A man in BC who was fined for operating an electric scooter without a license or insurance lost a provincial supreme court ruling, despite the fact that the province’s insurer doesn’t insure ebikes!
Ali Moussa Ghadban argued in court that his Motorino XMr is a motor-assisted cycle — outfitted with pedals, limited power and a maximum speed of 32 km/h — and under B.C. law doesn’t require a driver’s licence or insurance to operate. But a judicial justice disagreed, and a B.C. Supreme Court judge recently upheld that decision.
“It’s frustrating,” said Ghadban’s lawyer in the case, Brandon Moscoe.
Ghadban had tried to to insure the Motorino at ICBC, Moscoe said, but the provincial insurer doesn’t offer coverage for that type of vehicle. In 2019, a man in Saanich, B.C., had the same fines dismissed for that reason.
Source: CBC
This guy went above and beyond, again he tried to get his ebike insured but was declined by the provincial insurer! Seems pretty ridiculous to me that the courts are penalizing this man when the infrastructure to ride the bike “legally” has not be set up. Sure new legislation is coming but how does one comply with the “laws” when they’re not defined yet?
At the end of the hearing, Const. Mike Christians, who issued Laine’s ticket, responded to the judge’s decision.
“My enforcement pattern likely will not change as a result of the court findings today,” he said.
Christians told the judge that motor-assisted cycles are “just electric scooters with … pedals attached that don’t actually do anything.”
“What part of this vehicle is a bicycle?” he said, adding he saw the bikes as an “attempt to bypass the law.”
Source: CBC
And that officer is an asshole. Obey the laws. even though what you need is not in place to obey the laws…
The Vancouver Police Department confirmed that a member of the Targeted Enforcement Team visited the Motorino store in Vancouver last week to advise staff about the change in legal status for some of its e-bikes.
The VPD visit puts into question what will happen to the thousands of people in B.C. who currently ride e-scooters without a licence or insurance. Miloshev says some of his Vancouver customers have started to tell him they’ve been fined hundreds of dollars for doing so.
and later in the article…
The VPD didn’t respond to questions about which specific models it now considers illegal, or if it has also advised other dealers and manufacturers of similar e-bike models of the change.
Source: CBC
Welcome to the world of gun ownership, what you buy today is legal and tomorrow it’s deemed illegal with no recourse! That and the authorities will not tell you which ones are illegal either, you use them at your peril and if it’s the wrong one (without you knowing), you get fined. At least the ebike owners are likely to be able to use their property again though with licensing and insurance required, I wonder how many of them would have bought said bikes if they knew these requirements were coming.
