Waikato police say bicycles being fitted with petrol-powered engines are “very impressive, but very illegal”, and urged the public to report any they saw. <\/p>\n
In a post online, Morrinsville police initially wanted to highlight the dangers of bikes which had been fitted with petrol-powered engines, and were therefore illegal on New Zealand’s roads. <\/p>\n
After the post was put up, Acting Sergeant Ryan McKenzie from the Matamata-Piako Strategic Traffic Unit told 1News the creators had been identified as teens who hold a flair for engineering, but the bikes had not been seized yet.<\/p>\n
“If the young men were to take these bikes into an engineering firm to show what they could build, they\u2019d get hired quite quickly,” he said.<\/p>\n
McKenzie said he “respects the ingenuity from the teenage mechanics, but not at the cost of people\u2019s safety”. <\/p>\n
“The bikes are very impressive, but very illegal,” he added. <\/p>\n
These modifications could significantly alter the performance and handling of a bicycle and may mean the vehicle no longer meets the legal requirements to be used on public roads.<\/p>\n
Modified bicycles could also travel at higher speeds than a conventional bicycle and may not have the braking, steering, or other safety equipment required for that level of performance.<\/p>\n
Police said officers would seize these bikes if they witness or receive reports of dangerous driving, including riding on footpaths and not wearing helmets.<\/p>\n
In this case, McKenzie said police were giving the teens “a small grace period to dismantle the bikes back to their original state and cease using them”.<\/p>\n
“We also want to thank the members of public for helping us identify these bikes, because it’s made the streets safer.”<\/p>\n
Anyone with information regarding modified bicycles is encouraged to call 105. <\/p>\n
Under New Zealand law, you need to have a valid driver licence if the e-bike’s motor exceeds 300 watts, if the bike is capable of speeds over 50km\/h or if it doesn’t have pedals.<\/p>\n
In most cases, the bike also needed to be registered and have a warrant of fitness.<\/p>\n
Across the ditch police were describing high-powered electric bikes as a “major problem<\/a>“, and the Australian government has recently introduced powers to crush the bikes if seized<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Waikato police say bicycles being fitted with petrol-powered engines are “very impressive, but very illegal”, and urged the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,67,9001,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-588561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-hamilton-waikato","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}