Chris Boardman has called for public “anger and frustration” about road safety to be “pointed in the right direction”, and away from its current “easy” focus on cycling infrastructure and e-bikes, perpetuated he says by “sloppy” journalism and Reform UK’s divisive rhetoric.
Speaking to road.cc, the Active Travel England chief argued that concerns surrounding the perceived dangers of e-bikes – which he believes could be a game changer for encouraging people to take up cycling – should be placed within the wider road safety context, where the vast majority of deaths and injuries on the UK’s roads are caused by motorists.
The former Olympic champion also criticised the previous Conservative government for its swingeing active travel cuts, which he says were a “stain on its copy book”, but argued that the current Labour administration “really wants to make a difference” when it comes to active travel.
He also admitted that people are “nervous” about the recent electoral rise of Reform UK, which has positioned active travel projects as one of its many wedge issues following the party’s big local election gains – a move Boardman believes can be countered by shifting the narrative to focus on the beneficial, universally welcome outcomes of cycling and walking, and away from the often divisive and headline-grabbing means to achieve them.
Boardman’s call for a shift in the UK’s cycling narrative comes in the same week a new study revealed that young adults are more likely than ever before to travel by e-bike over cars or public transport.
The research, conducted by the Electric Bike Alliance for Bike Week, found that just under half of people aged 25 to 34 reckon they are more likely to buy an e-bike now than they were a year ago. Meanwhile, just over a fifth (20.47 per cent) of UK citizens of all ages say they now more likely to buy an e-bike and enter the world of sustainable transport.
“It’s an overused phrase, ‘game changing’, but that’s what this can be,” Boardman tells road.cc, when asked about the growing popularity of electric bikes among Millennials and Gen Zers.
“We’ve seen it in Europe, where a third of all bikes sold are e-bikes. That’s absolutely enormous and it’s taken us ages to cotton on to that.
“But in the last couple of years, particularly our younger generation have gone: ‘Hang on a minute, these are really good laugh. I get a bit of exercise. I don’t have to worry about hills or carrying a bag or headwinds, and my journey time is consistent, and it’s a lot cheaper than a car’.
“And for a plethora of different reasons, they are now choosing e-bikes over cars. And even in the last year, half of them are now saying they’re much more likely to buy an e-bike than they were just a year ago, so it’s coming at us really quickly.”
He continued: “The two barriers to cycling are that’s it got to be easy and it’s got to be safe. And e-bikes make it easy and that’s a key game changer. Like Lime bikes on the streets of London, they’re really expensive, but people don’t care, they’re just using them because it’s a good laugh and they’re familiar with it, and it’s nice and easy.
“So e-bikes are an amazing tool to get people into active travel and then they’ll go further and expand out into leisure and other things, so I’m quite excited by the prospect.”
“Context is really important”
However, the Electric Bike Alliance’s study also revealed that, among that 25-34 age range, only 63 per cent indicated they would be able to determine if an e-bike was road-legal, and nearly one in four current e-bike owners felt unable to distinguish between road-legal e-bike products and non-legal, potentially hazardous aftermarket alternatives.
The growth in popularity of e-bikes – both legal and illegally modified versions – in recent years has certainly contributed to this confusion, Boardman points out, something that has spilled over into the media and the general public, muddying the waters around the legality of electric bikes in general.
“In a sense these are all great problems to have,” Boardman says. “Because suddenly you’re swamped in them because of popularity. So, I’d much rather be coming in that direction. But because it’s happened really quickly, we haven’t kept up.
“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, 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.”
This call for legislation to combat illegal e-bike products entering the UK is one that has been floating around Westminster in recent weeks and months. In May, Labour MP Tom Hayes urged the government to introduce stricter e-bike and e-scooter laws, arguing that the current “situation is unsafe” and that “battery safety, speeding, and enforcement” needs to be addressed “before more people are hurt”.
Last year, the CEO of folding bike manufacturer Brompton also called for a crackdown on “poor quality” e-bike batteries before public perception “snowballs into a world of fear” around e-bikes in general, a stance Boardman echoes.
“Lithium battery fires are horrendous, and they make headlines – but there are 50,000 fires that the fire brigade attend each year at the moment, and lithium batteries of e-bikes are responsible for 0.07 per cent, so it’s a tiny fraction, but it will grow with popularity,” Boardman notes.
“And if you’ve ever seen a lithium fire, it is pretty horrific. You cannot put them out, you just have to wait until it’s spent. So, we need education around that.
“The simplest way around it is to go to a reputable bike shop and you buy a brand that you recognise. But when it comes to the difference between an e-bike and an e-motorbike, over half of people are saying ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’. In its simplest terms, any bike which has an engine that cuts out at 15 miles an hour and you have to pedal is a pedal-assisted bike.
“If you see somebody who’s not pedalling and they’re going over 15 miles an hour, that’s an e-motorbike and if it hasn’t got a registration on it and the driver hasn’t got a licence, then it’s illegal.
“And we’re seeing a lot of that in delivery riders, the gig economy, and they just want the cheapest thing they can get, or they gaffer tape extra batteries to the bike. They just need to work and that’s the problem. I think that they need to address it.”
Nevertheless, the Active Travel Commissioner warns against diverting too much attention to e-bikes when, statistically, other road safety issues are much more pressing – despite repeated calls, including from the current Labour government, to introduce a new ‘dangerous cycling’ law with harsher sentences for cyclists who kill or injure pedestrians.
“We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that 99.5 per cent of the deaths and serious injuries on our roads are caused by people in motor vehicles, so it is not a massive problem and that context is really important,” Boardman says.
“It’s just really sloppy journalism”
That context, however, was notably missing earlier this year, when a BBC Panorama special controversially warned that “chaos could be coming our way” thanks to the growing popularity of e-bikes.
Back in January, the broadcaster found itself on the receiving end of a furious backlash from cycling groups after it aired the Panorama episode, ‘E-Bikes: The Battle For Our Streets’, hosted by Adrian Chiles, which saw the former One Show host ask whether electric bikes are “a new menace in need of tighter regulation”.
The episode’s prolonged focus on illegally modified e-bikes – which exceed the maximum 250 watts and 15.5mph cut-off speed for electrically assisted pedal cycles (EAPCs) permitted under UK law to ride on public roads – and the failure to consistently and fully distinguish between these machines proved controversial, however, provoking some strong criticism from cycling campaigners and bike industry groups and attracting several complaints.
And you can now add England’s Active Travel Commissioner to that list of critics, Boardman viewing the programme as another example of the frustration surrounding safety on the UK’s road being pointed in the wrong direction.
“There is a really good story there, but it’s the wrong one at the moment. Why are those [illegal] products available when they shouldn’t be? It shouldn’t even be a choice,” Boardman notes.
“But the Panorama stuff, which lumped e-motorbikes and e-bikes together, it’s just really sloppy journalism. And it’s a little bit embarrassing that they haven’t seen that there is a distinction.
“A really high-profile programme hasn’t made the distinction that these are two separate things, and that the police already have the powers to charge and dispose of those vehicles. And if that isn’t happening, then the story is why aren’t the police doing that?
“It’s my job to actually get that frustration and anger and make sure it’s pointing in the right direction – and at the moment it isn’t, because it’s easy.”
“I don’t want people to not be angry. I want the anger pointed in the right direction”
That “easy” approach to road safety, in which cycling becomes a punching bag for a certain brand of politician or media figure, is perhaps epitomised most vehemently at the moment by Reform UK, who targeted active travel initiatives as one of their many wedge issues on their way to sweeping success at last month’s local elections.
In April, Reform leader Nigel Farage criticised local councils “on the verge of bankruptcy” for wasting “tens of millions” of pounds on “cycle lanes that no one uses”.
And following the party’s big electoral gains, former chair Zia Yusuf pledged to remove all low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) from the areas it now controls – only for the local authorities in question to confirm that they do not, in fact, currently have any of the traffic-calming schemes in place, a gaffe that prompted opponents to brand Reform “utterly clueless about how to run a council”.
But Boardman is hopeful that, despite Reform’s hostile rhetoric, active travel will remain high on the list of priorities for local authorities and regional mayors.
> Reform UK branded “utterly clueless” after pledging to scrap LTNs – where none exist
“As ever with the media, you see a headline. And even if you’re quite savvy, you’re drawn to believe in it,” he tells road.cc. “I work closely with all the regional mayors, and these regions all have the same problems. Greater Manchester was paying £2.5 million a month treating inactivity alone and had 250 million car journeys every year of less than a kilometre, £800 million a year for dealing with collisions.
“They have all of these problems to deal with and this is the cheapest, easiest way to stop having those bills and those problems. So those regional mayors, and this where devolution really works, have gone for the cheapest, easiest fix, thanks very much. So, they’re still on that trail. They still absolutely want to do it.
“I think the rise of Reform has certainly got people nervous because it’s getting the headlines. Reform are looking to make pretty much anything into a wedge issue, even if it’s to the detriment of our own communities, and I think the way to counter that is to stop talking about cycling and walking, and talk about the outcome of cycling and walking.
“So if you say to local communities, ‘I want your children to have transport independence and the right and the freedom to be able to stay at after school clubs because they can come and go as they please’.
“If you ask parents or voters that question, then they get it and that’s something that matters to me. ‘I want to make sure every pavement in our region is usable by a parent with a double buggy or somebody in a wheelchair, who’s with me?’ Ask that question rather than, do you want to ban payment parking, because you’ll get a wholly different response.
“And this is something we’re really immature at is how we message. It’s not spin. It’s telling a data-driven story in a way that more people understand it and we have to get a lot better at that.
“I don’t want people to not be angry. I want the anger pointed in the right direction. 200 miles from Westminster, 73 per cent of kids have the freedom to get around under their own steam every day and we are being denied that. So, if you frame it like that, I think you’ll find you’ve got awful lot of people on your side and the anger is appropriately directed.”
The Active Travel England chief, despite being a former world time trial champion, three-time Tour de France stage winner, and television pundit, admits he’s not been keeping up to speed with the professional side of the sport lately, his focus now firmly diverted to making the UK a safer, better place to ride any kind of bike.
And on that note, he was speaking to road.cc just minutes after it was confirmed that the Court of Appeal had ruled in favour of a legal challenge brought against the government over its brutal 2023 cuts to the walking and cycling budget.
In a decision considered pivotal to future long-term investment in active travel, the Court of Appeal unanimously agreed with the Transport Action Network (TAN) that the Conservative-led cuts – which slashed funding for active travel by two-thirds – were “outside the framework provided” by the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS) made under the 2015 Infrastructure Act.
This decision, campaigners said, “sets a new and timely precedent” ahead of Wednesday’s spending review.
However, Boardman is cautious about the long-term effects of the ruling, which he believes could possibly stifle big active travel pledges in the future – though he remains confident that the new Labour government has turned the page when it comes to cycling and walking in the UK.
“It isn’t a judgement against the Department for Transport. It was a political decision to cut the budget by two-thirds,” he says.
“If you keep your promises – and that’s the point of having a Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, it’s a promise to the people – it changes nothing. But if you intend to break your promise, it’s quite problematic.
“My only worry about it is if people start thinking that the best way to not break a promise is to not make one – and that’s the possible bounce back from this that I would be a little bit worried about. But we’ve got a great transport secretary at the moment in Heidi Alexander, who’s delivered this stuff and we’ve got ministers who really want to make a difference.
“It’s a stain on the copy book of the last government for cutting budgets by two-thirds, it is not a stain on the Department for Transport or this government – and if they intend to keep their promises, all is well and good.”
67 thoughts on ““E-bikes aren’t a problem when 99.5% of road deaths involve cars”: Chris Boardman calls for “anger to be pointed in right direction” amid Reform’s anti-cycling rhetoric and “embarrassing” BBC Panorama e-bike episode”
Hail St. Chris! Always seems
Hail St. Chris! Always seems good at cutting to the point and good-naturedly avoiding the heffalump traps and “talking points” set up for getting outrage about “but my vital journey” or “but cyclists / cycle lanes”!
Albeit I’m not quite as sanguine about ebikes (taken as a whole e.g. legal / not) as he is. He’s probably right to down-play the issue in this context though. (Counts as harm minimisation relative to cars / not a biggie compared to the current toll of death, injury, property damage, high maintenace costs, unpleasant places, people not even wanting to walk places …).
On ebikes – if we could find
On ebikes – if we could find some way to get Trading Standards in there that would be good. But as I understand it this is difficult as it’s only the *use* of non-EAPCs in some places / circumstances that is currently unlawful. Albeit that is “most places”. (Last I looked Currys weren’t clearly indicating to people their non-EAPC things – like e-scooters – are not street-legal…)
There are some notes of caution sounded about e-things from the country where they already do have the “nice problems to have with cycling” e.g. NL. The figures I’ve seen on e.g. casualties can still be argued. But it would be odd if there weren’t at least some impacts of switching a significant proportion of the population to ebikes (the case there).
Some of those are less “obvious” maybe e.g. to what extent does this make cycle paths less pleasant places especially for those wheeling / unpowered cyclists (and thus maybe some people are more likely to drive / less likely to make a local trip)? What about all the children who inevitably get powered cycles, effects on the 2nd hand market etc?
Also – simply selling a
Also – simply selling a larger fraction of e-bikes isn’t a win for anyone except for ebike sellers! And also upsellers – those trying to increase sales amount by pushing people back towards something more like a motorbike or even car. Eg. “now we allow 15.5mph EAPCs, why not 20mph like the US – it’s not an issue there? Actually, think how many people currently travel further – we should allow 28mph ‘speed-pedelecs too.”
And the other comercial interests who will no doubt want a piece of any new mobility infra. We should watch out for them making a land grab! e.g. “what about small cargo vehicles – not more than half a ton obviously! Well, 750kg is better.. Oh and our fleet of totally safe sustainable robot delivery vehicles can’t run on the roads…
Many if not all of these could be argued as “better than now” – but would they help cycling, walking and wheeling? Especially if we let them before plain boring old “mass cycling” / mainstream active travel (as transport) exists in the UK? It already existed – it had not quite died out – in NL in 1970s when they began their transformation.
If there were to be
If there were to be consequences for the retailer, it would tighten things up considerably.
exploited,employed, contracted to lets say QuikToDoor has a bike go on fire, or seized by plod, then QuikToDoor get fined/held responsible for damage. That would tend to sharpen minds (you can sympathise with the poor sods riding these contraptions – they’re getting paid a pittance so can’t afford a proper e-bike but all the others are riding these yokes so can make more deliveries – bit like the SUV epidemic in a way).JMcL_Ireland wrote:
Nope – I don’t agree with either of those. You’re trying to shift the onus of law enforcement away from the police.
There’s nothing wrong with selling vehicles “only for use on private land” – there’s been decades (century?) of selling off-road motorbikes that aren’t road-legal and that hasn’t been a major problem despite the occasional idiots using them in parks and on public land.
The problem with trying to get retailers and gig economy operators to enforce the law is that it’s against their own interests. It also means that then the police have an extra set of people to try to ensure compliance – it doesn’t make sense to say that they are too busy to police the roads, but then say that they have time to check retailers etc.
The answer is always to get the police to do their job. Personally, I think that car drivers are a far bigger problem than e-bike riders.
If the police say they’re
If the police say they’re under-resourced, why not try and shift some of the effort elsewhere? We can have both – still have the police tasked with dealing with any illegal use they do see.
I agree that it’s hard (now we’ve allowed these out of the box) to expect that retailers (and certainly not the
tax and responsibility evadersfood delivery cos) to police themselves. Though the more reputable stores should be amenable (cough Currys PC world), with the odd visit from trading standards etc. (remember them?)The law side is a bit tricky I grant. I’m sure something could be done there though (there are all kinds of products with *some* restrictions we manage).
We know that “getting the police to do their job” is itself not a solved problem either. Seems that’s sometimes “against their interests” too!
TBH the real issue is I don’t think the governments have been remotely interested. Indeed, since “selling new things” and “not overtly producing nasty black smoke” probably seem a good thing I suspect the opposite.
Though I’d have hoped they’d be a bit more interested since some of the cheapo imports started catching fire. AFAICS it seems they’re happy to push that back onto the people who’re buying things in a “can’t police the internet mate” fashion?
In the next decade the ebike
In the next decade the ebike market is going to explode. The rise will be not only down to Gen Zers but the rising cost of motoring is pricing many people out of the market. The current costs of EVs and the associated costs of charging, insurance and the poor network of chargers will mean more and more people will look at a more cost effective method of transport. Especially if their commute is not particularly long. That means also more infrastructure will be needed to accommodate them. Funny as all these ’empty cycle paths’ may very well be fuller than people care to imagine soon. There will come with this a larger percentage of incidents involving ebikes due to the volume of them on the streets.
As with every mode of transport, the vehicle itself is not as relevant as the person behind the controls. You will get more knobheads on ebikes same as you get a percentage of knobheads in cars, trucks, busses, motorbikes and regular human power propelled bicycles. The more knobheads on ebikes the more persecution ALL cyclist will get from the gutter press and organisations like Reform.
Smoggysteve wrote:
Not if we can find a way to weed out the dodgy batteries…
Poor choice of words lol, but
Poor choice of words lol, but its going to grow and grow. Its a sweet spot for the can’t afford an EV, scared to do a motorbike test, to lazy to actually cycle.
Smoggysteve wrote:
Hmm… not convinced there – not without another change (that you mention later). [Edit: it will certainly grow at the expense of non-ebikes, I can believe that!] People seem to be finding a way to drive, and increases in price don’t currently seem to have prompted much of a modal shift.
People do eventually change and adapt … but currently lots of people don’t see alternatives. They may in fact exist … but they aren’t on the radar and are not yet anywhere near as convenient. And “having a car” is still acknowledged as a very important thing – for social / status reasons as much as utility.
We need both push and pull On the “pull” side people generally say and indeed show by their (non)actions that “cycling in lots of / fast motor traffic” is a block to them cycling. So that needs removed before we will have a great increase in cycling.
I think “more cycling” will lead to “more crashes” initially. (Almost any change would). Even if we put in the best kind of infra (and on “streets”, like this) (and improve our driver and kids’ road education). The point of chosing the best kind is it makes it very clear where “your” space is and where to expect other types of transport. It also aims to minimise the consequences of mistakes. So “learning” takes place much more quickly and with fewer serious outcomes.
Pushback is inevitable. Just look at how many trillions are invested in motor infra and industries. Indeed how many billions flow there each year (and ultimately that makes available millions to keep the interest of politicians and government folk…)
In fact … given that (in England) it’s still barely “pennies in the transport pounds” towards active travel and mobility things but the system is effectively subsidising driving, perhaps “it’s the money, stupid” (though money’s really a proxy for “will to change”)?
” People seem to be finding a
” People seem to be finding a way to drive, and increases in price don’t currently seem to have prompted much of a modal shift.”
There are certain demographics that have taken up EVs, many through businesses offering a car as part of the salary package etc, but there are still altarnatives ie petrol & diesel to keep most people on the road. There will be millions of people on quite modest incomes who are driving around in old cars that have done them quite well, but will eventually come to the end of their life and when it comes to replace it there will only be a choice of EVs or another used ICE car which due to their scarcity of certain models will no dount become expensive too. So there will be a larger percentage of the younger generations entering the workplace in the next decade who will see Ebikes as a more attractive prospect. Wage stagnation, rising costs of fuel, energy prices, insurance costs, rent, peoples already strained disposable income is becoming tighter, the current younger generations are much more envronmently aware and as such more likely to buy into ebikes rather than EVs with their carbon footprint still being quite large.
Truth in all that, but again
Truth in all that, but again – since people won’t currently ride bikes on the roads (and we’ve precious little sufficient quality mobility infra…) where will they ride these e-bikes?
Currently it’s “footways” – which also don’t inspire a lot of cycling (and more wouldn’t be good!)
Sorting the infra first (low traffic streets and separate mobility paths where necessary) is not sufficient, but appears to be necessary. (And of course getting the space for that / the low-traffic streets depends on some space taken from drivers / restrictions on them…)
There is more and more
There is more and more cycling infrastructure than there has ever been . One can only grow in response to the other but it will. There are cases of councils pushing abck but they are the sensationalised minority of cases. Most local councils are doing a lot of investement into cycling infrastructure.
More ain’t necessarily better
More ain’t necessarily better. (And “a lot” is quite vague – at least we probably need to see this in terms of what their road budget is etc. A few years back Cycling UK found a vast difference in spending between councils in England). It’s too easy for things that just aren’t quite good enough (and that has to be relative to driving also…) to “fail” and fall into disrepair / be repurposed for “proper strategic infra” (road and rail) / be swept away in the next budget cut or “plan for drivers”.
I think there is a “step change” we have to overcome, without which we can make any number of “small improvements” around the edges and nothing will really change. (“Marginal gains” is for after you’ve already sorted out the main issues, not before).
That’s not just in terms of overt cycle infra. There are all kinds of “invisible infra” things (e.g. modal filters) and less tangible things like rule changes (many internal to organisations) and indeed reorganisation. Then there’s ensuring public transport also connects with this, training etc. …
I think Chris Boardman (amongst many others) has done great work in turning mobility infra from a “pet project” / “parks and recreation” / “nice to have” level concern into something more important and professional – like our boring, regulation, comparatively very-well-funded motor infra.
Ultimately proof is in the pudding e.g. numbers cycling (percentage of trips). A (deliberately unfair) comparison:
England (2023): Cycling: 2% of trips, 1% of distance. For comparison walking 29% of trips, 4% of distance.
NL (2023) – (still a great country to drive in BTW): Cycling 28% of trips, 10% of distance; walking 22% trips, 4% distance.
There are a multitude of differences here of course e.g. NL has very high quality pretty uniform standard infra everywhere – not just in cities. And it all connects. And on top of that they have been building genuine “fast cycling routes” for efficient longer distance travel between urban centres (not superhypeways!)
The UK has … the Notional Cycle Network / National Sign Network – which is often “recreation-standard” – if not “adventure”. And not infrequently “a road”.
Smoggysteve wrote:
[Citation needed]
A few are doing a lot, but I suspect outside of big cities most are still doing as close to bugger all as they ever did.
Last local elections had big
Last local elections had big votes for Reform who are ant-bike and pro-car. Unfortunately for us, the general public actually goes out to vote against bikes. Last elections were a big kick in the teeth for us after 55 years of slow and erratic improvement
E6toSE3 wrote:
Was that the main reason why people picked Reform though? Or even in the top 5?
I don’t know – but I can imagine things like “I’m pissed of at the Conservatives but I want to give the current Labour government a kick”, “immigration” and “I’m paying loads of tax and the council are still crap” come quite a way ahead of “but bicycles” / “but cycle lanes”?
(It’s quite true that some of the Reform lot are vocal about lots of “progressive” measures e.g. lower emission zones, congestion charging / road pricing, LTNs etc.)
SE London: lots of excellent
SE London: lots of excellent cycle paths and shared cycle and pedestrian routes. A large proportion of ebikes, escooters, and some pedal cycles ignore them and ride on pedestrian pavements even right next to an excellent bike path. I can be pedal cycling on race bike at nearly 20 mph and get overtaken by ebike on pavement next to me as it swerves around pedestrians
What we need are salt
What we need are salt batteries and locations that can do quick swaps.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250530-how-electric-scooters-are-driving-chinas-salt-battery-push
What we need are safe – and
What we need are safe – and attractive and convenient! – routes for bikes (power-assist or not) and even walking…
And convenient options for getting places other than driving, particularly for those who will then walk / wheel.
I reckon money on those things will turn out to be better “value for money” than more e-infrastructure – although of course we’ll surely get far more funding for the latter…
chrisonabike wrote:
Yes, but there’s a cheapness and simplicity to providing battery swap shops and they’d likely be self-funding. What’s required is some kind of consensus amongst EV (not cars) manufacturers so that there’s a limited number of different battery types. Then the shop can setup a secure, fire-proof charging area where they charge batteries using either cheap overnight electricity or solar. The total battery swap time for customers should be just a couple of minutes or so, to go from a near flat battery to a full one.
There would also be an advantage for the shops to use intelligent chargers that would monitor the health of the batteries and retire them when they start to overheat/swell etc.
Unification on charger
Unification on charger connection would be great.
I have 3 e-bikes, all with different connector and charging requirements.
There’s also few things worse than using more power than you thought you would, and finding that the ebike hire place at the coffee stop uses a different brand and so a different connection.
Oldfatgit wrote:
I prefer the idea of swappable batteries as otherwise you’d be hanging around for a couple of hours waiting for it to charge. It also serves to move the fire risk away from people’s houses and to a more centralised location that can be more easily set up to reduce fire risks and have better monitoring for smoke, heat etc.
I’m not convinced that the
I’m not convinced that the way you frame the argument for cycling and walking makes all the difference.
Locally, whenever there is a cycle infrastructure project a certain percentage will be against it just because it’s cycling.
If you have a strategy to improve cycling and walking infrastructure, you have to ignore those people, listen to any genuine concerns, then get on with it.
And Harrogate is one of the
And Harrogate is one of the best examples of that . The project for active travel is one of the most preposterous ever conceived and only creates more anti-cycling sentiment. Sometimes I wonder how anyone gets around Harrogate without the use of a helicopter cos the roads and planning is that bad.
A moment to reflect on how
A moment to reflect on how calm and measured Chris Boardman is when making his points given that his mother was killed by a driver who was on his mobile phone.
anotherflat wrote:
Well said, his dignity at the time of the tragedy and ever since has been awe-inspiring.
Nit finished reading but,
Not finished reading but, much as I’ve respected Boardman since the battles with Obree, I have to say that, in SE London, now aged 70, sprightly, but with slightly crippled wife, many friends and acquaintances older and less mobile than us, and a 13-months old granddaughter to push around, by far the greatest threat to us is ebikes. Cars stay at 20 moh and in their lanes. Most ebike riders (Ido count them), from all demographics, have absolutely awareness of Highway Code, Tufty Club, Green Cross Code, or Cycling Proficiency. Random rapid jumping on and off pavements, completely ignoring traffic lights, silent, stealth colours and clothes with minimal or no lights.
On my own, on foot or pedal cycle, I’d be amused and annoyed by it. But with wife, granddaughter, or friends, it’s terrifying. I wear reflective ankle bands, wrist bands, waistcoat, and light strapped to my head as if I was a cyclist on the road to ensure ebikes and escooters have no excuse for close passing, brushing past me. I also carry a walking pole to increase my width or to point at bikes coming at us
If you’re part of Southeast
If your part of Southeast London is the same as mine, you will not actually be talking about ebikes but primarily illegal electric motorcycles mainly ridden by delivery riders. They are, I agree, an enormous nuisance, but as established in many discussions and articles on this site and elsewhere they are not ebikes.
Also a nuisance which – as
Also a nuisance which – as far as I’m aware – is generating very few actual casualties for the amount of chat and complaints (well – amount of chat on cycling websites).
I definitely think we should address this (especially as the whole “food delivery on a bike” companies are quite a long way from “public good” in every direction I can see). Just want to put this in perspective though – real, but “nuisance”.
Does anyone have solid numbers on collisions / injuries (apparently everyone has anecdata)? In a quick Google I could only see one reported collision with injury in Edinburgh (I’d certainly expect more). Those numbers would need compared to unpowered cycling (taking account of “deliveries” probably having a different use-pattern maybe), ICE motorcycles, cars, vans etc. The latter which PACTs analysis has as the most deadly type of vehicle out there by distance travelled…
It may be distracting
It may be distracting slightly from the topic first posed, but the COTS illegal e-motos (outside of the dodgy conversions utilised by food delivery “independent contractors”) do cause more than a nuisance to society.
The Sur-ron brand of e-motos are the defacto vehicles of choice for street crime from muggings, burglary, drug trafficking and gang related violence.
Admittedly this type of crime doesn’t fall under the purview of the Road Traffic Act, which is the focus of Mr Boardman’s comments, but enforcement of these issues isn’t nor should ever be mutually exclusive, which current policing priorities seems to infer.
ROOTminus1 wrote:
There’s a strong argument that the police can catch a lot of other criminality just by focussing on traffic policing. The Yorkshire Ripper is a classic example – he was driving with false number plates.
ROOTminus1 wrote:
My emphasis. I completely agree that stopping the deregulated machines will likely net you a load of criminals (for other reasons) … but I think what you’re seeing there is mostly just “modal shift” more than “new type of vehicle causes crime”! Likely a similar amount of crime is happening – people were snatching phones from ICE motor scooters for some time if you recall.
Perhaps it’s opening up the potential for people to get into the business with less investment – but then I think plenty of the motor scooters would have been stolen first!
ROOTminus1 wrote:
Such crimes are subject to the Road Traffic Act where eg the vehicle is a Sur-Ron.
These are motor cycles and therefore require Type Approval, Registration, Safety Gear and Insurance.
Not having insurance, which would also be triggered by eg no numberplate, is an offence that allow the police to seize the vehicle on the spot.
They have all the powers, but they hardly ever enforce.
It’s a matter of political will and policing priorities. The contact to pressure is the Police and Crime Commssioner.
Being necessarily political, we owe this crime to a decade of Conservative Party butt-sitting, when they refused to take any of the necessary measures even explained in words of one syllable many years ago.
Ah, but that allowed things
(Off topic now) Ah, but that allowed taxes to be a little lower and “government to be smaller and more focused” *. And people largely approved, because most people weren’t badly affected by the consequences of “doing it on the cheap” *immediately*. (Some were, but they were usually poorer folks and probably fewer of them vote and they get less air time / sympathy).
* As the US would immediately point out this is almost certainly a relatively small difference compared to the way they do it – and when Liz Truss came along with that idea it proved too much for the markets at least, so I suspect even the likes of Reform couldn’t do a “full Trump”. Though I wouldn’t want to watch them try to see what happens…
Regretably, cars are part of
Regretably, cars are part of the fabric of society, ebikes are not. Therefore the dangers and antisocial nature of cars are priced-in, whereas those of ebikes are not. It has been deemed that whatever raw number “99.5% of road deaths involving cars” equates to is acceptable in order to get workers to their offices and consumers to shops as conveniently as possible, whereas the 0.5% that involve any other form of transport are newsworthy, and lead to calls for new legislation.
This is broadly correct. I’m
This is broadly correct. I’m sure Chris is a very splendid chap but he doesn’t really understand statistics. When 95% of road users are in motorised vehicles, then a much higher percentage of injuries will be caused by those motorised vehicles. I don’t know the numbers but I suspect the proportion of pedestrian injuries caused by electric bikes and scooters, especially unlawful & unregulated ones, will be higher than those from motor vehicles. Apart from anything else, you don’t tend to get cars and motorbikes charging up and down pavements
I think you are misusing
I think you are misusing statistics here. The fact remains that in the UK there are about 400 pedestrian deaths per year caused by motor vehicles and one or two deaths per year caused by bicycles. That includes e-bikes as there are no separate stats kept for e-bikes. It’s the number of deaths that matters to people not the percentage.
Longfellow wrote:
I think he understands statistics perfectly well: with cycling having around a 2% modal share, pedestrian deaths involving cyclists are proportionately low at approximately 2/400 (0.5%); serious injuries are almost exactly proportionate at approximately 130/6000 (2.2%). So Chris is spot on and that’s even before you take into account the fact that cyclists have far more interaction with pedestrians, riding on shared pavements, cycle paths alongside pavements and closer to the kerb as well as being harder to hear and see than motor vehicles; logically cyclists should by the nature of their transport mode be responsible for a disproportionate number of KSIs, but they’re not. You also need to take into account that bicycles are overwhelmingly used in urban and suburban areas where they are more likely to come into contact with pedestrians, e.g. in London cycling has a 4% modal share (but at rush hour when most incidents occur, 25%+) but cyclist/pedestrian incidents only account for 0.7% of pedestrian fatalities (average 0.5/65 p.a.) and 7.5% of serious injuries (average 90/1200). So far from not really understanding statistics, if anything Chris is understating the overwhelming proportion of pedestrian deaths and injuries caused by motor vehicles.
There’s some sense to their
There’s some sense to their suggestion I think – ultimately the public are concerned about actual numbers (want to avoid being killed by anything).
Of course then it’s arguing the statistics. Obviously “rate” is important, so eg. PACTs analysis for the year they looked at converted into eg. deaths billion passenger km – and bikes were then slightly more of a threat to pedestrians than cars! But… looking at the actual numbers they are tiny compared to the motor vehicle tally (5 deaths that year) and the variation year to year is significant – I think choosing a different year might have had cyclists zero risk since no deaths. Not so motor vehicles.
For exposure to risk as you say environment should be factored in. Eg. motorists are almost zero risk to pedestrians on motorways, where a chunk of the mileage is done – because almost no one walks there, though it’s much more dangerous for anyone that does).
If people were really concerned and cared about the stats for “what happens if we have mass cycling” * they could look at NL or parts of Scandinavia (perhaps a more similar environment).
* I don’t think most people engage at this level or not before they’ve already got some positive or negative feelings about cycling.
Longfellow wrote:
This is factually incorrect motornomativity. THe biggest single category of road user, of which EVERY SINGLE MOBILE PERSON IN THIS COUNTRY belongs to, is “pedestrian”. If you think about things that way, the minority of road users are drivers, yet they cause the vast vast majorty of deaths.
@Brent Charleson
@Brent Charleson
Chris Boardman has called for public “anger and frustration” about road safety to be “pointed in the right direction”
Do you want to explain to him?
Bit depressing that an
Bit depressing that an article devoted to removing fear of e-bikes states “Lithium battery fires are horrendous”. Fire brigade records are call outs for batteries that might bulge or give off a little smoke. Some might be horrendous, a few might be as grim as far more common chip fat fires, but some are about as ‘horrendous’ as shaking a can of coke before opening. Batteries are getting far safer, year on year & serious fire risks will soon be invisably small.
This reminds me of a
This reminds me of a peculiarity I observe often:
I, sometimes, ride on the sidewalks. One-way streets or otherwise no alternatives for me to get where I’m going. I know, I do risk a fine.
But I do it with the utter most care for pedestrians, never honking or even commenting anything, pedaling at walking speeds. I stop to make way, I lean out, whatever it takes.
With that out of the way, many pedestrians react to me like I’m about to obliterate them. I can see fear and horror on their faces. And at that point I’m generally stationary…
Ok… people fear for their lives, their integrity.
But in almost 100% of the cases when pedestrians walk on the roads, in the middle of the road, they barely react at drivers honking at them!
And, at least from my two-wheeled perspective, pedestrians walking on one side of the road will almost always travers diagonally, passing in front of an incoming cyclist, the moment they become aware of the said cyclist.
Now play that.
Well in other countries that
Well in other countries that cycling is legally allowed on sidewalks, people act perfectly normal, even to the kamikaze riders.
I think pedestrians fear and horror towards a slow and caring cyclist is more of a need to express some kind of life disappointment.
Isn’t it partly a reaction to
Isn’t it partly a reaction to motor vehicles? We gave up almost all space and a lot of convenience – in return we expect the tiny bits of footway to be “safe” and “ours”. (Even as we normally don’t react to drivers driving and parking on them…)
So another “cyclists are an obvious other and they’re in way / our space”!
Some people clearly are very scared of cyclists (in a way they just aren’t about cars). There is probably a small research project just on that topic, but again there’s “cyclists as other”, “cyclists suddenly appear!” (cyclists are quiet, but people don’t expect them and are listening and looking for *motor vehicles*), “cyclists are too fast” etc.
This is an overall problem of
This is an overall problem of richer western societies, people cannot see the big numbers, and search ways to get annoyed by anything miniscule that doesn’t fit their tastes.
As a life-long cyclist
As a life-long cyclist (commuting, getting about, road, touring, MTB), starting as a kid just needing something to get me from A-B, I recently had to take a 6 mth break from driving for a medical reason. Not a major drama, as I’m not heavily reliant on a car, and my wife can drive for longer journeys. I got an ebike (bit of n+1 kicked in); only experience was the hire ebikes, but what a game changer. For all journeys where a bike is a ‘means to an end’, the ebike takes the strain (incl journeys where I may have walked). Shopping (x2 27L panniers), (some) commuting, getting places etc; ebike burns up hills and no ending up a sweaty mess. Commuting (26 km) has been a bit harder in the last few years due to a heavier load (laptop); e bike does it in the same time as a road bike and you can march straight into work in normal (cycle friendly) clothes. Whilst a car in a queue on a hill would probably not want to be me grinding past them on a regular bike, I genuinely laugh at motorists as I burn past them now; the motor also gives you way more confidence in traffic. Put a Garmin watch on for a commute and heart rate was 95-105, so not a free ride. More energy for road rides at the weekend. Seem to be more about, so catching on; an e bike debunks the majority of the standard reasons motorists use to justify not using a bike in a town.
I don’t ride an e-bike but I
I don’t ride an e-bike but I won’t hesitate to get one when the time comes.
When I was still working, a couple of years ago, I had work colleagues, people who would never dream of riding a bike, coming up to me and taking about how they loved their e-bikes.
There is a really change happening and it will benefit all cyclists.
Article in the Guardian this
Article in the Guardian this morning about illegal electric motorcycles:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jun/16/take-urgent-action-to-slow-sales-of-and-dangerous-ebikes-says-group-of-mps-and-peers
Interesting that even though the writer is Peter Walker, who is now chief political editor but used to be cycling correspondent and is sound as a pound on cycling matters, and even though in the article he writes that the machines in question: “are officially, under the law, illegal electric motorbikes”, in the headline and numerous other places in the article they are referred to as “illegal ebikes”.
in the headline and numerous
in the headline and numerous other places in the article they are referred to as “illegal ebikes”
Fair’s fair! The title of the report in question is: Unregulated and Unsafe: The Threat of Illegal E-Bikes. It’s a well-meaning piece, but the recommendations are doomed to failure from the outset by the ominous ‘triumph of hope over experience’: Give Police Clear Powers to Act. Don’t they have clear powers to act over, for instance, red traffic light offences? Do they act? Do They Hell!
https://upride.cc/incident/kn13aus_knausmotorhome_doubleredlightpass/
Well yes, but just because
Well yes, but just because the parliamentary report can’t get it right either, no reason for the Guardian to get it wrong. Also very bizarre terminology in that report, “illegally modified e-bikes, referred to as “fake e-bikes”” – I’ve never heard or read of anybody referring to them as “fake e-bikes”, not once!
Does Upride offer some sort
Does Upride offer some sort of loyalty scheme? 😉
I think they should be
I think they should be offering counselling before their hosting bills bankrupt them with videos from the Lancashire area.
Well, there are a lot of
Well, there are a lot of offences against not very many cyclists in Lancashire, because of the policy of Our Brave Lads in which all reports of such offences go straight into the bin- they were far in advance of the latest spectacle of forces vying with each other for the most vehement way of denying that close passing exists at all and affirming that it’s all just dreamt up by whingeing cyclists who should all man up, get a job and buy a car like respectable people (such as the driver of this one)
More war on ebikes:
More war on ebikes:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70nl7np0v9o
Er, yes, there are. Some people ignore the rules =/= rules do not exist. If it had been a car that had gone through a red light and knocked her down, no-one would be claiming ‘there are no rules and regulations for cars’.
Sympathy for an elderly
Sympathy for an elderly person who got hit while crossing the road. And the rider didn’t stop and assist (police don’t know and predictably Lime have been of no help; same as car hire companies really).
However people getting hit at the lights by vehicles they didn’t see (usually motor vehicles) is not unheard of. “Safe to cross the road” – this *should* be the case but we all should know that this is never an absolute… We don’t want this happening to anyone but older folks are less able to spot hazards and dodge them.
Fair bit of unchallenged bingo in this story:
And “outdated legislation”, medics citing a rash of unusual injuries etc. – although at least this one does note that more cycling is “good for London”!
RE: death by dangerous
RE: death by dangerous cycling amendment – Apparently:
Is this right? Who is proposing a massive increase in severity of sentence over that currently in place for causing death by dangerous driving? Or is this BBC nonsense?
chrisonabike wrote:
Yes it is, maximum sentences proposed are life for causing death by dangerous cycling and five years for causing serious injury by dangerous cycling, five years for causing death by careless cycling and two years for causing serious injury through careless cycling. Confirmed in government policy paper last Friday:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/crime-and-policing-bill-2025-factsheets/crime-and-policing-bill-dangerous-cycling-offences-factsheet
Thanks, I thought it might be
Thanks, I thought it might be journalistic wishful thinking!
With regard to the punisment:
With regard to the punisment: the thing that worries me is that “Despite repeated attempts to contact Lime . . . Metropolitan Police has also been unable to establish who was riding . . ” and Lime fobbing everybody off with the usual GDPR bollocks “In this case . . . not reported via our dedicated law enforcement reporting portal . . . to share customer data with the police . . . compliant with UK law.”
One can’t help but feeling that much of this could be sorted if the police just went out & banged some heads together.
ChrisA wrote:
One can’t help but feeling that much of this could be sorted if the police just went out & banged some heads together.— ChrisA
It’s bad, but TBF it’s basically the same as for cars – consider the car hire / corporate car pool / company work vehicles nonsense of “we have no idea who was driving then” or if pushed “dog ate our records, soz”.
In Scotland of course if you’re lucky the police might just ask the registered keeper but if they say they can’t recall that will be the end of the matter…
Back to basics. When I was
Back to basics. When I was at school, if you didn’t name a name when asked, you were likely to suffer the punishment. Carrot, but mostly stick.
Ah but criminal “joint
Ah but criminal “joint enterprise” and how things are organised for corporations are completely different – by design! (Many have pointed this out…)
It has frequently been held that e.g. having a business which profits from the provision of tools which can be misused and kill or main people (and – over time – predictably are) is perfectly reasonable – as long as it’s infrequent enough / the “good” use is seen as sufficiently compelling.
Lime seem to get away with
Lime seem to get away with murder by citing the fact that although they can track bikes pretty accurately they have no specific means of telling whether the phone used to unlock the bike is present so they can’t pass information on to injured parties because they can’t prove that the hirer was involved. Obviously a very weak excuse as the technology exists to do this very easily. All hire bike companies should be forced to change their T&Cs so that they are liable for all injuries and damages done by anyone riding one of their bikes which they would then have to claim back from the rider. If they had to pay out hundreds of thousands of pounds for injuries caused I’m pretty certain they would be able to find out who was riding the bike that caused the injuries pretty sharpish.
True enough. I’d always
True enough. I’d always assumed, that as a “registered keeper” (or such) I had to name names, when asked. I didn’t realise two fingers was a valid response. Perhaps I’m just too naive for these enlightened times 🙁
“Despite repeated attempts to
“Despite repeated attempts to contact Lime . . . Metropolitan Police has also been unable to establish who was riding . . ” and Lime fobbing everybody off with the usual GDPR bollocks “
Could this all be due to ‘the usual GDPR bollocks’ being an absolute favourite dodge loved above almost all else by the police – along with, of course, the ‘2 week limit’ which they use all day every day to get out of work related to traffic offences