Merseyrail BANNING EBIKE even legal ones

[Merseyrailebikeban]

Hi.

I thought I would come on here all the parents know that on the first of January 2027 electric bikes THAT DONT FOLD will be BANNED from the merseyrail network.....Just so were clear that means any e bike that doesn't fold...your Haibike,Cube,Carrera,Voodoo the list goes on.

https://www.merseyrail.org/journey-planning/plan-your-journey/e-bike-ban/

How your children get to school, get to the sports centre, get into town...the list goes on its absolutely UNACCEPTABLE.

They've given outrageous reasoning complete nonsense, the real reason is they don't want to train staff to tell the difference between an e-bike that is legal and one that is for example bought from eBay... they want to save money at the expense of people in Liverpool in general.

Now that people that says a good thing.... what about the loss revenue from bike shops? what about the lost revenue from maintenance of electric bikes ? What about parts ?what about the employment of those people the list goes on....

Liverpool Echo have hidden this behind a paywall a outrageously stupid article

"Merseyrail set to ban common item from every train and station"

Utterly spineless,WHERE WAS THE CONSULTATION.

EMAIL transport secretary see what she thinks of this

[email protected]
Heidi Alexander

I just thought everybody should know if you go out buying electric bikes for Christmas

You're right about the Echo and its crappy paywall

However I completely agree with the ban. There are many tunnels on the Merseyrail network, many delays as well.

Apart from the fire risk, bikes are just a pain in the arse for everyone at busy times.

No, it really isn’t. Nobody needs to take an ebike on public transport or ride it on the pavement and it looks like authorities are realising the risks and issues they cause and bringing rules such as this in to place. I’m sure there’ll be more soon, let’s just hope several children don’t have to die first.

The sooner they ban them from pavements and pedestrianised areas the better. In theory I have nothing against legal e-bikes on a cycle path or in a rural area but they should be licensed, identifiable and held to account. If they can’t police them, which they won’t be able to, then I completely support a ban. The idiot who nearly took my two year old out was going way faster than the cars in the area, was unidentifiable and didn’t give two fucks he’d nearly flatted a two year old or was driving through an area with prams and small children.

Great. Let’s hope others follow suit.

Why do your kids have ebikes anyway??? Let them pedal.

If an e-bike is going way faster than cars then it is an illegal electric motorcycle not an e-bike which are pedal-assist only and the motor is limited to 15.5mph. Better surely to actually enforce the law and seize these illegal electric motorcycles rather than ban legal e-bikes?

I live in Spain and e,-bikes and electric scooters are banned on trains as one caused a nasty fire.

It's good. Only dicks have e-bikes.

I live in Liverpool and agree with the ban.

I have no issue with e bikes if they are on the roads or cycle paths. They shouldn’t be on footpaths or any other busy pedestrian areas (including train stations!)

No, the risks of these bikes particularly on pavements and trains completely outweigh the benefits. 15 mph on the pavement could still cause significant harm.

It’s already illegal to ride a bike (of any kind) on the pavement though.

Well from what I can see many e bike riders don’t believe it applies to them hence I would support a ban.

They are already banned by a number of train companies - think they were banned here over a year ago.

I think it’s the right decision. You don’t need to take an e-bike on a train.

Where I live e-bikers are mostly retired people using them to get out and about, or mountain bikers who need a helping hand on the climbs. Or mums taking their kids to the village school.

Just because a minority of hoodlums in cities ride illegal electric motorcycles doesn’t mean that legal e-bikes should be banned nationwide. Ban the import and sale of these non-compliant bikes and the problem will go away.

My folding email bike is 22kgs so it's not about lightweight bikes. Mine is used as I live rurally and need to get to the train station and then to the office at the other end. I have ongoing health issues which mean that driving is incredibly difficult and the ebike has been life changing. Cycling isn't just for children or the very athletic

Most people I know who have ebikes have similar needs and all have bikes from reputable suppliers with standard batteries. We are all very aware that the heavier weight of most ebikes creates a higher risk to pedestrians and only absolute twats fail to recognise this and ride on pavements.

My bike is no more or less of a fire risk that a legitimate full size e bike so the non folding aspect of the ban doesn't make sense. All of our trains in my region have a section of carriage for bikes so they're not in the way of any seated or standing passengers.

I fully agree that no bike should be on a pavement, no bike should be capable of being propelled with electrical assist above 15.5mph and all ebikes should have insurance linked to the frame number. The risk of battery fires on trains could be minimised by requiring temporary removal of the battery and placing them in a fire resistant bag. That makes more sense than still allowing folding ebikes which could have cheap risky batteries

Well personally I'm fine for getting mine on and off trains, but I do have to cycle to the nearest station with lifts in order to get it onto the platform. At another station that I travel to, I have to go 2 stops further, change platforms via a lift then come back 2 stops, because the station is only accessible southbound - northbound has steps.

My (legal) ebike has been the means of me being able to exercise for the last 5 years due to a foot problem that precludes walking for more than a couple of hundred metres. A disability.

I do, otherwise it would take me 3 hours each way to cycle where I'm going to!

Well I imagine that because a bike battery is a magnitude larger and higher capacity than a vape battery it has far more energy stored, and the potential to be far more destructive. I wouldn’t be surprised if a legal bike battery didn’t have around 1,000 times more energy stored in it, and of course being on a bike lugged on and off trains it’s more likely to be banged against something hard enough to cause damage. So on the face of it the ban seems entirely sensible to me :)

so I think they should be banned everywhere too

imo it’s really a knee jerk reaction to want an entire mode of transport banned from everywhere after your dc near miss

Sadly children will continue to die on the pavements, due to lack of action on all motorised vehicles, even if the e-bikes were banned 40 people a year on average would die on pavements. Better to tackle the entire system to reduce deaths.

get the gig economy to start managing their couriers and get fined if they are delivering on illegal e-bikes. Get digital technology to stop people riding and driving motorised vehicles electric motorbikes without insurance and documents.

Ban them all with immediate effect, it’s an absolute no brainer

As mentioned above, most people on here have no clue about the difference between legal and illegal e bikes.

i have owned 2 e-bikes and non cycle experts have expressed surprise about both being electric. My current one particularly, you can’t see the motor nor the battery. It goes no faster than a regular bike and I use it to transport my child around without using the car. It really is no more dangerous than a regular bike.

It’s heavier than a regular bike yes, but cheap (non e) bikes are generally heavier than expensive non e bikes. Should be ban cheap bikes for being heavy?

Id be interested to know data on: how many people are killed by e-bikes (including legal vs illegal), how many people are killed by regular bikes, how many cyclists are killed by cars, and how many pedestrians are killed by cars. I highly doubt the first category will be the biggest.

I haven’t seen the data but I imagine batteries catching fire will be illegals ones, not ones sold by reputable sellers. Incidentally, did you know phones and laptops also occasionally catch fire? Yet no one questions taking them on trains. Plus, as mentioned earlier, electric cars either a massive battery on a train going in a 20 mile long tunnel under the sea, where I imagine a fire would be troublesome.

I have no skin in the game as I don’t live in the area and don’t take my legal ebike on a train. But a lot of the people on here saying about how brilliant the ban is seem to fundamentally misunderstand what legal e-bikes are and the (lack of) risks they pose.

My current one particularly, you can’t see the motor nor the battery.

many bikes you can’t see they are electric, so there will be people who continue to just load them on the train and guards would be oblivious.

2028 Merseyrail will go back under over ownership, so the rules could possibly change again

I support a ban on ebikes on trains (including folding ones) but I do know quite a few older people and people with mild disabilities who rely on their ebike to get them around.

The problem is that people really only see the bad behaviour, people zooming about on them in city centres and breaking rules all over the place.

I'd be for - crack down on illegal bikes, fines and licence points for anyone riding illegally (be that on a legal or illegal bike), no one under 18 on an ebike, and more training better places to ride them.

The All Party Parliamentary Group for Walking & Cycling did a report on this - it’s worth reading.

They found that the fires are due to bikes being illegal either as they’ve bought like that or because they have been converted to an electric bike with an illegal battery. The bikes are illegal as they do not meet battery safety standards. The report made recommendations to stop the sale of these.

E-scooters are illegal unless they are part of a hire scheme - the report also made recommendations about how to stop the sale of those.

Many e-bikes aren’t actually classed as bicycles (as they are too powerful) so they are actually motorbikes. This means that riders need a licence, insurance & to wear a helmet.

The report also found that the lack of regulation is hurting retailers who sell legal e-bikes. It also looked at how these are used as mobility aids.

It’s worth reading & given the strength of feeling on this thread - worth writing to your MP about whether the Government is adopting its recommendations.

Really the Government needs to act to prevent the sale of illegal e-bikes (the ones that cause fires) as from a transport perspective you want people to be able to combine bike and rail. It allows much more people to be able to use the railway.

They manage this in other countries without issue so no reason why we can’t aim to move towards that here.