On some things the UK is progressive, on other issues, like sustainable transport, they see it as antisocial behaviour.
oh, very definitely – I just saw my neighbor, Darin Stone (of Thames Valley Police), tootling around on his electric scooter getting in everyone’s way, violating traffic laws, and running over seniors
Oh man the temptation, but sadly I must be a good British citizen, and complain about it instead.
Asking people to narc on their own families? Fuck these guys.
Yeah seriously who the hell is replying to this?!
You’d have thought this would have gone to the PR team for approval and they just said yeah that’s the image we want for our police force.
Good to see they’ve solved all the dangerous driving in that area
As I can hear street drag racing from my bedroom window at 2am on Saturdays I’m thinking they still have a few people they need to speak to.
James May: “Oh good. This must mean the police have found my television.”
I think what our mate Darin is referring to by “e-bikes” is throttle-operated, no need to pedal, capable of going 30-60mph electric motorbike which, like any other motorbike, you need a licence and protective gear to ride, and no, they’ve got no business being in the bike lane with people noodling along at 10-15mph, and definitely not on the pavement with pedestrians.
Unfortunately, Darin is an idiot who can’t string a sentence together and so he’s just told everyone that my electric assist pedal cycle, top assisted speed of 15.5mph, no need for a licence or insurance, is also illegal. Thanks, Darin.
This House of Commons briefing from 2019 lays out what the issues are with e-scooters, in that because they’re not legally classed as a bicycle, they have the same legal requirements as a motorbike, which is clearly nonsense for a scooter with a top speed of 15.5mph, however, the law has not yet caught up with reality. Since that briefing was written, various trials have started in cities with hired e-scooters provided by third parties to see how the law needs to be updated and what needs to change in order to make them legal on UK roads, but the trials seem to just keep getting extended with no conclusions drawn. As we’re currently in election purdah, nothing’s going to happen until July anyway, and I highly doubt that “sorting out e-scooter legality” will be top of the new government’s priority list.
the use of … e-bikes is currently illegal on a public road or areas set aside for pedestrians (which includes pavements, cycle lanes and foot paths).
The UK Highway Code would disagree: https://www.gov.uk/electric-bike-rules . And I’m not even going to discuss the insanity that a “cycle lane” could possibly be considered an “area set aside for pedestrians”.
Thinking about this some more: is this legit? I’m not from the UK, and have only heard of Thames Valley Police from watching Endeavour on PBS. Do the police just email entire neighborhoods when they need leads?
Yeah it’s legit, I signed up for local police information when I first moved here. They post missing persons and details of crimes in the area, ask for DashCam, CCTV, doorbell cams etc.
Although unless they can solve a crime in minutes that really don’t seem interested. Unless it’s someone trying to get to work on an e-bike apparently.
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UK government seems to live up to the stereotype of being ridiculous about licenses, damn
