Crushing illegal e-bikes won’t fix road danger

If you relied on the headlines, you might think the Government’s forthcoming Crime and Policing Bill is all about e-bikes.

“illegal e-bikes to be crushed within 48 hours” makes for a good splash, but here’s what they glossed over: these new powers aren’t just for illegal e-bikes. They could be used on any motorised vehicle used antisocially or dangerously - including cars.

Police will no longer need to warn before seizing any motor vehicle used antisocially, and disposal could be as swift as 48 hours - depending on secondary legislation.

And if we’re serious about tackling the biggest source of road danger, that’s where the change in the law could help save lives.

Under the Bill, police will be able to seize and destroy dangerous or non-compliant vehicles within 48 hours, no warning needed. So yes, that hacked e-bike doing 30mph is on the list - but so are cars used for street racing; vehicles driven without insurance or when not roadworthy; or HGVs that fail safety standards.

Who knows how many e-bikes - or for that matter cars - will be crushed if the law changes as suggested. Whatever happens, we must not lose sight where the danger really is.

As Sadiq Khan reminded us this week in a Guardian op-ed, every 17 minutes in the UK someone is killed or seriously injured on our roads. Last year, more than 1,600 people died.

We know how to cut those numbers: in London, borough roads with 20mph limits have seen deaths and serious injuries fall by 34%, with child deaths down 75%. Wales’s first year of a national 20mph default saw 100 fewer people killed or seriously injured. The Direct Vision Standard for lorries has cut fatal HGV collisions involving vulnerable road users by 62%.

As Khan says, “One casualty on our roads is one too many.”

However, the London mayor warns that his aim of eliminating deaths and serious injuries on the transport network by 2041, will not succeed unless borough councils do their bit.

"Most of the capital’s boroughs have leapt at the chance to make our roads safer; 21 of them now have a default 20mph speed limit. Unfortunately, though, there are a few councils who have so far refused to play their part. In these blocker boroughs, leaders are fighting against lower speed limits on their streets. To those councils, my message is clear: it’s time to step up. Because there is nothing to be gained by playing politics with speed limits – only people to be injured and lives to be lost."

"Every day, I meet people who tell me they want to make even more progress to clean up our air and cut speeds on the capital’s streets. Some of them are campaigners who have dedicated their lives to making the way we travel safer and more sustainable. But the vast majority are ordinary citizens: children walking home from school; parents cycling to work; carers driving to see their relatives. What they want is simple: the freedom to go about their lives in the knowledge that they are safe from harm. For their sake, the fight for safer roads must continue."

In short, crush the illegal e-bikes, sure (although we'd prefer they were donated to the social enterprises equipped to dismantle and repurpose the parts), but don’t pretend it’s the main battle in the fight for safer roads.

The real challenge is staring us in the face at every junction, every high street, and on every school run: the dominance of motor vehicles, and the political reluctance to tackle it.

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