Northern Ireland EAPC status.

[flecc]

Of course there`s income,

Income when MOT comes around - income on the tax on the Insurance - Income on the CBT Test
Registration alone is £55

Peanuts, two are on offs and the government don't get the MOT income, it's a cost for them sending out the reminders, as is sending out the reminders to re-enter the VED details each year with no "re-taxing" income.

The admin of all this would probably cost more than the government's annual income from the minimal insurance tax, given such a tiny number have gone down this route, or would do.

It's academic though, as you rightly say, the pedelec EAPC law adoption is an open door.
.

 

[tommie]

A couple of facts for our London `bubble` resident, Peanuts cost more outside the M25!!
Here in NI MOT`s are not done in your local garage, it`s a government operation.
and to add onto the original total i see CBT is an eyewatering £130! And the Theory test apparently £23
How much does the CBT cost?
A CBT tends to cost around £130, but the price can vary between instructors. Use GOV.UK to find your nearest training body.

A nice little earner for a government Dept. that wants to make money on a push-bike.

 

[TedG]

Sadly all too true.
Disappointing to see disagreements between cyclists here.
However even though I have all necessary licences etc, I just won't be using them to ride a bicycle.

 

[flecc]

A couple of facts for our London `bubble` resident, Peanuts cost more outside the M25!!
Here in NI MOT`s are not done in your local garage, it`s a government operation.
and to add onto the original total i see CBT is an eyewatering £130! And the Theory test apparently £23
How much does the CBT cost?
A CBT tends to cost around £130, but the price can vary between instructors. Use GOV.UK to find your nearest training body.

A nice little earner for a government Dept. that wants to make money on a push-bike.

Still peanuts, especially the MOT operation which only compares with garage normal charges for repair work. And once again, the government doesn't get the CBT income which in any case is a one off for each rider.

I repeat, there is no worthwhile income outside of your imagination. How many would ever go through all this to ride an e-bike, hardly any I suggest? I've only heard of two in N.I.

If you'd enjoyed the pedelec freedom we've had in the UK you might have had around 8,000 to 10,000 active pedelecers there. So if even 1% took up this bureacratic alternative under present conditions, which is unlikely, the 12% insurance tax income wouldn't be worth bothering with, given the admin costs of all of it.
.

 

[LeighPing]

Yes, but if the uptake had been good as a test case. What then for the rest of the UK?

 

[tommie]

Yes, but if the uptake had been good as a test case. What then for the rest of the UK?

^
Thats exactly the point i`m making,, there`s only 1.8m people here, lets go UK wide and see ??
the old government adage of `if it moves tax it`comes to mind!

 

[flecc]

Yes, but if the uptake had been good as a test case. What then for the rest of the UK?

Nothing at all.

Our government like all governments is very keen to increase cycling for environmental and health reasons and won't do anything whatsover to harm it in any way.

This whole income discussion is a silly nonsense. The only reason N.I. e-bikes ended up as motor cycle classified wasn't in any way intentional. It simply resulted from the N.I. assembly not sitting at times when the EAPC and Type Approval laws went though the UK parliament, so they couldn't get adopted in N.I as would normally have happened.

If government wanted such a tiny income from cycling, they'd have slapped on a tenner a bicycle VED (road tax) long ago. It was done long ago, in our dependency of Guernsey in the 1940s and before, all bicycles had little rear number plates and were charged VED (road tax). But it was more hassle than it was worth it in the end so it was scrapped back then.
.

 

[Nealh]

The rest of the UK is unaffected as we have legislation in place that has been passed by parliament, it follows the EU lead and can't be taken away. LE1A/LE1B is in place to cover bikes outside of the remit but those who buy the cheap 1kw D/D hub kits certainly don't bother and majority of dongled or S-ped riders don't bother.

 

[flecc]

^
Thats exactly the point i`m making,, there`s only 1.8m people here, lets go UK wide and see ??
the old government adage of `if it moves tax it`comes to mind!

See my reply on this link.
.

 

[TedG]

it follows the EU lead and can't be taken away.

VERY happy to be corrected and / or enlightened.
BREXIT??

 

[Nealh]

VERY happy to be corrected and / or enlightened.
BREXIT??

It won't change anything on the mainland as far as epac's /pedelecs are concerned.
For obvious illegal bikes the Police have to many other priorities to worry about, may be if a rider is seen blatantly going along without peddling or seen doing silly speeds then they might get stopped. To be stopped Police need to be actively out on patrols this just doesn't happen in most places, cue SW .

 

[flecc]

VERY happy to be corrected and / or enlightened.
BREXIT??

Bre xit is very unlikely to affect this, unless we totally crash out and stop all EU trading. Then we'd have far more to worry about than e-bikes, putting enough food in our mouths for starters!

Any sort of trade deal with the EU is totally dependent on us maintaining all EU transport law for cross border compatibility, which of course includes pedelecs. In any case the Great Repeal Bill has already done that, finalising it in UK law.

That's why non EU members like Norway and Switzerland have to follow the EU law.
.

 

[UlsterEPAC]

A couple of facts for our London `bubble` resident, Peanuts cost more outside the M25!!
Here in NI MOT`s are not done in your local garage, it`s a government operation.
and to add onto the original total i see CBT is an eyewatering £130! And the Theory test apparently £23
How much does the CBT cost?
A CBT tends to cost around £130, but the price can vary between instructors. Use GOV.UK to find your nearest training body.

A nice little earner for a government Dept. that wants to make money on a push-bike.

Good luck getting a CBT for £130 in Northern Ireland - usually £170-£180 or higher, depending on how long it takes. The NI CBT is more complicated than the GB one (new EU rules) and needs a minimum of 4 hours on the road training.

On the plus side, you won't need the £23 theory test to ride on the road. Theory is only required if you want to take the full motorcycle test.

If you don't already have a car licence you will need to display 'L' plates - that will really look well on the push-bike!

 

[TedG]

Someone will hopefully correct me if I am wrong but I believe I joined a few years ago and started a thread about the law regarding pedelecs here in Ulster. It turned into a monster as I recall but tailed off.
This particular thread began a while back on the same theme and you would do well to read both, if you can stay awake long enough.
At this point in time there has been no resolution to this issue unless the recent Stormont revival, if that is the word I am looking for, results in our ebikes here being classed as bicycles as in the rest of the UK and Europe.
The one thing I have always been certain of is that neither my wife or I will be accepting that our electrically assisted bicycles are anything other than bicycles.
We continue to await the permission of the powers on the Hill to enable us to go back to what we had been doing here and for 33 years before that when we lived in England.
Cycling without pain.

 

[UlsterEPAC]

The thing that I could never understand was why they always maintained the law couldn't be changed as there was no minister to sign it off. This could have been a reasonable excuse, had it not been for the fact that they were able to change the law to exempt pedelecs from requiring an MOT in Northern Ireland (amended April 2018) despite the fact there was no minister to sign this change off either.

 

[mike killay]

Just had an acknowledgement for my email to NI minister.
Guess we would bets advised to keep quiet for now as they must have a lot on their plate.
Then in 6 weeks time, drop another pile of requests on them.

 

[TedG]

Replies seem to be sporadic.
I have had two acknowledgements and one from Infrastructure which wasnt really enlightening but that means another two haven't replied at all.
I'm not letting it settle here this way, I shall wait as you say for a few weeks and then go again.

 

[flecc]

The thing that I could never understand was why they always maintained the law couldn't be changed as there was no minister to sign it off. This could have been a reasonable excuse, had it not been for the fact that they were able to change the law to exempt pedelecs from requiring an MOT in Northern Ireland (amended April 2018) despite the fact there was no minister to sign this change off either.

I'm guessing that complexity comes into it. To make pedelec use legal requires adopting the 1983 EAPC regulation, as amended 2015, plus adopting the two and three wheel motor vehicle type approval legislation, since this contains the exemption for pedelecs not being considered motor vehicles.

Of course the latter includes a very large range of vehicles being authorised for type approval, including such as large Harley Davidson trikes for example. It also contains a number of exemptions which Stormont might not agree with.
.

 

[TedG]

The thing that I could never understand was why they always maintained the law couldn't be changed as there was no minister to sign it off. This could have been a reasonable excuse, had it not been for the fact that they were able to change the law to exempt pedelecs from requiring an MOT in Northern Ireland (amended April 2018) despite the fact there was no minister to sign this change off either.

The more I read this the less I like it.
So apparently the alleged powers have decided that an MOT won't be necessary - does that suggest that the rest of the restrictions will apply?

 

[UlsterEPAC]

I'm guessing that complexity comes into it. To make pedelec use legal requires adopting the 1983 EAPC regulation, as amended 2015, plus adopting the two and three wheel motor vehicle type approval legislation, since this contains the exemption for pedelecs not being considered motor vehicles.

Of course the latter includes a very large range of vehicles being authorised for type approval, including such as large Harley Davidson trikes for example. It also contains a number of exemptions which Stormont might not agree with.
.

It's my understanding that the Northern Ireland legislation exempting pedelecs is already in place, in fact has been since 1995. The issue is that the legislation refers to "an electrically assisted pedal cycle of such a class as may be so prescribed", however the class was never defined.

This has always been claimed to be an "oversight", and would, I assume merely require a reference to the EU definition. I may be wrong, but I think the existing EU type approvals have also been adopted for 2 and 3 wheelers, so the EPAC definition could probably have been done at the same time.

The other point to note is that when exempting pedelecs from MOT requirements, they opted for the phrase "a vehicle which is incapable, by reason of its construction, of exceeding a speed of 15.5 miles per hour on the level under its own power" rather than actually defining a pedelec properly, which could probably then have been used for the 1995 legislation too.