Are Electric Scooters Road Legal or Not!?

[Reorte]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Public highways were fine places for thousands of years (Dick Turpin and his mates aside) - the trouble started when that Daimler bloke invented a viable, small internal-combustion engine.

 

Being badly injured and / or killed by horses and carts wasn't particularly unusual, if it attracted attention it would only be because of the novelty at the time (like it was earlier with William Huskission being killed by a train).

 

Motorised vehicles were seen as a great solution to the environmental problems caused by horses everywhere, both because of their "exhaust" and because there were so many getting rid of the dead ones could be an issue in a big city (a dead horse isn't an easy thing to shift).

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Reorte

[MrWolf]

Nothing wrong with the idea of an electric scooter, as with many vehicles, just some of the cretins that ride them. They are a menace around here. As a keen cyclist and motorcyclist, I have to keep an eye out for them, had one jump off the pavement near me earlier without a glance behind. If I had hit him, I would undoubtedly be the villain of the piece.

I find it irritating that you can get on to what is basically a powered road vehicle and ride it without any sort of training. 

I had to take several tests in order to ride a motorcycle, I have to be insured, I have to obey the law, I have to wear a crash helmet. If I don't do these things, I will be penalised or even banned from the road.

 

If they are road legal, the rules for motor vehicles should apply.

If they are not road legal, the police should confiscate and crush them. End of.

 

They are very popular with the local drug mules / purse snatchers. It's so much easier to get about and dodge the cops with a pocket full of crack wraps than the old standard BMX or mountain bike!

[ejstubbs]

18 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Bikes wouldn't be allowed on the public highway if they had just been invented.

 

I'd argue that that would be true only if motor vehicles were already the dominant form of transport using the public highways.  I'd also argue that the same assertion could very easily be made about motor vehicles if they were invented now - at the very least in terms of the proficiency requirements that one would be required to meet in order to be allowed to use one on the public highway.

 

And don't forget that roads were not built for cars: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2013/apr/16/roads-not-built-for-cars-book

 

It was cyclists, and not motorists, who first pushed for high-quality, dust-free road surfaces (dust was a major irritant at the time, believed to be a cause of disease, especially as so much of it was powdered horse sh*t). The Roads Improvement Association of the UK was created in 1885 by the Cyclists' Touring Club and the forerunner to British Cycling, ten years before the first motorcar was imported into the country. And in America, the Good Roads movement, started by cyclists, later led to the creation of the US Department of Transportation and many "motor lobby" organisations were, originally, started by cyclists.

Edited February 1, 2021 by ejstubbs

[Pete the Elaner]

7 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Nothing wrong with the idea of an electric scooter, as with many vehicles, just some of the cretins that ride them. They are a menace around here. As a keen cyclist and motorcyclist, I have to keep an eye out for them, had one jump off the pavement near me earlier without a glance behind. If I had hit him, I would undoubtedly be the villain of the piece.

I find it irritating that you can get on to what is basically a powered road vehicle and ride it without any sort of training. 

I had to take several tests in order to ride a motorcycle, I have to be insured, I have to obey the law, I have to wear a crash helmet. If I don't do these things, I will be penalised or even banned from the road.

 

If they are road legal, the rules for motor vehicles should apply.

If they are not road legal, the police should confiscate and crush them. End of.

 

They are very popular with the local drug mules / purse snatchers. It's so much easier to get about and dodge the cops with a pocket full of crack wraps than the old standard BMX or mountain bike!

 

As I am sure I would have been the other night. We have a popular scooter hire scheme around here, so they were almost certainly hired ones. They have lights but are not really good enough for road use...because they are not intended to be used there.

When signing up, the scheme recommends wearing a helmet. I have never seen a scooter user wearing one.

It also states clearly that they are only to be used on pathways & 30mph roads. These 2 were on a roundabout between 2 70mph dual carriageways.

[MrWolf]

If you had taken issue with them, you would probably have got the same attitude that idiot cyclists adopt: "Don't I have a right to use the road?"

 

[ejstubbs]

On 30/01/2021 at 18:23, Nearholmer said:

Their wives were waiting for them and it emerged that they’d toted the bikes there in their cars, and done a <10 mile circuit. For “exercise” ..... which it clearly hadn’t been in any meaningful sense.

 

Ahem:

 

https://ebiketips.road.cc/content/advice/advice/are-electric-bikes-good-for-exercise-575

 

Are electric bikes good for exercise? Short answer: yes. But you've no doubt landed here wanting a bit more than that, so let's delve a little deeper. The main question you need to be asking yourself is: how much exercise do you want to do?

 

https://ebiketips.road.cc/content/news/e-bike-riders-get-more-exercise-than-regular-cyclists-according-to-results-of-new-study

 

The recent study followed over 10,000 participants in seven European cities, and found because the e-bike riders often take longer trips, they actually got more exercise than cyclists on conventional bikes!

 

https://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/community/featured/why-riding-an-e-bike-is-good-for-you

 

Riding an electric bike isn’t cheating: you still have to pedal and you still burn calories. It’s like riding a normal bike, just a bit easier.

Riding an e-bike is good exercise. Almost all e-bikes for sale in the UK today are pedelecs: the motor provides assistance only when you pedal. No pedalling, no power. Twist-and-go e-bikes with a throttle do exist, but unless they are ‘type approved’ by the manufacturer or importer (and display a plate showing their type approval number) they are legally classed as a motorcycle or moped, with all that that implies.

 

So riding a pedelec still burns calories – and more of them than you think. An engineer in the USA measured e-bike and conventional bike rides back to back and reckoned he used 80% as many calories on his e-bike. He used a heart-rate monitor’s ‘calories expended’ function to measure this, which is a bit rough and ready, but was probably in the ballpark.

 

https://www.furosystems.com/news/exercise-on-electric-bike/

 

There’s a pervading idea that riding ebikes somehow makes you lazy or you’re getting a “free ride” when compared with riding a traditional bike. We can understand why, since ebikes offer motorised assistance, but once you try one yourself, you’ll realise it’s far from riding a slimmed-down motorbike. In this article, we explain how much exercise you can get on an electric bike because they’re electric, not in spite of it. 

 

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/fitness/why-using-an-electric-bike-is-still-apparently-a-workout-not-an-effortless-romp-1.4088378

 

Pedalling an electric mountain bike is a workout, requiring almost as much physical exertion as riding a standard mountain bike. But the effort feels easier on the e-bike, according to the first study of motor-assisted mountain bikes and how they affect the physiology and attitudes of experienced cyclists.

 

The study suggests that e-mountain bikes might enable many riders, including newcomers, to maintain or gain fitness while transiting otherwise daunting hills, snowy trails, spins with spouses and daily commutes.

 

I bought my eMTB primarily in order to despatch the tedious fire roads between the interesting bits in trail centres as quickly as possible.  However, you can't just leave it in 'turbo' mode and forget it: on steep, twisty climbs you have to dial it down, usually all the way to 'eco' mode (which is what I use most of the time anyway).  The reason being that the higher assist modes actually make it difficult verging on impossible to control the bike as you negotiate a steep, tight uphill hairpin: in turbo mode in particular just a touch on the pedals when you're in a low gear can send you zooming off at a rate of knots that is wholly incompatible with getting round a steep 180° bend of 2m radius or less.  And obviously the assist contributes next to nothing on the fun downhill bits anyway.

 

Riding the eMTB on normal roads I usually find myself "bouncing" off the limiter at 25kmph on the flat.  Though, contrary to what some folks seem to think, you don't hit a 'brick wall' when the assistance cuts out.  It certainly helps me get to 25kmph, then you can hear it kind of 'hunting' in and out as I maybe drop a kmph or two on a slight uphill, and then regain my speed.  It's perfectly possible to go faster than 25kmph under your own steam if you want to, though - there's no resistance from the drive system, just the extra weight of the motor and battery to contend with.  (That's how the drive system on my eMTB works, anyway; other road-legal systems may be different/less sophisticated.)

 

The first time I took my eMTB to Glentress I covered almost 50% more distance than I had the last time I'd been there on my conventional MTB, in only 10% more time - and I burned 28% more calories in the process.  The only reason I'd decided to head back to the car park was that it was starting to get a bit late in the day.  When I got back to the car I was feeling as if I could have done another lap of the trails - until I actually dismounted from the bike, at which point my knees nearly gave way.  With the conventional MTB I'd have been very much more aware of my legs being tired, probably because of the greater peak exertion that I would have had to expend.  Coming off the eMTB I just didn't realise how much work I had been doing, I assume because it smoothed out the worst of the really hard bits (although, interestingly, both my peak and average heart rates were higher riding the eMTB).

 

I did another experiment more recently, riding first my eMTB and then my conventional gravel bike around the same local route involving a mix of tarmac and landrover tracks, up hill and down dale.  The time for each ride was the same to within a couple of seconds.  The peak and average heart rates were a few percentage points higher riding the gravel bike.  The obvious difference was that the calorie consumption riding the eMTB was about 10% less - but both were within the "impacting" aerobic fitness range reported by my Garmin.

 

Obviously electric assistance would be cheating in a competition environment, but what we're talking about here is leisure and personal exercise where it's basically whatever floats your boat.  Riding a road-legal ebike is not the same as riding a motorcycle* (I should know, I've got one of those as well).  You have to put some effort in to make progress: clearly not as much effort as you do without the electric assistance, but to dismiss it as "not meaningful" can be a lot further from the truth than you might think.

 

One final note: when riding my eMTB at trail centres, I do say "thank you" and also apologise in a light-hearted way to other riders who pull over to let me pass on the uphills.  It does seem only polite.  No-one's ever taken exception, and more than a few have said "I wish I had one of those!"  Seems like we generally manage to rub along together just fine.

 

* Or - to drag this rant post kicking and screaming back on topic - an electric scooter, which is "twist and go".  About the only effort they require is to be able to stand up and steer.  Unfortunately, as others have observed, actively using one's brain doesn't seem to be regarded as a necessary effort by a certain minority of users.  Then again, that could probably said of most forms of transport, even shank's pony.

[Nearholmer]

eje

 

I was there; I saw how much "exercise" they were getting. Making your legs go round, while engaging maximum assist on undulating country roads is not giving it much. But, as per your point, if the alternative was that they did none, it worked.

 

I've got nothing against e-bikes, and if my knees give-up on me or something, I'll be first in the queue to buy one. A friend of mine who lives at the bottom of a geographical pit (steep hills on all sides) in Mid Wales has one, because otherwise he's done a day's work before he gets to the bits he really wants to ride - not necessary here, where we only have one steep hill nearby.

 

Remaining firmly OT, one thing I've learned, and which supports something you say, following returning to cycling any distance since early-semi-retirement, is that it is how much time you spend in the top 10% of your allowable heart-rate that determines how tired you get, not the overall duration of the trip. Where I think e-bikes score is by lopping-off those >90% bits. If I'm setting out for more than about two hours, I deliberately ration my >90% carefully, and have no shame about going slowly, or even getting off and pushing if I've got loaded panniers, when it comes to very steep sections.

 

K

 

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Butler Henderson]

One of my bicycles is an ebike - its proved invaluable for commutes and shopping trips in a town where every road goes up a steepish hill at some point and I would be a very sweaty mess on a pedal powered bike wearing normal clothing. Legally the assistance on an ebike is limited to 15.5mph; an ebike can legally go faster that under pedal power.

[MrWolf]

There seems to be a lot of talk about e-bikes which are not the same as an all electric scooter (someone got a franchise?) which is what I was talking about. One of my friends has a degenerative spinal condition and although he builds bikes for a living he can't ride very far, but an e-bike keeps him on the road.

If the E-bike is only motor assisted and not a true motorcycle, how is it that the old fashioned cyclemotor which may be as low in power as 15cc is legislated as a motor cycle when it operates and performs as per the E-bike?

If the cyclemotor which requires "light pedal assistance" and is generally a composite machine is a motorcycle, then an all electric scooter sans pedals, even if it's marketed as running on lentil bakes and unicorn farts is a motorcycle and should be treated as one.

[Butler Henderson]

Ebikes still need to pedalled; the assist kicks in under 15.5 mph but most ebikes work on torque sensors applying the assist when needed and not all the time.

[MrWolf]

20 minutes ago, Butler Henderson said:

Ebikes still need to pedalled; the assist kicks in under 15.5 mph but most ebikes work on torque sensors applying the assist when needed and not all the time.

 

As does a cyclemotor, no fancy sensors of course, it just ran out of steam and either disengaged drive or stalled.

[Nearholmer]

The basic law for e-bikes is that:

 

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

 

The person/battery blend on a lot of them can be varied, and not all can deliver 250W, certainly not for very long anyway, but the heftiest ones, when set to ‘full assist’ behave very like a very light moped - you just have to be moving your legs, not putting any worthwhile effort in.

 

250W (a third of a horsepower) is equivalent to a fairly strong cyclist, especially if maintained steadily for a long period, but I think it’s still less than those old cyclomotors used to be capable of. A have a vague feeling that they were 1.5hp or 3hp.

 

I’m not sure what the power-rating of e-scooters is - I’ll have a look at the rating plate next time I see one lurking about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

Modern electric scooters, as in road-legal ‘motor scooters’, not the stand-on things we’re talking about here, seem to have 3kW (4hp) motors in the U.K. The limits are tighter in some other countries, e.g. Sweden 1kW.

 

I can’t find a figure for the old-style ‘egg whisk’ jobs, or a velosolex type one, but I am pretty sure that the feeblest were 1.5hp, and the less feeble 3hp, which was what 25cc and 50cc engines could do then. Of course, a highly-tuned modern 50cc can turn out far more than that. Even the legendary Yamaha FS1E of the 1970s knocked out c5hp (and it felt like 500 to the rider!).

[rocor]

On 01/02/2021 at 08:56, ejstubbs said:

 

I'd argue that that would be true only if motor vehicles were already the dominant form of transport using the public highways.  I'd also argue that the same assertion could very easily be made about motor vehicles if they were invented now - at the very least in terms of the proficiency requirements that one would be required to meet in order to be allowed to use one on the public highway.

 

And don't forget that roads were not built for cars: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2013/apr/16/roads-not-built-for-cars-book

 

It was cyclists, and not motorists, who first pushed for high-quality, dust-free road surfaces (dust was a major irritant at the time, believed to be a cause of disease, especially as so much of it was powdered horse sh*t). The Roads Improvement Association of the UK was created in 1885 by the Cyclists' Touring Club and the forerunner to British Cycling, ten years before the first motorcar was imported into the country. And in America, the Good Roads movement, started by cyclists, later led to the creation of the US Department of Transportation and many "motor lobby" organisations were, originally, started by cyclists.

 

The first ICE road vehicles appeared on British roads in the 1890's, These were required for a man to walk in front of them with a red flag (The Locomotive Act 1865 - Red Flag Act). The driving test was not introduced until the first of June 1935. During the calendar year ending December 1935, there were 413,765 new vehicle registrations; of these 281,388 were private cars.

 

The UK has a ambivalent attitude towards regulation. That alternates from between being over and under.

 

 

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Modern electric scooters, as in road-legal ‘motor scooters’, not the stand-on things we’re talking about here, seem to have 3kW (4hp) motors in the U.K. The limits are tighter in some other countries, e.g. Sweden 1kW.

 

I can’t find a figure for the old-style ‘egg whisk’ jobs, or a velosolex type one, but I am pretty sure that the feeblest were 1.5hp, and the less feeble 3hp, which was what 25cc and 50cc engines could do then. Of course, a highly-tuned modern 50cc can turn out far more than that. Even the legendary Yamaha FS1E of the 1970s knocked out c5hp (and it felt like 500 to the rider!).

Electrically assisted Bicycles are limited to 200W and 15mph and can be ridden by anyone over the age of 14 without licence.

The UK  Motorscooter 4KW is limited to  30MPH from the age of 16 and would be what used to be called a moped.. 4KW is approx 5hp, it now requires a CBT unless your licence is pre 2001.

The electric Motorscooters with 4kw to 11KW have no limits and can be ridden aged 17 + with a CBT, 11kw is 14.6HP approx.

Electric Motorscooters of 11Kw + you must have a full motorcycle licence..

 

It matters not what sort of bodyshell is fitted, a motorscooter is a classed as a motorcycle, whether 51cc or 1000CC.  Below 50CC it is what was called a moped

 

 My 125 motorscooter is a 125cc 11kW machine and quite capable of 70mph.

Edited February 2, 2021 by TheQ

[Nearholmer]

Googling around, most of the stand-on ones for sale to adults (for use on private property!) seem to have ratings 250-350W, so the same or rather more than a typical e-bike, but a few go up to 800-1000W.

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by Nearholmer

[John Harris]

It seems some police are taking action in London.

 

I doubt if many have insurance / full driving licence.

 

jch

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, John Harris said:

I doubt if many have insurance

 

None will have, because its impossible to buy insurance to use one, unless you are one of the companies in the hire trial.