In brief, UK reporting on “ebike” collisions and battery fires confuses lawful, UK/EU-compliant electric bicycles with illegal, unregistered, uninsured electric motorcycles. As a result, public perception is deeply skewed compared to the actual risks posed by bona-fide electric bicycles.
A similar phenomenon can be seen in California, but there is drafted legislation to mandate accurate advertising of “e-motos” versus ebikes, with fines accruing to vendors that fail to correctly represent what they’re selling.
IMO, it’s hard for me to blame consumers whom, given high gasoline/petrol prices, need some form of transportation that gets them where they need to go and minimizes external harms (eg automobile risk of injury). Evan correctly identifies vendors and importers that flout the law and push the legal risk into riders. At the same time, e-motos are legit for off-road use and here in California, they’re great fun in that regard. At bottom, fair advertising isn’t controversial; it’s no different than wanting to know the ingredients in food products.
On a separate note, Evan also flagged a case of police misidentification and confiscation of a lawful e-bike. Which I find particularly surprising, given that UK police tend to be more uniformly instructed than their American counterparts. No doubt that Californian police have also confused ebikes with electric motorcycles on occasion, but the result in the UK seems is to go immediately to confiscation and destruction without any meaningful system of review. Which seems problematic, at best
This is precisely the sort of deceit which California’s draft legislation would penalize. There’s an implicit focus on Southern California, where tourists not familiar with local laws are convinced by sketchy shops that an e-moto is “just a bicycle”. The idea is that by firmly defining what an e-moto is, it becomes a form of fraud or unfair business practice to advertise as an “ebike rental shop” but actually be flogging e-motos.
I’m not aware of any other US State which is addressing this angle, so you may want to speak to your representative about misbehaving shops in your area.
I’m aware this wasn’t directed at me, but please be mindful that when someone presses on the substance of your complaint, they may be trying to understand the attendant context, not because they want to belittle the consequences you’ve witnessed. And it matters, because the worst case scenario is to misidentify the root-cause and pass legislation that villifies the wrong party, while letting the real wrongdoers continue harming the public.
There are real costs to just throwing ideas into law. If you’re being chronically “shouted down” by others for supposed anti-ebike opinions, it may help to try understanding their context for why they view your opinion as such.
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