WHEN is a bike not a bike? When it looks, drives, and performs like a scooter.
The story regarding the stolen, but now recovered, electric cycle that looks like a moped, highlighted how these machines don’t require the rider to pass any exam regarding the highway code, don’t require the rider to pass any eyesight tests, don’t require the rider to have insurance or registration plate, don’t require the rider to wear a helmet, don’t require the rider to have a serviceable machine ( ie MOT ), and don’t require the rider to have proper insurance – unlike all powered motor vehicles which are required to have all of the above by law.
The maximum speed of an electric bike is supposed to be 15.5 mph, but in my experience most are able to keep up with 30 mph traffic – and that with total inadequate braking systems.
I personally think a maximum , without pedalling, speed of 10 mph more than adequate and within the capacity of the braking systems fitted to most bikes.
These ‘electric’ bike riders are simply cocking a snook at the law-abiding motorist and the system as a whole.
D M Deamer,
Penleys Grove Street,
Monkgate,
York
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Be watchful for signs of modern slavery
ALONG with my colleagues in the York and North Yorkshire Modern Slavery Partnership, I welcome the news that there is a big campaign against county lines by the North Yorkshire Police Force.
However, your coverage only gives half the story.
Yes, it is very much about running drugs from urban centres to rural communities to extend the market for drug-related criminal gangs but you needed to focus also on the position of young people, often in their early teens.
They may be used as couriers actually carrying drugs by bus, train or car from cities to rural villages, used to distribute drugs through networks in rural areas and coerced to identify vulnerable people living alone in these communities whose houses are then taken over by the gangs as a base for their local distribution networks ( a process known as ‘cuckooing’).
This child exploitation – where the children effectively end up as captives of the gangs, much as girls have done in the many recent sex trafficking cases – is one of the fastest growing forms of modern slavery across the UK and requires not only collaboration between rural and urban police forces and local authorities but the diligence of local communities, parents, teachers and soon, who can often spot the signs of activity more rapidly than the police can.
Gary Craig,
Galtres Grove,
York
Recommended reading
Shut out Reform
MANY like myself will have reacted with dismay to the recent rise in the political success of far-right nationalists, culminating in the election of Trump in the US. Today, however, Canada struck the first blow for the resistance by electing a Liberal PM who is clearly prepared to stand up to the bully in the White House.
The UK has its own far-right party: one led by a man who openly supported Trump, a president who shows no loyalty to the long-term allies of the US and who seems hell bent on wrecking not just the UK’s economy, but the world economy.
Farage’s support of Trump, and his courting of Elon Musk for a big money donation, demonstrate what a threat he is to the UK’s national interest. Far from the patriotic stance he likes to portray himself in, Farage is happy to undermine the UK for his own political self-interest.
We in the UK can do our bit to help the fight back against the far-right by shunning Reform at the ballot box at every opportunity.
Cllr Tony Fisher,
Liberal Democrat councillor
Strensall ward, York
