Illegal Electric Motorbikes, Not Legal Ebikes, Are the Real Road Safety Threat
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterwalker. "When is an ebike not an ebike? When it has a powerful, illegal engine. Get this menace off our roads | Peter Walker | The Guardian." September 15, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues that the real danger on UK streets comes from illegal, motorbike-like electric vehicles disguised as ebikes, not from legitimate, legal ebikes like Lime bikes. He says people are wrongly lumping these together, which leads to unfair crackdowns on cycling in general, when the actual problem is a law-enforcement failure to deal with illegal, fast-moving electric motorbikes.
Conclusion
The public and policymakers should distinguish illegal throttle-powered electric motorbikes (disguised as bikes) from legal ebikes, and focus enforcement/political action on the former rather than restricting legitimate ebikes or cycling generally.
Premises
- Legally, an ebike must have a powered speed limit of 15.5mph and a motor that only engages via pedaling, not a throttle
- Many machines on UK streets that look like bikes are actually throttle-powered, travel much faster than 15mph, and are therefore illegal electric motorbikes, not ebikes
- These illegal machines are often heavier, moped-like, and capable of significant speed, posing a real danger
- Legal ebikes and share bikes, despite occasional bad behavior by riders, are overall beneficial because they expand access to cycling for people who wouldn't otherwise ride
- Serious or fatal pedestrian casualties involving legal bikes/ebikes are rare, unlike those involving motor vehicles, due to physics (kinetic energy scales with mass and velocity)
- The problem of illegal electric motorbikes is fundamentally a law-enforcement and political issue (e.g., tied to the food-delivery industry), not an inherent flaw in cycling or ebike technology
- Conflating illegal electric motorbikes with legal ebikes leads to unjustified calls for restricting cycling and legal ebikes (e.g., transit bans due to battery fire risks)
Assumptions
- The legal definition of an ebike is a meaningful and sufficient way to distinguish dangerous from safe machines
- Public and media perception conflates illegal motorbikes with legal ebikes, causing disproportionate blame on legitimate cycling
- Enforcement against illegal machines is feasible and would meaningfully address the danger without requiring broader restrictions on cycling
- The benefits of expanded cycling access from legal ebikes outweigh the annoyances caused by some riders' rule-breaking
- Kinetic energy/physics reasoning adequately explains and justifies the relative risk comparison between bikes and motor vehicles