Crime UK making the streets safer!

[Ramon Antonio]

There's a difference I think between ebikes, which tend to be expensive, and are purchased and ridden by adult commuters, and playthings like scooters and skateboards ridden by kids with no road sense or care, several times in my small village a kid has ridden straight off the pavement and across the road in front of my van without the kid looking.

Nope, we have huge problems with youth on fatbikes more than anything. They harass people, drive like idiots, go too fast etc. There's no minimum age or helmet requirement for those. Officially they can only go 25km/hour, but it's very easy to take off the restrictions (albeit illegal).

Edit: you are right on FULLY electric bikes on which you don't have to pedal at all, but still those fatbikes go very fast too.

 

[The Big Yin]

They are legally classed as a mechanically propelled vehicle, so are subject to the same licencing, insurance and tax obligations of a normal car/scooter. The police aren't doing anything wrong enforcing the laws around this.

Whether you think they have better things to do is another discussion

 

[MacGregor]

 

[The_Renaissance]

Context? Is that Gervais?!

 

[I Am Legion]

In NYC the Mayor had the Police confiscate thousands of illegal scooters and E Bikes. Put them all in a dump and crushed them. They were being used by illegals for crime. Or used by delivery guys that never followed rules of the road, accidents everywhere. Skateboarders have always been targeted.

 

[Belaya Smert]

Maybe they should just roam around in large hordes and then violently attack the police that try and enforce these laws. I mean when you stop enforcing the law you breed lawlessness so this is a logical progression.

 

[nhbbear]

It's illegal to ride an electric skateboard in a public area in most US states; including Florida and New York. In California, they're subject to strict laws, and in Texas they're subject to the same laws as motor vehicles, ie, you need a license and insurance, and getting insurance is practically impossible because of how dangerous it is.

I've had a few people on electric scooters zoom past me on the sidewalk at ~15 mph when I've had my earphones in. They're definitely dangerous for the driver and pedestrians. In a busy, walkable city like London, I can imagine most people dislike them. They should be forced to use bike lanes.

Also, I'm tired of debunking the right-wing myth of the UK, Canada and blue states being authoritarian shitholes with record-high levels of crime, while red states are out here fighting the good fight, when the opposite is true. The murder rates and incarceration rates in red states are way higher. Compared with England and Wales, Texas has 5.1x the incarceration rate and 5.8x the intentional homicide rate.

Trump has literally just deployed the National Guard to the capital, despite crime being almost the lowest it's been in decades. That's 800 soldiers with military gear harassing and arresting some of the poorest and most downtrodden people in our society; drug addicts and the homeless.

I would agree with you if it wasn’t the deep deep blue cities where all the crime was occurring in red states. In Louisiana, it’s Nola and Baton Rouge, and Georgia, it’s Atlanta, in Texas, it’s Dallas and Houston. I am seeing a pattern here but I can’t quite get my finger on it

 

[nhbbear]

Oh man, we used to get calls on the bike path for people using motorized scooters. If we looked at all and found someone, we told them not to do it again. It was the same thing with kids on the electric plastic cars. Technically, they are illegal everywhere but a private parking lot and people can’t use them. My deputy chief was the one that would call this shit in and make sure we dealt with it. It was so embarrassing to have to tell a parent that what their three year old was doing was against the city ordinance. Then, I got yelled at for not writing the parents tickets. I got myself in real hot water when I said we have officer discretion and they honestly didn’t know and I wasn’t writing a ticket, but he could feel free to do it if he wanted. He told me I was an inch away from getting written up for insubordination.

 

[wolffanghameha]

Holy fuck sherdog is full of 6'8, 250lb 8%bf wimps scared of being stabbed or assaulted, on the same streets my glasses-wearing ass walks 200+ miles on every month, day and night (UK, not London).

Yeh apparently it's illegal, but I'm not looking beyond Google AI. It's classed as a road vehicle too, hence the insurance thing, but you can't get insurance on illegal vehicles so it is fucky. E-scooters are the same. You can't have your own and have to rent it from local government schemes, unless you're only using it on private land.
E-bikes don't need insurance.


I think it's overly harsh to fine a tourist so much and even more so to take the board (can they get it back later?). London is already an expensive tourist destination!

I wonder if they rarely catch anyone, so just throw the book at them the rare time they do, to make it a bigger deterrent.

Side note the bikes etc on pavements are a problem. I've never seen a collision, but similar to it being nice having car-free areas, these bikes and scooters disturb the peace. It is good for keeping your brain active I s'pose. Any future roads and pavements built need to have scooters and bikes in mind.