I'm a newbie so Hi everyone, this is a great forum, been reading it for months and now my bike is humming like a supercharged sewing machine thanks to you'all.
Got pulled over by the police 2 days ago (Sydney Australia) they told me that there is now case law that sets a precedent.
They said that if you are traveling by the power of the motor alone and not pedaling then you're motor is 'deemed' to produce more power than the 200watt limit.
In the past police have been reluctant to get involved in motorized bicycle matters as the law was too difficult to prosecute.
I guess this new case law will make their job easier if they decide to hassle us people.
I totally agree with other members here - keep it low key and keep pedalling.
They gave me a buch of cautions and reckoned they could write me about six tickets but would only write me 2 on this occasion.
I was very co-operative (always a good idea) listened to all their cautions and acted bewildered like I didn't realise I was breaking any laws.
They ended up only giving me one ticket for not hand signaling in a merge lane.
What annoys me is where I was pulled over had 3 lanes of peak hour traffic merged into two lanes, then they blocked a lane to pull over a bicycle ?
Traffic was backed up for a mile and quite possibly could have created and accident, all so they could pull over a bicycle with a motor.
As I walked my bike home, a local resident approached me to tell me he had just called the local police station and complained that a police car was blocking all the traffic to pull over a bicycle rider. I thanked him.
The good news is they didn't pursue any action about the power output of my bike, perhaps they're frustrated with the laws and just want to harrass us.
Got pulled over by the police 2 days ago (Sydney Australia) they told me that there is now case law that sets a precedent.
They said that if you are traveling by the power of the motor alone and not pedaling then you're motor is 'deemed' to produce more power than the 200watt limit.
In the past police have been reluctant to get involved in motorized bicycle matters as the law was too difficult to prosecute.
I guess this new case law will make their job easier if they decide to hassle us people.
I totally agree with other members here - keep it low key and keep pedalling.
They gave me a buch of cautions and reckoned they could write me about six tickets but would only write me 2 on this occasion.
I was very co-operative (always a good idea) listened to all their cautions and acted bewildered like I didn't realise I was breaking any laws.
They ended up only giving me one ticket for not hand signaling in a merge lane.
What annoys me is where I was pulled over had 3 lanes of peak hour traffic merged into two lanes, then they blocked a lane to pull over a bicycle ?
Traffic was backed up for a mile and quite possibly could have created and accident, all so they could pull over a bicycle with a motor.
As I walked my bike home, a local resident approached me to tell me he had just called the local police station and complained that a police car was blocking all the traffic to pull over a bicycle rider. I thanked him.
The good news is they didn't pursue any action about the power output of my bike, perhaps they're frustrated with the laws and just want to harrass us.
