Street Ryderz
Well-Known Member
Yes I live and have been riding in various area's of Ontario for just over two decades now, it's not legal to ride them on the street is most cop's opinion but that's not really correct as the MTO and HTA both have a definition of a motorized bicycle.
That being said most cop's are unaware of this and may just try and give you fines and court dates for various infractions, even confiscate your bike. I have lost two bikes over the years to being confiscated from stubborn cop's not knowing the facts, both times was after moving to a new city/town and the cop's not being aware of the facts and had to make court appearances to drop the charge issued, in one case the judge dropped the initial charges and substituted other charges still leaving me with $800 in fines even though I pointed out that I was in fact not breaking any laws and they didn't care, this was in Hamilton and police there stopped me quite often but during the stop I would just tell them to look up on their computer to see that I had been charged with numerous offences under the HTA and them thinking that the bike is illegal but all were dropped/substituted for other stupid fines.
I lived and rode in Toronto with no issues, Peel region with no issues, and currently reside in Fort Erie where I have been stop by another unaware cop and told it's a motor vehicle and needs to be registered and insured and that I was looking at over 10k in fines, so now I keep the HTA/MTO definitions on my phone and show them they are wrong, which pisses some off and starts them looking for other infractions to apply, I request a supervisor at that point and point out they do not have the authority to change the definitions or written laws on their misunderstanding of them!
So really it comes down to where you are the police awareness and of course riding responsively, I always obey traffic laws and mostly get stopped for speeding which is the only law I don't really abide to when I think I can get away with it, my last stop here in Fort Erie the cop said I was flying and made an unsafe left hand turn, well I was towing a trailer returning home from the grocery store and was doing the speed limit while making the turn, the only person that was obstructed from my making the turn was the cop as he was trying to pull up behind me!
I have rode in Durham/ Vaughn with no issues but that was just passing through and in areas I'm unaware of the police outlook I just fake pedal when I see them, just yesterday I had to ride from Fort Erie to Welland and use secondary highway's at speeds of 50mph not many are used to seeing a bicycle maintaining those speeds, a saw cops twice and did my fake pedal thing without issue so just use common sense and you should be good!
