{"id":5028,"date":"2026-04-03T09:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T09:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/5028\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T09:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T09:16:11","slug":"illegal-e-bikes-are-causing-mayhem-on-britains-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/5028\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal e-bikes are causing mayhem on Britain’s roads"},"content":{"rendered":"

Illegal e-bikes<\/a> that can reach speeds of up to 50mph have become a daily source of aggravation for pedestrians and motorists on Britain\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n

Weaving past pedestrians and running red lights, some riders are using bikes that can travel far quicker than the legal limit \u2013 as police battle to keep them in check. <\/p>\n

With that in mind, ministers are now consulting on tightening online product safety rules to both limit what retailers can sell and make it harder for them to offer electric bikes that breach regulations.<\/p>\n

New FeatureIn ShortQuick Stories. Same trusted journalism.<\/p>\n

However, campaigners say there is a legal gap in the proposals meaning that some of the most dangerous products will remain freely available \u2014 and that the Government has been slow to act.<\/p>\n

The rules around e-bikes in the UK<\/p>\n

E-bikes \u2013 otherwise known as electrically assisted pedal cycles \u2013 are bicycles that have an electronic motor and rechargeable battery which provides extra power when the rider is pedalling.<\/p>\n

For those who use them legally, they are considered an excellent choice for city commuting<\/a>, cheaper than public transport and require less effort to ride.<\/p>\n

It is legal for anyone over the age of 14 to ride one in the UK on public roads and cycle paths<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, there are strict limits. The electric motor must have a general output of no more than 250 watts and a maximum speed of 15.5mph. The bike must also have working pedals.<\/p>\n

If the bike exceeds these limits and has no pedals, it is legally classed as a motorcycle or moped. This means it must be registered, taxed and insured and a driving license is needed to operate it. <\/p>\n

Riders caught using one illegally on public roads face the same penalties as if they were driving a motor vehicle. They can be used, however, on private property, such as by farmers to cover large areas of land.<\/p>\n

Legal e-bikes can be bought as ready-made units, but it is also possible to purchase conversion kits which allow you to install a motor on an existing bike to make it go faster.<\/p>\n

Scale of the problem<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Police says it has seized more than 2,900 illegal e-bikes and e-scooters since January. In one recent operation at Cambridge Circus in the West End, they seized 38 e-bikes in just five hours.<\/p>\n

Superintendent Luke Baldock, the Met\u2019s lead officer for tackling e-bike crime, said the force was \u201cramping up action to tackle the dangerous riding of illegally modified e-bikes, increasing the roll-out of specialist operations across London\u201d.<\/p>\n

Officers say they are seeing a rise in \u201cillegally modified e-bikes with improvised batteries and motors far exceeding the legal 250W limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Data compiled by Sky News last year also shows that crimes involving e-bikes and e-scooters have soared by more than 730 per cent in the previous five years, with e-bikes mentioned in cases involving theft, robbery, drug trafficking and stalking.<\/p>\n

Duncan Dollimore, head of campaigns at Cycling UK, said the problem has grown exponentially. He told The i Paper: \u201cIt\u2019s stopped being a cycling and e-bike problem. It\u2019s become a very complex product safety problem and also an employment law problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

The London Fire Brigade has also said that batteries used to power e-bikes are one of the capital\u2019s \u201cfastest growing fire risks\u201d, with some of these blazes deadly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The LFB\u2019s deputy assistant commissioner for prevention and protection, Richard Field, said: \u201cFrom our investigations, we know many of the fires we\u2019ve attended have involved second-hand vehicles or the bike has been modified using parts bought online.\u201d<\/p>\n

Official figures show the LFB attended a record 205 e-bike and e-scooter fires in 2025 \u2014 an average of almost four every week. That is a sharp increase from 2024, when the Brigade recorded 171 such fires. So far in 2026, there have already been at least 30 call-outs.<\/p>\n

\"UberThe APPG for Cycling and Walking found many food delivery drives felt they had to use illegal e-bikes to make their deliveries on time (Photo: Paul Ellis\/AFP)<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s driving the issue?<\/p>\n

Both e-bikes and conversion kits that are capable of speeds far exceeding legal limits are freely available to find online \u2014 some with no legal caveat whatsoever.<\/p>\n

However, these listings are not technically against the law. This is because higher-powered e-bikes are lawful on private land and off-road sites.<\/p>\n

A kit labelled \u201cfor off-road use only\u201d, which is capable of producing power many times beyond the 250-watt road limit, is not technically an illegal listing. And, ultimately, sellers cannot control whether someone buys one and then uses it on public highways.<\/p>\n

However, Dollimore said the loophole was being openly exploited by some buyers and sellers. \u201cWe\u2019ve got multiple platforms advertising bikes, saying things like \u2018fix the commute\u2019 and then saying it\u2019s for off-road use, which is misleading, and it\u2019s verging on mis-selling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amazon said it requires sellers of e-mobility products to provide \u201cdocumented testing certification carried out by an accredited lab\u201d and that it removed non-compliant products. Temu said listings were \u201csubject to continuous monitoring\u201d and that products failing its standards were \u201cremoved promptly\u201d.<\/p>\n

Labour MP Fabian Hamilton, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cycling and Walking, warned that the employment structures used by major food delivery companies were also driving the prevalence of illegal e-bike use.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you pay the riders by the delivery rather than by the hour, then you\u2019re challenging people to cut corners,\u201d he told The i Paper, suggesting that some felt they had to rush.<\/p>\n

Uber Eats said its rules were \u201cclear that couriers must follow the law\u201d when it comes to e-bikes, while Deliveroo said it had partnerships in place to give riders \u201cmore affordable access to compliant vehicles\u201d and banned those who used illegal ones. Just Eat also said it had \u201czero tolerance for criminal behaviour\u201d and offered training courses for riders on e-bike rules.<\/p>\n

Ministers urged to act quicker<\/p>\n

Last year, the Government passed the Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025, which gives it new powers to upgrade existing laws around the sales of certain goods.<\/p>\n

It has launched a consultation on what new regulations should be brought in, including making online retailers like Amazon and Temu legally liable for illegal products.<\/p>\n

Currently, liability falls on the third-party sellers who use the platform, rather than the platform itself.<\/p>\n

Dollimore argues that the new law has not actually changed anything yet in practice, and that the Government has been slow to act.<\/p>\n

That consultation does not include any mention of the current \u201coff-road\u201d loophole allowing retailers to sell e-bikes that go beyond legal limits.<\/p>\n

A Government spokesperson said its work included \u201cproposals to introduce stringent responsibilities for online marketplaces to take proactive measures to ensure the products on their sites are safe.\u201d <\/p>\n

They added that the Government \u201ccontinues to take action to stop unsafe or non-compliant products from reaching consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

What more could the Government do?<\/p>\n

Hamilton is calling for reforms to employment law to end pay-per-delivery structures, which he argues directly incentivise riders to use faster, illegally modified bikes. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to break that cycle somewhere,\u201d he told The i Paper. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that means giving those delivery companies the obligation to employ individuals on certain terms of employment that match those of other workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labour had promised prior to the election to replace the current legal distinction between \u201cemployees\u201d and \u201cworkers\u201d with a single worker status, which would grant full employment rights to all and make it easier to impose safety obligations on gig economy workers. However, the proposal was not included in the Employment Rights Act 2025.<\/p>\n

The Government plans to consult on this matter \u201cas soon as possible\u201d and \u201cseek to address issues with the framework that can enable worker exploitation and leave vulnerable workers without core employment protections\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hamilton has also called for a scrappage scheme to remove illegal bikes from circulation and a kite mark system to help police and businesses identify compliant vehicles at a glance.<\/p>\n

Separately, the Government\u2019s Crime and Policing Bill, currently at report stage in the House of Lords, aims to introduce a new offence of causing death or serious injury by dangerous or careless cycling \u2014 with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illegal e-bikes that can reach speeds of up to 50mph have become a daily source of aggravation for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,2919,2920,2710,2019],"class_list":{"0":"post-5028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-cycling","10":"tag-driving","11":"tag-e-bikes","12":"tag-politics-long-read"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116340023850908903","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}