonder whether you can quote any specific BBC news or current affairs pieces recently which you regard as biased, other than in ways which simply reflect your own political standpoint. I don't think I can.

Martin

Not 'joy riding', apparently just going about his normal business heading home from work, but he still managed to hit and kill a pedestrian while riding an unregistered, unlicensed, uninsured electrically powered two-wheeled vehicle which was not compliant with the EAPC regulations - i.e. an electric motorcycle:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/e-bike-cyclist-cleared-collisio...

How he got off scott free I will never understand. The allegation of speeding does seem to be  open to challenge (alleged to have been doing 30mph in a 20mph limit, but "had slowed down before he crashed into the pedestrian").  But as regards driving an illegal, uninsured vehicle, it looks as if the regulations around the use of electrically powered vehicles on public road may not have been adequately explained to the jury, because he did look bang to rights on that count.