Yes. For all Colin was saying about insurance companies not paying out or coming after you for riding an illegal bike, it applies to every one he's sold. They're all illegal at the moment, whether you have a dongle or not.
Totally legal rob, do you think with a name like KTM and Bosch / Shimano / panasonicwe'd have launched the eBikes into the UK in 2012 without a substantial risk assessment of our liability?
the blokes who company depends on not being sued to the max, in the event of an accident involving one of our bikes, who has actually done the research into it, with professional people.
So are you now saying there's a risk of being prosecuted for riding a KTM bike?
no, but I have actually researched and know what I'm talking about based on professional advice the people that "ACTUALLY" know. I suspect David is 'having an educated guess" which when it comes to legal matters isn't that sensible.
Have you not got life / health insurance for your mortgage, in case you can't work because of an accident or injury?
Rob... you're not even reading what I'm saying now.
Col,
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.
There is no risk of being charged, let alone prosecuted civilly or criminally - for riding a bike with a wattage between 200 and 250. If this is wrong and there is a risk, there is no risk of the prosecution succeeding. If this is wrong and there is a risk of it succeeding, you would enjoy a full defence. If you were sentenced it would be adjusted to zero for the fact that there wasn't a true crime, or even a risk-causing activity. The court wouldn't bother even issuing a sentence because a sentence implies moral culpability of which there is none here. There is so much principle on these points that it just is tiresome to go over it. If this is wrong and you wouldn't enjoy a full defence, or a full discharge, then you'd be granted an appeal, which you'd get full legal aid funding for an appeal and a referral to the Luxembourg court, which would probably be settled with case being dropped and a big apology from HMG before it went up, and if it went up they would hand down a ruling heavily in your favour (albeit confined to a statement on the law, not its application in this case). If this is wrong then the domestic courts would overturn the conviction in any case.
In fact no-one was likely to be successfully prosecuted for a long past period either:
That perhaps wasn't quite the case in this instance Jonathan. The 2002/24/EC Type Approval law was implemented correctly right on the six months deadline on 10th November 2003, that law having been issued to all member governments on 9th May 2003.
Good points, including about political embarrassment, but the source of it isn't limited to those facts - the police would have had top government lawyers advising that there was no chance of a successful holding that 250w was unlawful, because any such holding (as would only have been threatened against a private citizen if at all, would have ultimately required a successful argument in the Luxembourg court that the lower limit was a breach of the treaties on free movement of goods absolutely required for the protection of public health - per the Italian Trailers case. The lower limit would not meet the "least restrictive option" test and would be held to be an unjustified measure having equivalent effect to a restriction on the free movement of goods within the Union, I forget under which treaty article. I defer to what you're saying re the legislation ;this is the caselaw position (which is currently superior to all other forms of law in the Union as far as our courts are concerned anyway as the ECJ are under the treaties the ultimate authority on their interpretation, again I forget under which article).
The problem with your point is sustaining a claim of illegality (such as would be a precursor to establishing that an illegal act caused a loss) in a field covered by the treaties. Under the ECA 1972 s 2(1), any UK law in conflict with EU law must be set aside by the courts and substituted with the EU law position, affirmed in Factortame : until the ECA 1972 is expressly (not impliedly with incompatible legislation) repealed by Parliament, all EU law has precedence in the UK courts, and above all the EU caselaw. The UK courts are all capable of using the EU caselaw and treaty positions, indeed are obliged to, and this particular matter concerns such a trite piece of European law that it would never get as far as a complaint reference to Luxembourg (imo), the local UK court would just say the 250w matter wasn't in issue and proceed with an ordinary negligence claim as though the limit was 250w. Alternatively the court would just find that the breach of UK rules was not causative and that plain negligence would have caused the accident no matter what. I realise there are some major legal untidinesses here which you're right to highlight, d8veh, which are v well noticed, but UK courts are pragmatic and political creatures and have all sorts of powers and techniques for interpreting the law to do fair justice and avoid embarrassment. They don't do 'mechanistic' jurisprudence automatically, that's not their nature or duty.
