[Peakoil] When is a bike not a bike? When it's electric

[Alex Pollard]

ACT Peak Oil advocates a speed limit for unregistered electric bikes, rather
than a power limit. This helps for climbing steep hills.

Maybe now a NSW minister is losing his license and must ride, sanity will
prevail? 

Alex
O4O4873828

President
ACT Peak Oil Inc.
http://act-peakoil.org

___________________

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/when-is-a-bike-not-a-bike-when-its-electric/2008/06/15/1213468240544.html

When is a bike not a bike? When it's electric

E-bike gloom . Craig Donarski has just spent $1400 on a new electric scooter
that, after a Supreme Court decision, he can no longer use for his daily
journey from Lilyfield to Circular Quay.

Geesche Jacobsen
June 16, 2008

THEY might look like a solution to the rising oil price and global warming,
but a court ruling has found some motorised bicycles cannot be legally used
on NSW roads - even though the Roads and Traffic Authority previously
advised owners they could.

As many as 10,000 such bikes, known as E-bikes, may have been sold in NSW on
the basis that they did not require registration, and all users had to do
was wear a helmet and obey the road rules.

The law specifies that "pedal cycles" with "one or more auxiliary propulsion
motors" up to 200 watts do not require registration.

In May last year, Deborah Alice Matheson was riding her Eazyride bike on a
street in Nyngan at about 30 kilometres an hour, using its motor, when she
was stopped by police. She told them the RTA had told her that the bike did
not need to be registered, but she was charged with driving an unregistered
vehicle. She was convicted at Nyngan local court this year and fined $500.

Last Thursday week, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict, without recording
a conviction. Justice Peter Johnson found the magistrate who found Ms
Matheson guilty had not erred in ruling that the bike motor was not
"auxiliary" but primary, and its pedal power was secondary.

Early last year, a person who rode an electric scooter on a street was
acquitted in Sutherland local court of driving an unregistered vehicle.

The director of the bicycle company Eazy Ride, Trevor Patrick, was dismayed
by the Supreme Court's decision and has closed his business.

He said he had received advice from two senior RTA officials suggesting that
E-bikes did not have to be registered and could be used like bicycles. "If
anyone in this state is entitled to believe she's been denied natural
justice it's Mrs Matheson," he said.

An RTA spokeswoman denied the organisation had ever advised that E-bikes
could be used without registration.

She said they did not meet safety standards and therefore could not be
registered. They could be used only in backyards and on private roads. "We
encourage anyone who has been sold a bike under false pretences to go to the
Department of Fair Trading," she said.

But an RTA review in February still spoke of the need to clarify the
"intention of exemption from registration" of E-bikes and called for certain
vehicles to be excluded. It also referred to "confusion amongst the public,
police, magistrates and even RTA officers" about which vehicles should be
registered.

One cyclist, Craig Donarski, has been riding his electric bicycle to work
almost every day for two years. He says the trip from Lilyfield to Circular
Quay takes him 22 minutes, and it costs him about 10cents to 12cents a week
in electricity to charge the batteries on his bike.

"It's the cheapest form of transport past the pushbike . It makes bike
travel possible for people who don't have the levels of fitness or strength
to ride a normal pushbike. It just seems absurd . when we are worrying about
anything from peak oil to greenhouse gases to parking, to make these things
illegal."

Mr Donarski had an Eazyride bike, but has just bought a newer electric
bicycle for $1400. He says the company that sold it had told him it did not
require registration.

"I just spent $1400 on the assumption that it was a legal vehicle to ride."

"There goes my budget," he said, as he contemplated his future need for
public transport.