Cars have ebikes handily beat. Same for motorcycles.
UK ebikes seem like kind of a sub-par transport for a criminal who needs to get away quickly now that I think about it... Aren't they limited to like 250 watts too?
Definitely not a conspiracy theory, but this comes coincidentally at the same time the UK considers breaking from EU requirement for pedals on ebikes lol.
I'm pretty sure that's just about using the pedals, as in having an ebike with a throttle won't be an issue (even though throttles are extremely common, mine is 250w + EU speed limit and has a half-twist throttle).
Not that the legislation is 100% unrelated, but I see it likely more of just accepting that people have been going faster for a while.
Yeah, my ebike (45lbs) isn't that hard to ride when powered off (and I am not the most in-shape). Reading the article, I also wonder if a bike could just be... turned back on (it's a thumb-accessible button, not a pull-start) if they are aware of this tech. It also seems likely there could be other ways to defeat this (like the bit about being line-of-sight).
Also it would almost be funny if criminals just rode an aerobike or something instead or perhaps even an ebike with all of the electronic bits stripped out (which would also lower the weight), I say almost because it would make this dumb backpack toy fully useless but then I imagine it causing other issues (like pacemakers) if they just keep blasting it out trying to get it to work.
Its all fun and games until they shut off some poor bystander’s pacemaker. Not that the police give a flying fuck about collateral damage at this point.
IMO, this seems like something that would show up as military surplus equipment in the USA and thus end up with municipal police forces without a care about the civil liberty implications, whether or not actually deployed. I’m surprised the UK is beating us at our own game.
That said, even on this side of the pond, police departments have – or should have – policies to intercept motorbikes, which are likely the most applicable to stopping ebikes. It’s hard for me to believe that only a technological solution is truly the most sensible option here than, say, designing roads so getaway vehicles simply can’t develop sufficient speed in urban areas to be dangerous or effective at evading authorities.
My go-to example of such passive safety features are those outside of major sports stadiums in the USA here: decorative concrete planters, giant letters that spell the city’s name, and plazas to congregate pre-game are all subtle, modern forms of bollards and defensible space. I cannot simultaneously believe we can build stadiums with passive safety to protect thousands of patrons, yet cannot build roads to stymie reckless, high speed getaways.
As an aside, this sounds somewhat like the TV license vans in the UK, the purported mobile detector for TVs in homes that haven’t paid the UK’s TV license fee. Although they sound plausible, no such vans have ever been truly demonstrated publicly, simply being a myth to convince people to pay the fee.
Oh, its far worse than that. None of that needs to happen. Mass surveillance will just track people anywhere they go and police will apprehend them when they have to sleep. The UK already has one of the largest surveillance networks of any country.
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