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E scooters

Stuart Frazer said:
I guess it will be another problem for the Police to regulate. I would take a hard line - if found being used in public space, then they are removed and crushed. In reality, it will probably be regulated as effective as the no-smoking in company vehicles regulations. I see that everywhere, but I've yet to see or hear of anyone being prosecuted for it. The Police will most likely only become involved when there are accidents/incidents.
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I think they should get away with crucifixion. First offence.
 
I saw a lot of these in Lyon when I worked there for three months at the end of last year. Several private companies hired them out and you picked them up and left them wherever you wanted, with all the tracking and billing being taken care of via an app.

I've no objection to them in principle but a lot of people rode them on pavements at speed and I had a couple of close shaves. None of the French postgrads I worked with were keen and said there had been a number of accidents, so tighter regulation and enforcement was almost certainly needed.

The other thing was that they worked out to be rather expensive - about 10 times the price of a multi-purpose transport ticket that was good for an hour, if I remember rightly. Given that public transport was excellent and cheap, and Lyon is a really pleasant city to walk around in good weather, I wondered why anyone would bother.
 
Usual laughable over reaction, are they anywhere as dangerous as cars or motorcycles? Will they cause even 1% of the harm?

If our cities were not wholly designed for motorised vehicles we would all be safer.
 
Even at 6 or 7mph you will need to react quickly not to fall over. A safe recovery will need practice. The kids who are used to scooters should be okay. Getting your legs going from a standing start is not going to be easy.
 
Woodface said:
Usual laughable over reaction, are they anywhere as dangerous as cars or motorcycles? Will they cause even 1% of the harm?

If our cities were not wholly designed for motorised vehicles we would all be safer.
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Has any mentioned road tax yet? There has to be a Godwin's law equivalent for non-car road user threads online, surely?

:D
 
My car weighs just over a tonne, to move my 80Kg carcass around. And my car is light, by modern standards. If I could move myself around, even half the time, using 20Kg of scooter, think of the energy I’d save. If there were reliable routes, I’d be happy to commute on something broadly like that, in decent weather.
 
Andrew L Weekes said:
Legal e-bikes don't need insurance and a licence, why do these? It's probably down to the throttle only-propulsion, whereas bikes need to be pedalled.
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Ah, yes. Now I know what they are, I think you may be right. However, it's not necessary to use pedals at all on an E bike, unless the motor is under-powered. Like kiddie scooters, I guess you could scoot these and avoid the electric power. It's a fine line, but puzzling.
 
I was in London today and some of the idiots on these things think they’re invinsible....

E-ing along with their beats on playing tunes whilst checking Facebook on their phones on the handlebar mounted iPhone holder.

Wasn’t there a law passed recently saying you couldn’t use them on the road? - They’d be even more lethal on the pavements as most go soo fast...

I like the idea of them, but they need to either on cycle paths, OR there need to be enforceable laws on their usage. Problem is with no identifiable marks or plates, that would be impossible.
 
There was a couple of young teenagers on these swerving in and out of pedestrians in a local pedestrian precinct yesterday, way too fast and way too close. Later I saw them go straight through a red light on the road almost colliding with a man crossing the road. Of course they were breaking the law and the scooters are not to blame but I can only see this sort of behaviour becoming more common if/when they are in general use, and police won't deal with it.
 
droodzilla said:
I saw a lot of these in Lyon when I worked there for three months at the end of last year. Several private companies hired them out and you picked them up and left them wherever you wanted, with all the tracking and billing being taken care of via an app.

I've no objection to them in principle but a lot of people rode them on pavements at speed and I had a couple of close shaves. None of the French postgrads I worked with were keen and said there had been a number of accidents, so tighter regulation and enforcement was almost certainly needed.

The other thing was that they worked out to be rather expensive - about 10 times the price of a multi-purpose transport ticket that was good for an hour, if I remember rightly. Given that public transport was excellent and cheap, and Lyon is a really pleasant city to walk around in good weather, I wondered why anyone would bother.
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Everything gets ridden on the pavement in Paris, unless it's already blocked with parked vehicles and you have to go in the road.
 
Mike Reed said:
However, it's not necessary to use pedals at all on an E bike
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Legal E bikes motors only supply power when the pedals are turning.

If power is available without pedalling, the motor will most likely have motor over the legal limit of 250w and probably only need pedalling if the battery is flat. Having looked at converting my "shopping" there are motor options from 250w (legal with torque or cadence sensors) through to 1kw or more with thumb or twist grip throttles (only legal off-road).
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48106617

This article is broadly correct regarding the use of electrically powered scooters.

My interpretation is(and as always, I'm probably wrong):
They do not fall into category P on a UK licence, as cat P is for mopeds - they use an internal combustion engine.
They would drop into cat A1, as that category does cover internal combustion engines above 50 cc, or electrically powered 2-3 wheeled vehicles.
The vehicle in question is intended adapted for use on a road - the definition of road is' a highway, or any other road to which a vehicle can pass...includes pavements'.

The law would need to be changed to accommodate wider use of these, and the 15.4mph limit would also need to be factored in - as the article implies.

If this is a mechanically propelled vehicle, intended(interpreted as manufactured for use...) or adapted for use on a road, then unless it is restricted below 15.4mph...

I looked at this in depth in a previous life when identifying the correct classification for gopeds - we were dealing with a run of serious crashes involving them. Gopeds can be electrically or internal combustion engine powered, but the main caveat with those is they were never designed for road use.
 
Everyone's focussing on the speed limit alone. That's irrelevant, a feather hitting you full in the face at 15 mph doesn't hurt. The issue is the weight of the thing with its oversized battery - it's really a full sized sack of spuds with an idiot on top hitting you in the face - that's a whole diffent story. Couple that with near silence, poor road infrastructure and heavy traffic etc etc
 
cctaylor said:
Legal E bikes motors only supply power when the pedals are turning.

If power is available without pedalling, the motor will most likely have motor over the legal limit of 250w and probably only need pedalling if the battery is flat. Having looked at converting my "shopping" there are motor options from 250w (legal with torque or cadence sensors) through to 1kw or more with thumb or twist grip throttles (only legal off-road).
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Worth noting (having converted my bike to an ebike) that there's a fair bit of wiggle room within the 250W rating as that is a continuous power rating. The only requirement is the motor doesn't overheat operating at that power level with 100% duty cycle. Even the big names, like Bosch, take quite some leeway within the legal definition.

There's plenty of motors marked 250W that are delivering peak powers considerably higher than this, 6-700W+ is not uncommon.

I went for a very light, relatively low powered geared hub motor, with around 40Nm of torque. On the flat it can propel me with minimal effort if I want it to (and I'm not exactly svelte!) but on steeper climbs needs user input. In reality I bought it to get me fitter and flatten the hills around here that reduce my motivation to ride. It's fitted with a full-assist throttle, but I rarely use it and the conversion has been a revelation, I *want* to go cycling again, but most of the time I'm on minimal assistance and under my own steam and my heart rate data shows I'm working almost as hard, most of the time, as I did unassisted.

I did hit a 20% gradient at the weekend, at the end of an already torturous climb and had to get off and push at that point! It did make pushing the bike easier though, as it could propel itself without my fat a*** on it!

Going off-topic here, but this is a really interesting recent study on e-MTB's: https://formative.jmir.org/2019/3/e13643/

There's some interesting takeaway from that, riding both types of bikes “placed the vast majority of participants in the vigorous-intensity heart rate zone,”. The average heart rate of a test subject riding an e-bike was 93.6 percent of those riding conventional bikes. In addition electric bikes were identified to be an “excellent form of aerobic or cardiovascular exercise, even for experienced mountain bikers who regularly engage in this fitness activity.”

Particularly interesting was the vast majority of the test subjects said they didn’t feel like they got a workout while riding an e-bike — despite heart rate monitors and fitness trackers indicating that most participants experienced “vigorous” levels of exercise. Exercise that doesn’t feel like exercise seems like a major breakthrough to me and is close to my own experience.
 
gavreid said:
Everyone's focussing on the speed limit alone. That's irrelevant, a feather hitting you full in the face at 15 mph doesn't hurt. The issue is the weight of the thing with its oversized battery - it's really a full sized sack of spuds with an idiot on top hitting you in the face - that's a whole diffent story. Couple that with near silence, poor road infrastructure and heavy traffic etc etc
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The battery will have an order of magnitude lower mass than many riders. The most popular e-scooters are a similar weight to a normal mountain bike, around 1/2 the weight of a sack of spuds.

Relative to a car or motorbike, it's insignificant, I know which I'm more likely to survive an impact with.
 
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