5 mo. ago • 93%

Sorry Darin, not a grass

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16064759

Sorry Darin, not a grass

On some things the UK is progressive, on other issues, like sustainable transport, they see it as antisocial behaviour.

micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility @lemmy.world Sorry Darin, not a grass

33 comments

Cross-posting my comment from the other community:

I think what our mate Darin is referring to by “e-bikes” is throttle-operated, no need to pedal, capable of going 30-60mph electric motorbike which, like any other motorbike, you need a licence and protective gear to ride, and no, they’ve got no business being in the bike lane with people noodling along at 10-15mph, and definitely not on the pavement with pedestrians.

Unfortunately, Darin is an idiot who can’t string a sentence together and so he’s just told everyone that my electric assist pedal cycle, top assisted speed of 15.5mph, no need for a licence or insurance, is also illegal. Thanks, Darin.

This House of Commons briefing from 2019 lays out what the issues are with e-scooters, in that because they’re not legally classed as a bicycle, they have the same legal requirements as a motorbike, which is clearly nonsense for a scooter with a top speed of 15.5mph, however, the law has not yet caught up with reality. Since that briefing was written, various trials have started in cities with hired e-scooters provided by third parties to see how the law needs to be updated and what needs to change in order to make them legal on UK roads, but the trials seem to just keep getting extended with no conclusions drawn. As we’re currently in election purdah, nothing’s going to happen until July anyway, and I highly doubt that “sorting out e-scooter legality” will be top of the new government’s priority list.

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- Permanently Deleted
  
  5
  
  The trial is currently going on in Oxford and I think is going pretty well. The primary issue I've found is that the infrastructure just isn't good enough to keep up with this use, and so pedestrians, cyclists, and e-scooter riders are all uncomfortably close together considering their vastly different speeds.
  
  If we improve the infrastructure though, I think they're great.
  
  6
  
  Thanks. I've only been to York once that I can remember but I can see immediately why it failed. Something whizzing along silently in a crowded pedestrian area with narrow pavements so people will be stepping into the road without looking, is fairly obviously going to be a disaster.
  
  4
Is this a joke? Don't UK police have better things to do?

48
- Yes they do. That's why they're asking the general public to snitch on themselves.
  
  34
- The police has been underfunded and understaffed for decades as a result of Thatcherite economics treating public services as businesses and austerity policies, meaning the bar has got quite low for policing standards, making it a breeding ground for abusers with small amounts of power, all the while being too corrupt for any of them to do anything about it.
  
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Everyone be sure to keep an eye out for police cyclists, if it looks like their cycle has an electric bit on it be sure and report them to darin

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Seeing things like this where the public is asked for help in identifying their own friends and family, or community members, reminds me of something very similar.

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Just send them back the standard response I get back from the police based on any interaction I've experienced with them... Case closed due to insufficient evidence. Would you like to speak to a victim support officer?

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Fuck me the UK is so broken.

Why don't they put some effort towards legislating a transport strategy that works. At least London managed to see off the ULEZ protest vote... I would guess officer Darin probably thinks ULEZ is bullshit, what a narc

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- Because 14 years of Conservative government and a culture war against anything that doesn't contribute to traffic jams.
  
  27
  
  Conservatives campaigning about change and how they're going to fix the broken British state is completely ironic.
  
  19
OI! Where's your nonexistent e-bike loicense?

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Report the cops and their families

13
My analog bike isn't taxed either, so what are they going to do to me?

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- It doesn't require tax because it is not motorised, that is the cause of this issue
  
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  I'll bite. So cars use the road and because the road needs maintenance we pay a tax on the vehicle, registration, license etc bs. But a bike or just walking on the road would hardly do anything to the road. So taxation of the road use, where does it end? Let's say everyone gave up their cars and stopped paying taxes for the road, would that mean we all have to pay exactly what we used to pay for car worthy roads? Or maybe the roads get smaller for bicycle use? But how do you get big items around? Like a big rig bringing crates full of food to a store? Shouldn't taxes shift over to the food instead of the people traveling and minimally affecting the road? Surely, if the road degraded it would be because of truck traffic.
  
  0
  
  I'll bite. So cars use the road and because the road needs maintenance we pay a tax on the vehicle, registration, license etc bs. But a bike or just walking on the road would hardly do anything to the road. So taxation of the road use, where does it end? Let's say everyone gave up their cars and stopped paying taxes for the road, would that mean we all have to pay exactly what we used to pay for car worthy roads? Or maybe the roads get smaller for bicycle use? But how do you get big items around? Like a big rig bringing crates full of food to a store? Shouldn't taxes shift over to the food instead of the people traveling and minimally affecting the road? Surely, if the road degraded it would be because of truck traffic.
  
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Not all e-bikes are illegal to use on the public road, so Darin is also wrong.

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You can totally insure an e-bike. They're usually on the same product category that regular bikes, with a slightly higher cost if they have electrical and fire coverage.

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- If it's an illegal electric motorbike (which is what is being referred to here, electric assist pedal bikes aren't illegal), you can't insure it.
  
  6
What a bunch of fucks

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what an absolute cunt.

I dislike the things being left everywhere, but this is absolutely twatworthy

0
What is the UK progressive on exactly? The shithole is backwards as fuck compared to the rest of Western Europe and even US blue states.

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- We're basically coasting on the achievements of prior administrations. Unfortunately we've had 14 years of Conservative government, and the prior Labour one was the most neoliberal Labour administration there has ever been
  
  9
  
  I mean, coasting is not how I'd put it, sinking like a stone is more like it. NHS is collapsing, housing is utterly unaffordable, costs of living are skyrocketing, protests are banned, gender affirming care for young people is banned, it's a pretty horrid place to be right now.
  
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- and even US
  
  Haha yeah, but actually, no. They still have literally stalinist communist hellhole things like public health care, unemployment insurance and public transport, which, due to freedom™️, the US does not have to suffer from.
  
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  public health care
  
  If you wait 20 years for it
  
  unemployment insurance
  
  That doesn't actually allow one to afford anything
  
  public transport
  
  Apart from London it's largely non-functional and privatised to hell and back
  
  UK is a shithole, don't let the rose-tinted glasses for mild social policies in other countries in Europe fool you.
  
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