Yesterday a recommendation was issued by the European Commission, and if the proposal becomes law, then it will mean that all users of ebikes will have to get third-party insurance to ride on a road – even with bikes under the 25 km/h limit.

If the directive becomes a law, it would strike a huge economic blow for sustainable transport. Not only will it have huge implications on the millions of users of e-commuter bikes, quietly going about their daily commute with minimal environmental impact, but it will also affect eMTB users too. Imagine if you had to get insurance just to ride from your office to the trailhead for a lunchtime shred? We don’t want that!

The directive concerning ebikes is wrapped up in bigger proposal to amend the motor insurance directive that has stood since 2009, the focus of the proposal is to ensure that victims of motor vehicle accidents receive the full compensation they are due, even when the insurer is insolvent. The new directive ensures that all users of mechanised transport have sufficient third-party insurance, including ebikes.

Here is an excerpt from the new DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL amending Directive 2009/103/EC:

“The evaluation demonstrated that new types of motor vehicles, such as electric bikes (ebikes), segways, electric scooters etc, already fall within the scope of the Directive as interpreted by the Court of Justice in its case-law. The use of these new types of electric motor vehicles in traffic has the potential to cause accidents whose victims need to be protected and reimbursed swiftly.”

However, this is not as cut and dry as it seems, and each member state of the EU (who knows what will happen in the UK) has the potential to exempt ebikes from the proposal, though this would require a lot of legislation.

“As part of the public consultation various associations representing the electric bike industry argued that requiring third party liability insurance could undermine the uptake of ebikes. But the current Directive already provides 37 Member States with the power to exempt them from motor third party liability insurance. If Member States were to exempt them in this way, the national guarantee funds would bear the costs of reimbursing victims of accidents caused by these new types of vehicles.”

So if the member state is happy to bear the cost of compensating claims following an accident, ebikes can be exempted, hope yes, but hardly an appealing prospect for the legislators.

While this recommendation is still just that, and the European Parliament is yet to vote through the motion, this does pose some serious concerns to the future of the environmental and societal benefits of ebike commuting. Such a motion would also surely have huge impacts on the growth of eMTB sales too, where riders (when riding 25 km/h limited bikes) currently enjoy the same access and freedom as conventional bikes. You can rest assured that the industry and cycling groups will be lobbying hard to separate the classification of ebikes from motor vehicles. We will bring you more news and comment from the industry as the case develops. Stay tuned.

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