Putney police have seized 13 mopeds and e-bikes on Putney High Street, and every rider now faces court.
Officers took five mopeds and eight e-bikes off the road at the junction with Putney Bridge Road, outside Jubilee House. Each has been ordered to attend court over a range of offences, the neighbourhood team said in a public bulletin.
It is the most concrete result yet from an enforcement push that residents have long wanted. For more than a year, people in Putney have said that dangerous and illegal riding goes unchallenged.
Inspector Paul James, who leads policing for the Putney sector, said the action followed sustained concern from the community. ‘We regularly receive concerns from our communities around persons using ebikes, pedal cycles and scooters in illegal and dangerous ways, such as going through red lights, not stopping at pedestrian crossings, riding on the pavement and alleged use of the vehicles to commit crime,’ he told Putney.news.
The seizure is the third round of visible enforcement in Putney in about a fortnight, after an officer was injured stopping an illegal e-scooter rider and Putney’s new inspector led a High Street sweep. It comes at the same spot where a cyclist was taken to a trauma centre only the day before, the sixth serious crash on the High Street in two years. We have reported the stretch’s cycling failures at length.
James said enforcement was only part of it. Officers also talk to riders whose machines are legal but whose riding falls short of the Highway Code.
The patrols will move next to Quill Lane, where residents have reported cyclists ignoring no-cycling signs and ‘some near misses where pedestrians have nearly been hit by cyclists’, James said.
- Working pedals that can drive it
- Motor helps only while you pedal
- Assistance cuts out at 15.5mph
- Motor no more than 250 watts
- Throttle drives it without pedalling
- Goes faster than 15.5mph under power, or has an ‘off-road mode’
- Motor over 250 watts
What the law says
Most electric bikes are legal, and the police do not touch them. A normal e-bike needs no licence, tax or insurance, as long as it meets four conditions: it has working pedals that drive it, the motor helps only while you pedal, the assistance cuts out at 15.5mph, and the motor is no more than 250 watts. Meet all four and the law treats it exactly like an ordinary bicycle. The rider must be 14 or over.
Add a throttle that drives it without pedalling, a motor that runs past 15.5mph, an ‘off-road mode’ or a motor over 250 watts, and it becomes a motor vehicle in law. That means registration, insurance, tax and a driving licence. These machines usually cannot get any of that, so riding one on the road is an offence, and police can seize it.
Private e-scooters are different again. They are illegal to ride on any public road, pavement or cycle lane. The only legal ones are in official rental trials, and there is no scheme in Wandsworth.
Residents can report dangerous or illegal riding to the Thamesfield Safer Neighbourhood Team, call 101 for non-urgent matters, or dial 999 in an emergency. Local ward alerts are published on MetEngage.
Good to see action being taken over illegal eBikes (and especially electric motorbikes) and action on “going through red lights, not stopping at pedestrian crossings, riding on the pavement and alleged use of the vehicles to commit crime,” but there’s something missing there, and that’s speeding, and that includes ‘real’ motorbikes. Ive yet to see a scooter ir motorbikes that *doesn’t * speed, so i do hope they’ll be included in the crackdown.
i agree they are dangerous and act like they can do anything on our road weaving in out between cars driving illegally as most do not use the pedals and think they can race around like as they wish. There are too many clogging up Puthey High Street time to limit them or get them off our roads.
At long last.