\u201cWe\u2019ve got members who are in their 70s and 80s, and so without access to an e-bike they\u2019ll probably drop off and not continue to ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
Beurle said members of her group had bought reputable e-bike brands, which often cost thousands of dollars and met European safety standards, whereas the string of house fires on record involved bikes with DIY conversion kits or low-quality imports, including those used in the food delivery industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo just to have a blanket ban, I think it\u2019s a knee-jerk reaction,\u201d Beurle said.<\/p>\n
Hussein Dia, a professor of future urban mobility\u202fat Swinburne University, said many commuters used e-scooters to get to and from train stations, which closed gaps in the public transport network.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think about the outer suburbs, where the bus comes around every 30 minutes, they can be a really helpful solution,\u201d he said of the scooters. \u201cIf they\u2019re not available, they\u2019ll use their polluting vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dia said a lithium battery fire on a train was a serious but unlikely event, and should be managed by enforcing quality standards on imported batteries and devices.<\/p>\n
Elliot Fishman, a director at consultancy firm Institute for Sensible Transport, said everyone was paying the price for the state and federal governments allowing the e-bike market to become a \u201cwild west\u201d, with no quality control on imports or police enforcement against riders using illegal high-powered models.<\/p>\n
Fishman said the state government had not collected enough data on how many people take e-bikes and e-scooters on trains to understand what the likelihood of a fire actually was, nor what impact the ban would have on Victorians\u2019 mobility.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a public consultation process [where] the answer is already known and they\u2019re merely going through the process, but not in a genuine way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
Public consultation<\/a> on the ban closes on August 18, just six weeks before it is set to come into effect.<\/p>\n A summary paper on the new regulations says a train fire is \u201ca serious safety issue because it may be difficult to evacuate passengers on a crowded service or where trains are in between stations\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cElectrical fires from these devices can start without warning, are extremely difficult to extinguish and quickly spread toxic smoke,\u201d the paper says.<\/p>\n Bicycle industry bodies say poor quality and dangerous e-bikes flooded into Australia in 2021 after the Morrison government revoked a permit system that forced importers to prove their e-bikes met world-leading European safety standards, did not exceed speeds of 25km\/h and didn\u2019t have a battery more powerful than 250 watts.<\/p>\n