Illegal e-bikes

There is a comprehensive road.cc report on comments by Chris Boardman, the Active Travel England chief, on the problem of illegal e-bikes being able to be purchased easily, with associated dangers.

Mr Boardman said “Some of it is a trading standards problem, that we have got illegal and non-certified products coming into our market and people have said that they will buy batteries, chargers and bikes online if it’s cheaper, and they don’t mind if it’s non-brand. There’s a lot of risks associated with that, so I think there’s a government aspect to this, to legislate and properly police trading standards, so those products that are illegal don’t reach our market.”

Although only 0.07% of fires are caused by e-bikes, their results are so serious it was enough to get all of them – legal and illegal – banned on all TfL travel services.