Australia NSW motorised bike laws.

In Victoria, you cannot ride on a footpath if over 12 years of age.

Now hear this: i have just found out from a friend of mine (who is a Victorian Police Officer) that the Victorian motorized bicycle laws have changed: police in Victoria no longer need to "prove" that the engine is 200 watts or less. If the police officer "thinks" that the bicycle engine may be more than 200 watts, regardless if it has a manufacturers sticker or compliance plate, he can issue an infringement notice, and it is up to the owner to "prove" to the police and VicRoads that the engine is 200 watts or less, and they want full documentation from the person conducting the test.

This means we are completely screwed in Victoria, because the police can issue a ticket to "any" motorized bicycle, regardless if it has a manufacturers compliance plate of 200 watts.
 
I got pulled over again today.. They pulled me over due to lack of peddling. the officer said he was sitting behind me for about 5 minutes and for a full minute or so i didn't peddle lol

I had motorcycle helmet and so on and didn't get any fines which i find great.

So basically you have to peddle constantly if you want to avoid being pulled over. I was also told that i should get more lights, and bicycle indicators would be good. The other officer who was with him said get some lights for my tube valve so if i go for a night ride i stick out like DOG balls lol
 
I'm very disappointed this has happened to you, if you bike is legal then it's legal, if not then fair enough.

The having to prove it thing has also been amended into law in NSW.

The following hasn't been tested with a police officer yet, but it does capture the spirit of the law and should help differentiate you from stupid people who are intent on ruining this legal provision for the rest of us. Given that you possibly will have to go to court to try and resolve this I hope it is helpful to you.

Step 1: Use the following formula to calculate your bikes power output based on it's top speed on a flat level road with no wind. (because your bike has been limited by rock solid it's top speed I would assume would be between 25-32KPH so your result should be 200watts or less), online calculators exist to check you working if need be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance#Power_required

- 200watts is not that bad, this idea that the bike simply won't move with so little power and must be illegal if it is moving and you are not pedaling is BS, the power required curve is not linear! The laws of physics done lie! Push bikes are efficient machines! 200 watts is fairly typical of an adult turning the cranks manually and I assume why the value was chosen.

Step 2: Modify the bike to reduce its top speed until it is under 200watts if need be.

Step 3: Formulate and sign a declaration stating that your owner constructed pedal cycle with auxiliary assist engine is compliant to VSI 27 based on it's maximum design speed as per appendix 1.

- This is valid irrefutable mathematics based on the laws of physics, top speed and power output will always be linked if everything else remains equal.
- You may want to acknowledge the assumptions made in the formula and incorporate a 10% margin for error in your calculations, my bike is actually limited to 180watts just to be safe, maybe even more so if your running knobby tyres .

Step 4: Create appendix 1, with detailed calculations and possibly a graph showing the relationship between power required and speed.

I actually carry this documentation and some other artifacts detailing the bike, I have centered my documentation on conveying the idea to any police officer that I have done everything reasonable to act not only within the spirit of the law but the letter of the law as well.

In theory so long as your clocked at a speed less than your bikes maximum design speed you have proof on hand that it was outputting under 200watts at the time of the encounter.

It saddens me that this "you must prove it" amendment was made, what about innocent until proven guilty? It would have been so much more sensible to factor in a reasonable use directive. An engine size and speed restriction restriction would have been the right way to do it. Engine to big = fine, go to fast = fine much better.

Generally I think there is a misconception about the 200watt limit being so restrictive that any petrol power bike must be illegal, of course they must all be limited that has never changed. What happened in Queensland blew my mind, you must be some kind of retard to not be able to figure out that the point of the legislation is to ensure the engine doesn't not push the bike faster than what an average rider can do with out one. All those people lost the right to ride their bikes because of the unfounded bigoted ramblings of some so called "engineer" what an embarrassment to this country, reading the comments that moron made to the media made me sick. Humans have been riding bikes for a long time and many of us can achieve high average speeds say over about 27kph (or about 200 watts) on moderately long rides if we try. I have even been over taken by spandex on my bike.

Unfortunately sometimes you just can't win, I have had a very disappointing encounter with 2 NSW police officers on one occasion.

Like Fabian I to try to fly under the radar and mostly leave the engine off on residential streets or around the center of town. It's unfair that you can be 100% compliant with the law and still worry every time you pass a police car. So far I have been left alone, but I'm pretty paranoid and keep the speed right down unless I'm on a quiet road and even then don't exceed my bikes maximum design speed of just under 30kph.

If you are to continue riding now, if I was you I would be inclined to reinvent the bike a bit and tone it right down if you don't mind me making that observation. It shouldn't matter but it does :(

Best of luck with this issue, I sincerely hope that you beat this and can avoid paying the fines.
 
Going back to the discussion with a friend of mine who is a Victorian (Highway Patrol) Police Officer:

The law has changed: we do not need to prove anything. We can now issue an infringement notice if the bike has "any" kind of motor or engine on the bicycle because the onus is now on the operator to prove the bike is legal, even if it is legal. Proving so is no longer our problem - we can just issue a ticket under the "belief" that the bicycle engine/motor is illegal.

and,

If i see the bike moving without the pedals turning, it will be considered to be a motorcycle and all the relevant infringement laws will be issued against the rider, i.e. operating an unregistered motorcycle, driving whilst unlicensed, driving whilst suspended, driving an over specification bicycle, driving an unroadworthy motorcycle, manner dangerous (if riding on the footpath), and anything else in the book that can be thrown at a motorized bicycle operator.

All up, it works out to be around $6,000 worth of tickets.
 
Oh, and this is even more draconian in Victoria: A bicycle is now considered to have an engine/motor, even if the engine/motor is not a functional device.

This means that a small child (or adult) can have a plastic (non functional), toy replica engine attached to their bike and be riding on a downhill slope without pedaling and the bicycle can be considered by the police to be over specification because the bicycle is moving without the pedals turning, under the "belief" of the police officer that the engine is an over specification unit.
 
Far out I'll definitely make sure I pedal the whole time I didn't realise that was the reason why we should. Thanks for the tip :)

I have passed a few police and been left alone but the fastest I have been going is around 25Kph (recently they have been blitzing my area), I know the guy in Wollongong who got done was going over 40 so his bike must have genuinely been over 200watts and the guy in Maquarie fields I believe was accelerating up a hill (I think I had seen that bike a few times and fine with that case as even I was ****ed at how fast he was riding, btw that poor ******* was looking at 6 months jail for to many previous disqualifications, never heard the outcome of that one)

I didn't have a problem with those 2 cases but perhaps Adrian's case is much more worrying. :( It's the first time I have heard of a bike that is actually limited to 200watts getting fined, hopefully the way that bike looks is what screwed him. If it just comes down to an officers subjective judgment I can kind of understand why although it's still not ethical.

For me it's something that I look forward to on the weekends, it's not practical for me to ride mine to work anyway. Generally I get up early and go for a ride on the weekend now that the weather is warming up I can get up quite early and hit up some back roads with virtually zero traffic. I would hope my usage it's fairly low risk and at the end of the day if I do get hit with a big fine I'll remember all the fun I had, won't regret taking the risk and hopefully have a very strong case to bring to the tribunal. The stupid thing is if I could de-restrict my bike and register it as a moped that would be my preference. Restricted vs unrestricted are 2 very different bikes :)
 
Australia is no longer a land of the fair and free, with a plethora of laws and regulations designed to f#*k up your life over anything that is considered to be fun or recreational. In this country we are rapidly going downhill and becoming like Russia.
 
Going back to the discussion with a friend of mine who is a Victorian (Highway Patrol) Police Officer:

The law has changed: we do not need to prove anything. We can now issue an infringement notice if the bike has "any" kind of motor or engine on the bicycle because the onus is now on the operator to prove the bike is legal, even if it is legal. Proving so is no longer our problem - we can just issue a ticket under the "belief" that the bicycle engine/motor is illegal.

and,

If i see the bike moving without the pedals turning, it will be considered to be a motorcycle and all the relevant infringement laws will be issued against the rider, i.e. operating an unregistered motorcycle, driving whilst unlicensed, driving whilst suspended, driving an over specification bicycle, driving an unroadworthy motorcycle, manner dangerous (if riding on the footpath), and anything else in the book that can be thrown at a motorized bicycle operator.

All up, it works out to be around $6,000 worth of tickets.
and drive - ride whilst licence disqualified
very harsh penalties involved
Australia is no longer a land of the fair and free, with a plethora of laws and regulations designed to f#*k up your life over anything that is considered to be fun or recreational. In this country we are rapidly going downhill and becoming like Russia.
yes its looking like that now . sorry to say
 
Back
Top