E-bike users in Plymouth behaving badly may result in bylaw

Fast food deliveries could be made to use cycle lanes

The behaviour of food delivery drivers in Plymouth could the city council to  consider introducing rules to consider an accreditation scheme for e-bike users.

Because most e-bikes, in common with other cycles, don’t need to be registered, taxed or insured, and users don’t a licence to ride one, police claim there is little they can do to take action against anti-social riders.

Councillors want to encourage better behaviour but recognise the city’s fast food outlets use delivery services which provide employment to many people.

Chairman of the city council’s scrutiny management board John Stephens (Lab, Plymstock Dunstone) said residents and riders needed to co-exist better.

He said some food delivery drivers rode without lights and their conduct is “questionable”, posing a risk, particularly to the elderly, children and those people sensory problems.

The meeting also heard of an increase in young people with e-bikes, who ride  anti-socially and congregate in big groups which could be “quite intimidating”

The council’s street operations manager Emily Bullimore said it is hard to tell the delivery drivers from anyone else, as no-one wears ID. She believes the situation has reached “boiling point”.

The police inspector responsible for the city centre, Gregg Bridgett, said e-bikes with a power of 250 watts or which travel at 15.5 mph or less are classed as pedal cycles, preventing the police doing much apart from check roadworthiness and documentation.

However, they stopped 15 riders during an enforcement event, seizing seven of them.

Three special wel- lit zones with CCTV were created some years ago in the city centre for delivery riders and drivers to meet away from pedestrians, but since then the number of delivery drivers has increased, said the council’s head of service for community safety, Tracey Naismith.

Scrutiny board members agreed to work with city centre businesses to find out about any responsibilities they had for self-employed delivery drivers. They may consider an accreditation scheme to raise standards.

Councillors agreed to lobby MPs about introducing national legislation and training and will investigate a bylaw for the city centre.

Cllr Lee Finn (Con, Budshead) said public safety had to come before the economy.

“The whole criminal side is being put on the police, but we could help you,” he said. “We could have a bylaw in the city centre which says the riders should use cycle lanes and clearly set out the behaviour. It’s too late if someone is killed.”

Cabinet member for strategic planning and transport Cllr Mark Coker (Lab, Devonport) said work is going on nationally by different local authorities and the Local Government Association to look at best practice.

“We could look at who is doing what well and adapt some of it for us.

“We do not need to re-invent the wheel,” he said.