Police unlawfully seize and destroy a legal £5800 e-bike

[Mont Blanc]

West Midlands Police stopped a man riding a completely legal Tern GSD Cargo e-bike, claimed it was illegal, seized it, issued the rider tickets for operating a motor vehicle without insurance etc, then promptly crushed it, despite the seizure being appealed.

The bike was supplied through an authorised partner shop of the Birmingham City Council cycle scheme.

The 'test' that the officers used, was for one officer to hold the rear wheel up off the ground while the other officer hand cranked the pedals as fast as they could to see what top speed they could attain on the bike's speedometer. The bike's electric assistance was actually switched off at the time. The officer managed to hand pedal the bike up to 47km/h and declared it illegal.

The rider explained it was a legal bike, offered to show documentation, offered to turn on the electric assist and allow the police to ride it to test it, but they ignored him.

The Police then ignored the suppliers of the bike, Birmingham Bike Foundry, part of the Council scheme, as they tried to prove the bike was legal and to retrieve it. The police proceeded to crush it.

It was only after Cycling UK helped get lawyers involved did the Police eventually admit they were wrong. They are now "working on developing a proper test" apparently.

I have no idea why they feel the need to 'develop' anything when shoebox sized e-bike dynos have existed for years to provide accurate testing for Policing purposes and are in use all over the EU and even by some forces in the UK.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyvl7ld06r8o

https://road.cc/ebiketips/news/police-to-stop-usin...

Edited by Mont Blanc on Thursday 23 July 16:09

[CMTMB]

They got this one wrong but I'm just glad the Police are actually doing something about illegal e-bike.

[geeks]

CMTMB said:

They got this one wrong but I'm just glad the Police are actually doing something about illegal e-bike.

Or not in this instance

[bad company]

Looks like police are paying for the bike, cancelling the ticket and changing their processes:-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyx5j7rm6no?a...

[RSTurboPaul]

bad company said:

Looks like police taxpayers are paying for the bike, cancelling the ticket and changing their processes:-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyx5j7rm6no?a...

FTFY

[OutInTheShed]

How exactly do those dynos measure the 250W?

Because there are an awful lot of ebikes putting out more than 250W up hills.

[Mont Blanc]

OutInTheShed said:

How exactly do those dynos measure the 250W?

Because there are an awful lot of ebikes putting out more than 250W up hills.

It looks like they aren't measuring Watts. Just the speed that the motor assistance cuts off at.

They use the Wenger E-SpeedControl machine to test:

https://www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/news/notting...

https://www.wenger-geschwindigkeitspruefrolle.ch/e...

[Super Sonic]

Surely they should have just given him an s59 notice, then he would have had no avenue of appeal!

[Gareth79]

Mont Blanc said:

OutInTheShed said:

How exactly do those dynos measure the 250W?

Because there are an awful lot of ebikes putting out more than 250W up hills.

It looks like they aren't measuring Watts. Just the speed that the motor assistance cuts off at.

They use the Wenger E-SpeedControl machine to test:

https://www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/news/notting...

https://www.wenger-geschwindigkeitspruefrolle.ch/e...

That's a different force though, only a few forces test bikes properly.

I think most of them use a very simple method of lifting the back wheel, pulling the throttle, and seeing if it continues to rotate under power above 15.5mph. The actual law is far more restrictive, but the vast majority of illegal bikes will be caught by this test.

However these officers basically made up their own test for this bike, without actually using their brain. The guy was even telling them that the motor wasn't running, but they were too pig-headed to listen.

[Ian Geary]

I saw an unrelated thread on Facebook about plod but it posed this solution:

I. Make the police have to buy their own liability insurance

Ii. The cost of legal action and settlement of their (important bit) judgements be met from the liability insurance

Iii. The renewal premium should reflect the officer's claims history


This would impose a market force pressure on the police's behaviour, in the same way it (sort of) does for car insurance


Personally I don't think the insurance industry works at all well, and is probably worse at regulating it's own behavior than the police. So it's not really a serious proposition.

But we all know what expecting different outcomes without changing anything is caused by. And this idea did strike me at some attempt at least to change how the individual police officers meet the consequence of their decisons.

(I'm talkig about their bad decisions of course- they can keep on making the good ones)

[Solocle]

Super Sonic said:

Surely they should have just given him an s59 notice, then he would have had no avenue of appeal!

Well, since it's not legally a motor vehicle, s59 simply doesn't apply. Nulla poena sine lege

[MrBogSmith]

Ian Geary said:

I saw an unrelated thread on Facebook about plod but it posed this solution:

I. Make the police have to buy their own liability insurance

Ii. The cost of legal action and settlement of their (important bit) judgements be met from the liability insurance

Iii. The renewal premium should reflect the officer's claims history


This would impose a market force pressure on the police's behaviour, in the same way it (sort of) does for car insurance


Personally I don't think the insurance industry works at all well, and is probably worse at regulating it's own behavior than the police. So it's not really a serious proposition.

But we all know what expecting different outcomes without changing anything is caused by. And this idea did strike me at some attempt at least to change how the individual police officers meet the consequence of their decisons.

(I'm talkig about their bad decisions of course- they can keep on making the good ones)

Or you may end up with massively risk averse policing with further layers of bureaucracy.

[handpaper]

MrBogSmith said:

r you may end up with massively risk averse policing with further layers of bureaucracy.

Some might say we have that already, just with a different perceived risk...

[Super Sonic]

Solocle said:

Super Sonic said:

Surely they should have just given him an s59 notice, then he would have had no avenue of appeal!

Well, since it's not legally a motor vehicle, s59 simply doesn't apply. Nulla poena sine lege

As long as it complies with certain restrictions, an EAPC is not legally considered a motor vehicle.
However the police, in this instance, considered it not to be compliant with these restrictions, in which case it would be considered a motor vehicle, which is what they ( incorrectly) treated it as. So much for "Nulla poena sine lege"!

[MrBogSmith]

handpaper said:

MrBogSmith said:

r you may end up with massively risk averse policing with further layers of bureaucracy.

Some might say we have that already, just with a different perceived risk...

Certainly to some extent.

[Countdown]

To ensure efficiency we should privatise the Police Force as well as opening it up to competition. There's an italian bloke who lives near us who provides insurance for various small businesses in the area, I'm sure legitimate businessmen like him would be willing to tender for providing Police services to small towns/ cities and so on.

[55palfers]

Maybe Shomrim w⅚ould have beaten your Italian chap to it