A Victorian coroner has drawn attention to the major regulatory failure which is threatening the future of e-bike transport in Australia.
Many of the so-called e-bikes in our bike lanes and along our shared paths are not e-bikes at all – by law they are electric motorcycles.
The bikes have been modified to be more powerful and travel faster than the law permits, they are often controlled by hand-operated throttles and the riders don’t have to pedal at all in many cases.
These machines, not meeting the legal standard for e-bikes, need to be registered and the riders need to have a motorcycle licence.
The coroner, Audrey Jamieson, was reporting on the death of Nitin Haldipur Prabhu following a collision with another e-bike heading in the same direction through the Melbourne suburb of Canterbury. Prabhu died of severe head injuries.
Police told the court the manufacturer’s specification for Prabhu stated the bike produced 250 watts of power and the top speed was 32km/h. Police tested the bike and reported that it was fitted with a thumb throttle to control power without pedalling and could maintain 30km/h up an incline.
Police found the other e-bike involved in the smash to be legal. It was limited to 25km/h and needed to be pedalled for electrical assist to operate.
The coroner said that at face value Prabhu's e-bike did not meet the criteria for an electric power-assisted cycle and would be most appropriately classified as a "motorcycle".
The coroner did not make a finding on whether either driver was at fault.
Her Honour did, however, refer to a previous instance where she had investigated a death that involved an e-bike that exceeded regulations and was legally classified as a motorcycle.
In that finding she recommended: "With the aim of improving public health and safety and preventing like deaths, I recommend that the Vehicle Safety Standards Bureau, Victoria Police, Bicycle Industries Australia and VicRoads collaboratively consider the circumstances in which Albert May’s death occurred and attempt to identify any new countermeasures that could be implemented to improve compliance with laws regarding the operation of electric bicycles, including but not limited to establishing how best to detect and prevent people operating high-powered electric bicycles without licence or registration as if they were power-assisted pedal cycles."
Her Honour said the response of government agencies to the recommendation appeared "suboptimal", as in recent years, Victorians had experienced an increase in injuries and fatalities associated with e-bicycles – both as riders and pedestrians.
"Given that e-bicycles do not need to be registered, it is often the case that whether an e-bicycle meets the regulations – or is indeed a ‘motorcycle’ – is not apparent until an injury or fatality occurs," Coroner Jamieson said in her report on Prabhu's death, echoing comments she had made in her finding seven years previously.
According to information provided by the Coroners Prevention Unit, "there is ample evidence that Australian e-bicycle retailers import and sell vehicles that would be too powerful to be classified as e-bicycles in some jurisdictions, such as Victoria", Coroner Jamieson said.
"In doing so, retailers can advertise vehicles as for ‘off road’ or disengage certain features to reduce their maximum speed – which can be easily re-engaged by consumers.
"On this basis, I consider it feasible that, at present, a substantial number of e-bicycles across Victoria are in fact unregistered motorcycles – likely unbeknownst to their riders.
"Consequently, these vehicles are regularly being ridden on cycle paths and shared footpaths while the rider is unaware of the risks posed to others, and to themselves, given that they are wearing protective gear not appropriate for motorcycle use."
The coroner recommended that Victoria Police obtain a dynamometer capable of testing e-bicycles and similar vehicles to determine whether they comply with Victorian regulations, including in instances where those vehicles are substantially damaged in an incident.
Finally, and somewhat controversially, Her Honour stated: "With the aim of improving public health and safety and preventing like deaths, I recommend that representatives of Victoria Police, the Victorian Department of Transport and of VicRoads convene to discuss the issue of non-compliant e-bicycles.
"Specifically, this conference ought to be used to consider methods to identify non-compliant e-bicycles, including those which may seem radical – such as requiring the registration of all e-bicycles.”
Some have interpreted this suggestion as a gateway for the reintroduction of bike registration, albeit, e-bike registration, something no-one in the transport world, including riders or governments, is asking for.
However, a more nuanced reading reveals a rather clever stratagem: if the intention is to identify which electrical-powered bikes are actually motorbikes and which are e-bikes, then only the electric motorcycles identified would need to be registered and the e-bikes that are compliant with the rules would not, and would be free to go.
Much more regulatory reform is needed though. The nation needs to readopt the e-bike rules that have so successfully supported the growth of the European bike industry, rules which Australia originally based its own regulation on, before disastrously abandoning them.
We need rules that put safety first, that produce e-bikes that are consumer-friendly, from trusted brands with mechanical service and spare parts, with chargers that are not a fire risk, that hold their resale value, that can’t be tampered with, that can be safely sold through into the second-hand market and that can share the same bike infrastructure as standard bicycles without risk.
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