Seeking clarity on the law

[jonathan75]

I agree Jonathan, I'm aware of the existence of that treaty article. I've mainly been concentrating on the all too typical situation of a police prosecution going no further than a magistrate court initially, where no doubt the UK law could result in a conviction at that point.
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And your discussion of the legislation has been entirely accurate I think. However setting aside problems like a prosecutor having to reasonably think a claim above 50% likely to succeed (which is their threshold for taking a case forward), and their thinking it in the public interest to prosecute under the criminal law, neither of which I think they would believe (and which they'd be the subject of a successful complaint for being in breach of their rules over),
I don't think a prosecution could succeed, and the prosecutor's awareness of this would prevent them taking it forward.

This is because rules on carriages are covered by the treaties, the classifications are economic in their impact on intra-EU trade in the items concerned, and so subject to assessment for compliance with EU caselaw - assessment which the magistrate's clerk would be obliged to undertake, and advise the magistrate on. Or it might instead go straight to a crown court, which would be obliged to carry out the EU proportionality analysis, and in turn (just as with the magistrates' clerk) be obligated to find that the UK regulations could not be justified under the least restrictive option rule. The UK regulations would be disapplied there and then, and the EU caselaw position applied.

This would I think deal conclusively with the preliminary grounds of whether there is any legal basis for the prosecution, the conclusion being that there can not be.

 

[tillson]

I've just checked, LG Life and mortgage protection policies do not mention 'riding a bike' or 'riding an illegal bike' or 'bike accident' unless your lawyer can connect riding a dongled bike to practising a dangerous sport.

I think most home insurance policies cover you for third party liability towards others. For example, if you negligently carry out some act (with certain exclusions) and you injure someone, your home insurance will assist you if the injured person sues for compensation. I am sure that this cover extends to pedal cycles. It certainly does not cover a motor vehicle or a mechanically propelled vehicle (as defined in law).

I'm not sure what they would do in the case of an electrically assisted bike, legal or not. The non-legal bike is easy to answer, but would a home insurance company treat a legal electric bike as a pedal cycle? Anyone?

 

[Deleted member 4366]

This is where it gets complicated because there's always exclusions. You're going to have difficulty getting them to pay out on your behalf if they know that you have a 250w bike and the law says 200w max.

 

[trex]

@tillson - Direct Line Home insurance, Hiscox Home insurance do not cover your public liabilities eg your dog bites someone. You'd need specific cover for third party liabilities if you cause an accident with your bike.

 

[tillson]

You're going to have difficulty getting them to pay out on your behalf if they know that you have a 250w bike and the law says 200w max.

That could be interesting. We all know what insurance companies are like and even though there is a desire not to prosecute, they will not be interested in that. Their question will be, is the bike legal or not? Until April, the answer has to be no.

I wonder how it will be viewed after April? Even though a "legal" ebike has all the easement in road traffic law which are given to a pedal cycle, will insurers view it in the same way? I don't think an ebike is a pedal cycle because a motor provides some of the motive force, its just that road traffic law treats the ebike as a pedal cycle. Insurers may not.

 

[flecc]

I don't think an ebike is a pedal cycle because a motor provides some of the motive force, its just that road traffic law treats the ebike as a pedal cycle. Insurers may not.

The EU law and UK Law both imply a legal pedelec is not a motor vehicle since they specify all motor vehicles are subject to type approval but that law does not apply to legal pedelecs. These they describe as pedal cycles with an auxilliary motor, and I think the term auxilliary is crucial. Therefore, although an insurance company might attempt to exploit what they regard as a loophole, a legal action claim against them I believe would succeed if they did specifically cover pedal cycles in the relevant policy.

I believe they could cover themselves in advance by specifying in their policy that it did not cover electrically assisted bicycles.
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[tillson]

@tillson - Direct Line Home insurance, Hiscox Home insurance do not cover your public liabilities eg your dog bites someone. You'd need specific cover for third party liabilities if you cause an accident with your bike.

I didn't know that some exclude liability. I'll be aware of that when renewing.Thanks for the tip.