“E” bike deaths

[Kim]

E-bike ignites every two days, says fire brigade

Dan Parsons, director of Fully Charged e-bikes, a bike company, told the committee that a greater distinction is needed between "good and bad e-bikes".
He said that "good e-bikes" from reputable companies have had "no issues".
However retrofit kits, often used by food-delivery workers, pose a danger, he said.

According to this bunch there are around 300 car fires every day in the UK

https://www.service4service.co.uk/news/general/car-fires/

Thing is.... it's relatively easy, using established methods, to extinguish those (unless it's a Tesla or similar).
LiPo battery fires are a different ball game.

More importantly, cars - whatever the fuel - tend to do their catching fire outdoors, rather than in communal hallways or similar.

[Jurek]

E-bike ignites every two days, says fire brigade

Dan Parsons, director of Fully Charged e-bikes, a bike company, told the committee that a greater distinction is needed between "good and bad e-bikes".
He said that "good e-bikes" from reputable companies have had "no issues".
However retrofit kits, often used by food-delivery workers, pose a danger, he said.

According to this bunch there are around 300 car fires every day in the UK

https://www.service4service.co.uk/news/general/car-fires/

Thing is.... it's relatively easy, using established methods, to extinguish those (unless it's a Tesla or similar).
LiPo battery fires are a different ball game.

More importantly, cars - whatever the fuel - tend to do their catching fire outdoors, rather than in communal hallways or similar.

GPWM

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

E-bike ignites every two days, says fire brigade

Dan Parsons, director of Fully Charged e-bikes, a bike company, told the committee that a greater distinction is needed between "good and bad e-bikes".
He said that "good e-bikes" from reputable companies have had "no issues".
However retrofit kits, often used by food-delivery workers, pose a danger, he said.

According to this bunch there are around 300 car fires every day in the UK

https://www.service4service.co.uk/news/general/car-fires/

Thing is.... it's relatively easy, using established methods, to extinguish those (unless it's a Tesla or similar).
LiPo battery fires are a different ball game.

More importantly, cars - whatever the fuel - tend to do their catching fire outdoors, rather than in communal hallways or similar.

Although, having seen the footage of the brand new iPace (on a car transporter) that spontaneously combusted on the M1 last year and added 5 hours to my wife's journey back from York, if I had something similar parked next to my house charging up overnight, I would have to seek a new home as well as a new car.  My petrol car is unlikely to self-combust in the same way.  My environmental policy is therefore to minimise car use rather than replace my car.

[mrcharly-YHT]

E-bike ignites every two days, says fire brigade

Dan Parsons, director of Fully Charged e-bikes, a bike company, told the committee that a greater distinction is needed between "good and bad e-bikes".
He said that "good e-bikes" from reputable companies have had "no issues".
However retrofit kits, often used by food-delivery workers, pose a danger, he said.

According to this bunch there are around 300 car fires every day in the UK

https://www.service4service.co.uk/news/general/car-fires/

Thing is.... it's relatively easy, using established methods, to extinguish those (unless it's a Tesla or similar).
LiPo battery fires are a different ball game.

More importantly, cars - whatever the fuel - tend to do their catching fire outdoors, rather than in communal hallways or similar.

Although, having seen the footage of the brand new iPace (on a car transporter) that spontaneously combusted on the M1 last year and added 5 hours to my wife's journey back from York, if I had something similar parked next to my house charging up overnight, I would have to seek a new home as well as a new car.  My petrol car is unlikely to self-combust in the same way.  My environmental policy is therefore to minimise car use rather than replace my car.

You'd think, wouldn't you?

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/04/1192090853/hyundai-kia-recall-fire-risk

Both automakers have asked owners to park their vehicles outside and "away from structures" until repairs can be made.

[Polar Bear]

I cannot recall the source but it is easily googled but in fact EV"s spontaneously combust significantly less per capita than fossil fuel vehicles do.   

Yes, when EV's go up the fire is different but reality shows that they are inherently safer according to the people who know, the insurance industry, than their fossil cousins.

There is nothing like a bit of fossil-fuel industry fuelled hysteria to keep people fuelling their billionaire lifestyles.

[PaulF]

I cannot recall the source but it is easily googled but in fact EV"s spontaneously combust significantly less per capita than fossil fuel vehicles do.   

Yes, when EV's go up the fire is different but reality shows that they are inherently safer according to the people who know, the insurance industry, than their fossil cousins.

There is nothing like a bit of fossil-fuel industry fuelled hysteria to keep people fuelling their billionaire lifestyles.

Do you mean per capita? If so, with respect, it's a meaningless measure - just looking out of my window electric vehicles make up about 10% of the cars I can see*. So if electric cars spontaneously combusted with the same frequency as fossil fuelled per 100 cars then the per capita rate would be lower.

*Out of my home office window. An admittedly unscientific sample but I think we can agree that there are more fossil fuelled vehicles in the country than electric.

[rogerzilla]

One of the local paperboys has now got one of the illegal bikes.  Massive hub motor (no need for mid-drive when you're never going to pedal) and goes faster than the cars.

Given that virtually none will ever be ridden on "private land", why isn't their sale banned?  They're just motorbikes that meet none of the motorbike standards

[rogerzilla]

Either way, let’s not lose sight of the fact that these incidents are still rare enough to be newsworthy whether the vehicles involved were road legal or not.

Meanwhile high numbers of people are killed on the streets every day by people driving perfectly legal vehicles and no one bats an eyelid, never mind calling for these dangerous menaces to be banned. Suggest we should do something about it and you’ll be accused of waging war on the motorist.

That's whataboutery.

Drivers are required to take a test, be insured against third party damage, and can have their licence taken away.  None of these things apply to illegal e-bikes.

[Polar Bear]

I cannot recall the source but it is easily googled but in fact EV"s spontaneously combust significantly less per capita than fossil fuel vehicles do.   

Yes, when EV's go up the fire is different but reality shows that they are inherently safer according to the people who know, the insurance industry, than their fossil cousins.

There is nothing like a bit of fossil-fuel industry fuelled hysteria to keep people fuelling their billionaire lifestyles.

Do you mean per capita? If so, with respect, it's a meaningless measure - just looking out of my window electric vehicles make up about 10% of the cars I can see*. So if electric cars spontaneously combusted with the same frequency as fossil fuelled per 100 cars then the per capita rate would be lower.

*Out of my home office window. An admittedly unscientific sample but I think we can agree that there are more fossil fuelled vehicles in the country than electric.

In my head I have a block.  I cannot find the word I am looking for.  I suspect incidence or something like this is the term.   I am pretty sure what happened is that I read the term "per capita" either within the actual document or in reporting of said document and it has not only stick but caused a brain fug.

In any event, EV's are far less likely to self -combust than fossils, apparently.  There could be many reason for this including older fossil vehicles suffering deterioration of components over their lifetime for instance but the reality remains that the insurance industry see fossils as a far greater risk than EV's.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Either way, let’s not lose sight of the fact that these incidents are still rare enough to be newsworthy whether the vehicles involved were road legal or not.

Meanwhile high numbers of people are killed on the streets every day by people driving perfectly legal vehicles and no one bats an eyelid, never mind calling for these dangerous menaces to be banned. Suggest we should do something about it and you’ll be accused of waging war on the motorist.

That's whataboutery.

Drivers are required to take a test, be insured against third party damage, and can have their licence taken away.  None of these things apply to illegal e-bikes.

That's not quite correct either though. The vast majority of drivers do those things, but some don't. The vast majority of riders of e-motorbikes don't do those things, but a few do. It's not the law itself that is at fault but its application, both at street level (no road police enforcement) and at retail level.

[liam_whippet]

I cannot recall the source but it is easily googled but in fact EV"s spontaneously combust significantly less per capita than fossil fuel vehicles do.   

Yes, when EV's go up the fire is different but reality shows that they are inherently safer according to the people who know, the insurance industry, than their fossil cousins.

There is nothing like a bit of fossil-fuel industry fuelled hysteria to keep people fuelling their billionaire lifestyles.

Do you mean per capita? If so, with respect, it's a meaningless measure - just looking out of my window electric vehicles make up about 10% of the cars I can see*. So if electric cars spontaneously combusted with the same frequency as fossil fuelled per 100 cars then the per capita rate would be lower.

*Out of my home office window. An admittedly unscientific sample but I think we can agree that there are more fossil fuelled vehicles in the country than electric.

In my head I have a block.  I cannot find the word I am looking for.  I suspect incidence or something like this is the term.   I am pretty sure what happened is that I read the term "per capita" either within the actual document or in reporting of said document and it has not only stick but caused a brain fug.

In any event, EV's are far less likely to self -combust than fossils, apparently.  There could be many reason for this including older fossil vehicles suffering deterioration of components over their lifetime for instance but the reality remains that the insurance industry see fossils as a far greater risk than EV's.

Less fires 'proportionally' in EVs than in petrol/diesel, maybe?  'Pro rata' rather than 'per capita'??

Anecdotally, I was once in a 53-seat coach that caught fire. I was driving a couple of dozen pupils on a DoE trip to Dartmoor, nearly 40 years ago...  which I reckon is 0.04 of a fire 'per capita'?? <smiley>

[citoyen]

Either way, let’s not lose sight of the fact that these incidents are still rare enough to be newsworthy whether the vehicles involved were road legal or not.

Meanwhile high numbers of people are killed on the streets every day by people driving perfectly legal vehicles and no one bats an eyelid, never mind calling for these dangerous menaces to be banned. Suggest we should do something about it and you’ll be accused of waging war on the motorist.

That's whataboutery.

No, it isn't.

The point is that focusing on the "problem" of illegal e-bikes when talking about road safety is much like focusing on helmets when talking about cyclist safety - it's nothing more than a distraction from the real causes of death and injury on our roads.

Sure, we can have a discussion about illegal e-bikes and what can be done about them, but the "problem" needs to be put in perspective.

Drivers are required to take a test, be insured against third party damage, and can have their licence taken away.  None of these things apply to illegal e-bikes.

Plenty of unlicensed and uninsured motorists out there on our roads, and they kill and injure vastly more people than illegal e-cyclists.

[GdS]

One of the local paperboys has now got one of the illegal bikes.  Massive hub motor (no need for mid-drive when you're never going to pedal) and goes faster than the cars.

Given that virtually none will ever be ridden on "private land", why isn't their sale banned?  They're just motorbikes that meet none of the motorbike standards

Having seen plenty of these recently thanks to the Deliveroo / Uber plague I think they are mostly retro-fit electrickery added to non electric MTBs. Difficult to ban the sale of the components.

[citoyen]

Trying to ban the sale of the bikes/conversion kits would be coming at the problem from the wrong direction anyway. The onus should be on delivery firms to ensure their couriers are using legal vehicles.

Really, this issue is yet another knock-on effect of deregulating delivery services.

Give the riders better pay and working conditions and they'll be less inclined to break the law.

[SteveC]

There was a social media post from the police this week where a moped delivery rider had been stopped on the motorway. No insurance and only a provisional licence.
The delivery people are acting as agents of the company--the company can insist on things being done correctly.

[citoyen]

They don’t care though. They treat the riders like shit.

The targets are so unreasonable that the riders have to break the law in various ways to be able to meet them.

Even if we do end up seeing a significant number of deaths and injuries involving delivery riders on illegal E-bikes, it still won’t be the bikes themselves that are the problem.

[Cudzoziemiec]

One of the local paperboys has now got one of the illegal bikes.  Massive hub motor (no need for mid-drive when you're never going to pedal) and goes faster than the cars.

Given that virtually none will ever be ridden on "private land", why isn't their sale banned?  They're just motorbikes that meet none of the motorbike standards

Having seen plenty of these recently thanks to the Deliveroo / Uber plague I think they are mostly retro-fit electrickery added to non electric MTBs. Difficult to ban the sale of the components.

At least 90% of the roos here are on home-brewed conversions.

Trying to ban the sale of the bikes/conversion kits would be coming at the problem from the wrong direction anyway. The onus should be on delivery firms to ensure their couriers are using legal vehicles.

Really, this issue is yet another knock-on effect of deregulating delivery services.

Give the riders better pay and working conditions and they'll be less inclined to break the law.

Agreed. But it's been that way since at least the early 90s (when I spent a couple of years motorcycle couriering) and probably the mid 80s. A good place to start would be definitions of self-employment.

[MikeFromLFE]

I've just got back home from a trip to Belgium (& France) - I've seen a number of 'branded delivery' eBikes* all in orange, so presumably the same company - so it can be done if there's a will to do so.

*They may have been speed-pedelecs as the riders didn't seem to be doing a lot of leg work. Legal in Forin parts.

Sent from my moto g22 using Tapatalk

[citoyen]

A good place to start would be definitions of self-employment.

Yep, 100% this.

Delivery companies are getting away with far too much simply by not giving their riders proper employee status - as well as preventing them from unionising, which ought to be illegal.

I’m sure it’s not a new problem but the massive boom in delivery riders since the pandemic partly driven by the availability of affordable (but illegal) e-bikes has made it a much more conspicuous problem.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Sort of related – this morning I was on a bus (cos I was on my way to a tree planting site that doesn't really have anywhere to leave a bike; and it was raining heavily) that was for several minutes in a queue of mainly buses (a few cars, but it was just outside the bus station) held up by an inconsiderately parked Asda van. I'm pretty sure supermarket van drivers are employees*, but who should be considered responsible in such a case, the individual driver who parked there or the supermarket system that leads to it?

*So will at least get minimum wage, paye and ni, maybe even a pension scheme – even if it doesn't improve their driving.

[PaulF]

Illegal e-motorbike riders 'goading' police, force says

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-67380021

[T42]

Illegal e-motorbike riders 'goading' police, force says

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-67380021

The main characteristic seems to be that the things are quiet and don't leave a trail of fug, otherwise any light motorbike would serve just as well.

[quixoticgeek]

These bikes would be a lot safer if there weren't all the cars about...

J

[Paul H]

A good place to start would be definitions of self-employment.

Yep, 100% this.

Delivery companies are getting away with far too much simply by not giving their riders proper employee status - as well as preventing them from unionising, which ought to be illegal.

I’m sure it’s not a new problem but the massive boom in delivery riders since the pandemic partly driven by the availability of affordable (but illegal) e-bikes has made it a much more conspicuous problem.

To correct a couple of inaccuracies.
Employed status would be a double edged sword, I don't think any of the riders I know want it, it's a crap way to make a living and the one redeeming feature is the flexibility. When Just Eat tried it, it failed, they couldn't keep the staff.  What's being campaigned for is Limb (b) worker status, which gives some of the benefits of employment whilst remaining self-employed.  It isn't going to happen, from a suppliers POV they may as well employ them.  The EU is planning some legislation, we'll see what happens there.
There's nothing to stop riders being unionised, there's a choice of two, IWGB and GMB

There's also this idea that a faster bike will make you more money, it isn't really true, on average a delivery takes 25 min from acceptance to completion, the only bit you could speed up is the 1.5 miles (on average) to the drop.  There are ways to make more money, sometimes illegal and usually against the ToC's, multiple cycle accounts and using a car is pretty common, that's a lot of driving without the appropriate insurance.  I've been delivering for five years, three by bike and two by E-Bike (A legal one) it's less fun now than when I started, time to move on.

[citoyen]

Thanks for the clarification re employed status - I was making some assumptions based on experience of being self employed/zero hours in a very different line of work. There are some shared features but also plenty of differences.