Use of electric bikes on roadways on Police radar

…Traffic Chief concerned about lack of laws, riders’ ignorance of traffic rules

The Traffic Department of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has expressed concern over persons, including minors, using electric bikes on the roadways.
According to Traffic Chief Dennis Stephens, not only is it dangerous to have underage persons riding electric bikes but there have been a lot of fatalities since this type of transport became popular in the country.
Electrical bikes are not registered by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), thus leaving their operation unchecked.
As such, Stephens said the GPF was currently engaging the GRA and the Legal Affairs Ministry, to seek advice on what could be done about the usage of electric bikes in Guyana.
“In many countries, those electric cycles are banned, and they are used for the purpose of industrial locations, to move to and fro in an industrial space. In Guyana, our laws do not cater to e-motorcycles. But we are looking at other countries to see what laws are in place so that we will be able to arrest the situation in Guyana.”
He said apart from the cycles not being registered, they have no insurance or fitness.
“Our laws do not cater for those cycles… our laws define what is a motorcycle and it defines a cycle as one with less than four wheels, with an unladen weight of 800 pounds and the e-cycle does not fall in that category. That is the reason why we have these challenges,” he said.
Moreover, he said most times when persons die in accidents involving electric cycles, investigations become difficult since the laws do not govern the use of such vehicles.
“What we observe – a lot of persons using these cycles are not au fait with the rules of the road…that is reasons why they make mistakes and it might lead to a loss of life or serious injuries as a result,” he explained.
In March of this year, former Police Commissioner(ag) Nigel Hoppie announced that the GPF and the GRA were in discussion on regularising the use of electric bikes on the country’s roadways.
He said this after concerns were raised over the usage of e-bikes, especially by young children, many of whom do not know traffic rules and laws. The use of e-bikes after their introduction onto the country’s roadways has received major backlash from many members of local law enforcement.
Assistant Superintendent Raun Clark, Officer-in-Charge of traffic in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), in November of 2021, slammed the use of e-bikes on public roadways. Clark said there was no law the Traffic Department could enforce against the users of those cycles as he raised concerns over the lack of age limit for their use.
Similarly, earlier this year, Divisional Traffic Officer of Division 4A – (Georgetown), Deputy Superintendent Timothy Williams contended that the use of E-bikes would require the creation of policies that would need to be strongly reinforced to cater to those citizens who traverse the roadways with the controversial E-bikes. (G9)