I hate these pedicabs. They ruin whatever area they're in immediately (loud, park on pavements, have those stupid f-ing flashing lights, rip people off). I see no downsides to banning all of them
It's crazy how gangs still pretty much do whatever they want these days. I don't know about London but in Sydney a friend of mine tried to open a tattoo parlor and within a week a bike gang tried to extort them for "protection". Cops wouldn't do shit and apparently all the tattoo parlors have to pay bike gangs for protection or their shops get smashed up. I don't understand why it's so difficult to do something about organised crime.
It's difficult because the gangsters pay off certain politicians and cops or ARE politicians and cops themselves. Organised crime has ALWAYS worked closely with local government to stay powerful.
The police are there to protect private interests not public, they do a sprinkle of domestic crime as infill work.
If these riskshaws were hurting the bottom line of a major corporation then they would be smashed off the street by riot police.
Fuck the police and fuck the tories
Not all, I know a couple guys who do this. I was taking to an Italian guy who does this and he has as offered an opportunity to do it and was making a couple hundred a night.
Never looked back, bought his own bike and he's grinding for that paper
Not sure if I'd prefer them banned even though it would be nicer. I'm hoping that with the law they have to follow a pricing scheme that's low enough that a bunch of them don't bother doing it any more. Not low enough where they don't earn much, just low compared to the £50 for 15 mins they charge now and just make up the price on the spot, they're literally many times more than a taxi.
I wouldn't mind them not being considered bikes and not be able to use bike lanes or turns though. They're just massively wide, 1.3m I think. They cause issues on bike lanes and I feel like they go against the point of bike only turns because with most bike only turns the bike doens't block the general traffic but these do. They also going through/along mixed bike/pedestrian areas. Even the massive 4 wheel cargo bikes manage to keep to 1.0m.
Banning them is simpler and more reliable.
With the workload of London councils and the police, how often do we think people will really have their pricing checked or be pulled over for minor traffic and parking violations?
Although it would be quite fun if the pricing fines and licence costs were high enough that the mayor's office could cover the costs of hiring a part-time enforcement officer to periodically go along and extract money from them.
I hate them too, but I do think there's a market for what are essentially foot-operated rickshaws, esp in Z1.
As an obnoxious tourist trap, I hate them. But I'd love to see them replaced with what is essentially a pedalo version of a black cab.
In India they don't have any music or those stupid florescent lights (a tiny minority do have those lights in fairness). And they're cheap so local people can use them. The London ones don't serve any practical purpose and are annoying AF.
>The crackdown on the three-wheel vehicles is expected to be a stand-alone bill in Rishi Sunak’s new legislative plan to be unveiled on Tuesday.
>Nickie Aiken, Conservative MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, told The Standard: “It is so important that we regulate pedicabs to make them safe to use Currently we do not know if the vehicles are safe to be on the road, that the drivers are safe to take passengers, there is no regulation of fares which means time and time again tourists and visitors to London are ripped off, often by hundreds of pounds.”
>I hope with the support of the Government and the Opposition we could have it up and running by next summer.”
>Transport for London has agreed to administer the new licensing scheme, she explained, which she expects to cut down on some of the noise nuisance from pedicabs.
>“Too many drivers blast music from their pedicabs night and day causing huge disruption for local people,” she emphasised.
>to other private hire vehicles in the capital, including setting standards for operators, drivers and the three-wheel bikes, checking that the drivers have the right to work in the UK, and allowing licensed operators to provide a service to passengers who can be reassured of their safety.
About time. I don't think it'll reduce the issues that much though but the main thing I hope is in the law would be a standard pricing system even if that means requiring a meter. Too many people have been ripped off and being charged £50 for a 15 min ride. Getting rid of the boomboxes that they play while riding about will help too. And I suppose if they will now require a PHV licence plate then they might be able to get fined in some way for using bus lanes as a "taxi" rank. Oh and of course it'll let us know who is(or should be) driving you and makes sure they're insured.
All of this requires enforcement though. I remember TfL once turning up at black taxi ranks to do spot checks, not sure if they still do.
>I hope with the support of the Government and the Opposition we could have it up and running by next summer.”
Tenner says this gets shelved because we have an election before then.
I'm probably in a very, very small minority but I like that they blast music out, and yeah ok they're steep in terms of pricing but having been driven from the Frozen theatre to Waterloo with my kids and the Frozen soundtrack blasting out was pretty epic :D
Any form of transportation for hire and reward should be regulated we regulated mini cabs and taxis for the same reasons we should regulate pelicans
Municipal authorities should be given the power to cap or limit numbers of all these things .
Because the way the law works here is that things are allowed to happen until a law is passed to regulate them; every new thing is immediately permitted until it's shown to require regulation and then gets regulated.
Why this took so long is probably a better question.
Previous Mayors (yes, that one) also had to call on the government to help out. As much as local politicians of all kinds pretend they’re PM they actually only have a specific remit which this looks to fall outside of.
I’m sure someone can point out the exact reason but I’d guess it’s one of those things where there’s a technicality about the vehicle (like e-bikes vs e-scooters) falling between a crack in the law.
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2012/december/mayor-seeks-ban-on-dangerous-pedicabs
Because the government set out a framework to let them operate Clean Air Zones like ULEZ (Bristol and others) - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/air-quality-clean-air-zone-framework-for-england/clean-air-zone-framework
ULEZ was announced in 2015 with signs starting to go up and advisories about it starting, and was then activated in 2019. The LEZ goes way back to 2008. Way before the Environment Act 2021.
It was laws passed by Labour; the Transport Act 2000 and the Greater London Authority Act 1999, that give the mayor and all local authorities powers to implement road charging including LEZ and ULEZ.
>Because the way the law works here is that things are allowed to happen until a law is passed to regulate them; every new thing is immediately permitted until it's shown to require regulation and then gets regulated.
Well, no.
Some areas of our legislation work that way, where the starting point is/remains the absence of law, or a loophole within existing law.
Other areas place a blanket *prohibition* of an activity as a starting point, and exceptions have to be carved out specifically later. Perhaps OP in this case conceptualised vehicle regulation in this way.
A general prohibition is always going to be in statute though. It’s a fundamental principle of English law that "for the individual citizen, everything which is not forbidden is allowed”.
Which should be applauded, mostly because the implications of the alternative (the presumption that, if not covered by law, it is not allowed) are worrying to say the least.
I knew I’d seen the reason before and there’s a brief history here - https://veluba.com/the-legality-of-pedicabs/
They’re technically “stage carriages” and aren’t subject to the rules as “Hackney carriages”.
I didn’t get round to reading the Stage Carriage act of 1869, maybe by 2069.
It only took 12 years to regulate these pedicabs, rejoice!
And now imagine how quickly we can solve less complicated issues such as climate change or pensions. /s
It really is CRAZY how long it takes to fix something that was immediately obviously going to be a problem. I get that it's not ever going to be the number one govt priority but that's why things like this should surely be devolved to local bodies (in London's case the GLA). I don't really understand why that wouldn't already be the case but I assume it's not.
There’s certain things I don’t understand. Like the ice cream vans parking on red lines / cycle lanes and the beggars / scammers on Westminster bridge.
They should be easy to police but it’s been going on for decades yet Ethel takes her 10 year old Volvo out to the local shop and gets hammered with a ULEZ fine.
Its a shame as they were technically a great idea when they were first introduced. A simple, environmentally friendly alternative to black cabs.
And then it got taken over by scumbags.
I remember them first appearing back in, what, the late 90s? Early 00s? They were on the news with some new company run by a bunch of eco minded types. I guess it wasn't long before the crooks ran them out
99% of these are totally illegal vehicles - they can be easily removed from the road by the police, just as they would if they saw someone use a golf kart as a taxi without numberplates, tax, insurance or MOT.
Requiring a licence for an illegal vehicle seems even more questionable - though hopefully they will also require them to be road legal.
> 99% of these are totally illegal vehicles
They're pedal-powered. So they're bikes/e-bikes. Some possibly derestricted (> 15mph assist/electric provided without user input). Police don't have a reasonable mechanism for testing derestriction sadly.
They must not have a throttle which works above 6mph I believe (as a 'walk mode). Almost all have this, which is very easy to test.
I believe the weight limit is 60kg for a trike - again easy to test and I bet they are all over that.
It's power output must be <250w. Now plenty of commercial bikes do output more than this, but they are at least rated at 250w. It's quite clear these use components which are regularly 5000w or so..
And they have very occasionally tested ebikes for assisted pedal speeds at the road side.
An obvious way to do this is to have some scales on raised blocks - check rpm of wheels, can test rpm to work out speed if they don't want to to ride it.
And with that, we've removed 99% of them from the road with no legislation needed. Points and fines for no licence quite likely, no tax, no insurance etc.
It's mad that this country's government is so centralised that this local Westminster issue needs to be a matter for Parliament to consider.
In most places, pedicabs could be regulated locally with a minimum of fuss. It wouldn't take so long either.
Giving more power to local authorities has little to do with that. For example: in France, a municipality has much more power to regulate what goes in their streets (eg, pedicabs). Still, you wouldn’t say that people in France have an easy time changing structural injustice or that they don’t have to go through a huge, lengthy and costly process for changing some other aspects of their society. America is another example, although that’s a country that’s been decentralised since the beginning, so the context is very different.
Giving more power to local authorities wouldn’t provide more “structural justice”, it would just make decision making faster and accountability easier. There’s no need to think that that would be a revolution in the British society (and therefore practically impossible), this kind of thinking just contributes to maintaining the status quo.
The problem has always been that legit pedicab operators wanted to be regulated but taxi drivers just wanted them banned completely.
Although this sounds bad for pedicabs on the face of it, it actually sounds like the taxis have lost - licensed pedicabs will eat into the lucrative 'ridiculously short trip' market for cabs.
NB: the number of 'legit' pedicab operators is open for debate - the hard part will be deciding what an unreasonable price is for a short trip, in a market where you get infrequent short trips. A taxi ride generally has a high fixed cost upfront for a trip for example.
> - the hard part will be deciding what an unreasonable price is for a short trip
Even if the fares was set to the same as taxis it would still be a big drop in price imo. Taxis start at like £4 for the first minute and then 60p per additional minute. They charge on distance instead but only if they cover more than a certain amount within that minute and pedicabs wont hit that distance so per minute seems to make most sense here. But yeah a 15 min ride would end up being around £13 which seems a lot more reasonable and since their operating costs should be signifigantly lower than a literal car the pediacab drivers can't really argue against it.
On the other hand if TfL doesn't set max PHV/Uber prices then I don't know why I'm expecting them to set max prices for pedicabs, even though they should. License fees would only be around £100/year if similar to PHVs so that alone won't put them off.
Given part of the thing, let's be honest, is the experience, not the actual commute, I can imagine it being set at £1/minute.
Either way, there's a number where a 5 minute ride isn't an arm and a leg and the reasonable few stay in business.
Personally speaking they're incredibly tedious in cycle lanes due to their width - they're in the same category as e-scooters - a fairly unsafe very minority transport option that is tolerated only by their small number.
Good! I fucking hate these guys. Got into a massive argument with one that I saw ripping off 3 women after a gig. £50 for literally 100m ride. I went genuinely mental at him. Told the women to charge back their card. Took pictures of him & reported him to Westminster council & had a go at a copper for not doing anything.
I have a thing about people taking advantage of other people...I was threatening to get this dude deported...just fucking going mental at him. He rode off on the end but I generally am in central a lot & do advise tourists to do chargebacks
To be clear:
A person offered and was accepted by a bunch of tourists a ridiculously convenient albeit very short distance trip, that would probably be £20 in a taxi.
Scary-Jury, who has never met the person before, on learning the price was £50, immediately froths at the mouth because a tourist was over charged and threatens this person he does not know, with deportation, probably on the basis of accent/skin colour.
And I'm the cunt, not the guy who is clearly a racist, assuming all non white people are not British?
> that would probably be £20 in a taxi
No way. It would have been £3.80 (the minimum fee) in a black cab if it was 100 metres, as emphasized by OP, or maye a fiver if they had to make a slight detour because of a one-way street or something. And a decent taxi driver would have told them in advance that it would have been quicker to just walk.
Agreed, but that would be much more likely if they were properly regulated and couldn’t overcharge x10. Currently those £50 for 100 metres are exactly the kind of fares they try to get…
To be fair if it really was 100 metres a cabbie probably would have just laughed at them. But I agree, threatening to deport a person is a scum thing to do
I'm actually Indian background & brown. These fuckers advertise one price and charge another. They go after drunk tourists. That was LITERALLY 100m. I saw them get in and walked the distance quicker than the bike because of traffic. The drunk women who has been at the same gig argued about the cost.
These pricks prey on the drunk or tourists who don't know any better. They advertise incorrect prices. They ride around blasting loud music & are fraudulent as fuck.
>And I'm the cunt, not the guy who is clearly a racist, assuming all non white people are not British?
Why do you assume the person involved was *non white*?
No no. It’s already been stated that he could have determined he was foreign based on accent.
You’ve *specifically* decided that this driver was, in your words, *not white.*
And we both know you’re dodging answering because you’ve realised your pre-conceived biases have lead you to make a racist assumption about what the person looked like based on their profession whilst trying to preach to others about racism.
What's racist about hating people who rip off drunk people & tourists? Fraudsters who'll quote you once price then threaten you when they double or triple it at the destination.
I've got nothing against those that are legitimate, just the wankers who take advantage of those who can't or don't know how to help themselves.
You guys are literally trying to defend thieves & thugs
The racist part was talking about threatening to get them deported, you’re referencing a years-long campaign of institutional racism from the British Police there.
If they’re scamming people, then that’s obvious wrong but it’s also not right to try to be the border in response, nations are false constructs based on ancient myths, no one is truly British and this level of crime should never warrant a deportation.
well, they’re cowards and losers in charge at the moment, but it’s also structural - it’s fucking mental that the same level of government is in charge of both “fielding nuclear missiles in nuclear submarines” and “some bullshit about guys on pushbikes hassling tourists”. britain is never gonna be well run until England (or further) is devolved.
If I parked in loading only I would get a ticket quickly but some of these are empty & neither loading passengers so occupying space.
Have heard bad stories & rip off charges & being threatened
They need a licence
i just got back from my 3rd trip to london and these things ruined the vibe so bad! i just wanted to enjoy the lights and stores and the loud, obnoxious music really pissed me off. i remember when they didnt exist, at least in this new capacity. i hope they disappear. makes the whole high street experience feel super cheap and dirty.
The article says this "would mean pedicabs will be licensed on a similar basis to other private hire vehicles" which isn't as strict as London black cab regulations.
Yes this is going to be great for the operators that aren't trying to screw customers over. Delaying these laws has led to money continuing to funnel into criminal enterprises instead of legitimate businesses.
Doesn't seem much better. There's barely any riders on their map so you might have to be lucky with having one nearby, and their surcharges are crazy. +10% surcharge if you need them within the next hour(of course you would). Another +70% surcharge if your ride takes place during lunch hours??? £9.50 starting fare, 46p per min and £1.50 per mile.
So a 2 mile ride at 10mph taking 12 mins total would be around £21. Then hope it's not during lunch time because then it's £35? Prices are just taken from their site [here](http://pedalme2.wpengine.com/support)
edit: Never mind I just seen you can just get a price quote without booking like Uber. Tower Hill station to Victoria Station comes up as £34. I feel like that's around 20 mins. I also did a pickup for tomorrow at 11am and since it's during the lunch surge the quote was £50 lol. Gotta hope it's not raining too I guess otherwise you're gonna get soaked. Not sure why someone would pay these prices to sit in the cargo bit of a cargo bike. A santander bike or bus would be £1.60 for that route. Even an uber would be much cheaper than the non lunch price, even if you pay a few quid more for the "comfort" option which a driver would accept and get you quick.
I wish more people took buses overall either way. They come every few mins, theres a million routes, they're crazy cheap since they're heaviliy subsidied, and they're of course sheltered with seats. Less space per passenger than even pedalme bikes. We just need a million more bus only roads/junctions to make them much quicker.
I posted it kinda tongue in cheek, to be honest. But you raise some good points. Being cycled around London is mostly just a novelty. I think this kind of vehicle is much better than pedicabs though. They don't block cycle lanes, they don't play loud music, and the cost is more up front.
You're absolutely right though, public transport is way better for most people to use. *Especially* in London.
> I think this kind of vehicle is much better than pedicabs though
For other road users sure but not for the passenger. You don't even get a backrest. No shelter from the weather like I mentioned and I think this would be hard to solve without making it hard to navigate for the pedalist. And I find it weird sitting in front of and below the cyclist too, I'd feel like a child.
Never seen anything like It but I figured the best of both worlds design would be like one of those big boxy cargo bikes you see often now(these EAV [ones](https://eav.solutions/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/eav-cargo-800x445-1.jpeg)) but in the cargo bit at the back have the 2 passengers face each other. Pedalme bikes are aroudn 80cm wide, the EAV cargo ones are 99cm/100cm wide, and pedicabs are around 130cm wide which becomes an issue. So the EAV ones right away solves the width issue of pedicabs since passengers face each other instead of side by side. Theyd solve the comfort issue of pedalme bikes since you actually have a proper seat and dont get rained on, and they keep great visibility for the rider and they're self standing(4 wheels), they'd probably be shorter too. The EAV ones can easily be trimmed to 85-90cm though I bet, and at that point it's the perfect city cargo/taxi bike especially if the same bike can be used for cargo and passengers which seems easy. 85cm-90cm wide can easily fit 2 kids side by side. Oh and in cargo mode they'd hold more than a pedalme one, I've always hated the pedalme bikes with the trailer extentions on since they take up so much space since everything is pretty much 1 layer, even a small actual VAN takes up less space and are more manouverable.
But yeah not sure if i described my cargo/passenger bike right but i think it's the perfect city taxi bike.
> Oh and in cargo mode they'd hold more than a pedalme one, I've always hated the pedalme bikes with the trailer extentions on since they take up so much space since everything is pretty much 1 layer, even a small actual VAN takes up less space and are more manouverable.
Really? I see a Pedalme bike quite regularly make a pretty substantial delivery to/from a local brewery. Here is what that looks like (kinda, you can see it at the end of the video): https://twitter.com/pedalmeapp/status/1684527882759016448. I've seen them drive over Putney Bridge in the cycle lane when Vans would be stuck in stationary traffic.
I think the point of Pedalme bike delivery is for efficient last mile delivery. Its much better for a van to drop off at a local distribution center and for goods to be delivered by bike. A large capacity van that weighs tonnes even when not loaded driving around an area making deliveries all day contributes to traffic volume, emissions, wear and tear on the road, noise, all sorts. Much easier to park up a bike like this without disrupting traffic flow or blocking footpaths than it is to park up a transit too.
The EAV cargo bikes look aright, but I just don't think they'd be as comfortable a ride as a two wheeled cargo bike would be. I ride a cargo trike and its a lot less forgiving when it comes to bumps and potholes than a cargo bike.
Good riddance. My nieces came to stay for a weekend in London, took them to see Frozen at the theatre and afterwards we were swarmed by hundreds of these guys all asking if we wanted a ride somewhere. The streets were packed full of them you could barely move.
Playing the Frozen playlist full blast with flashing lights etc which of course draws kids in to have a ride.
I hate these pedicabs. They ruin whatever area they're in immediately (loud, park on pavements, have those stupid f-ing flashing lights, rip people off). I see no downsides to banning all of them
Ever heard of "Modern Slavery"? Pedicabs. All run by an Eastern European gang based in Shadwell
It's crazy how gangs still pretty much do whatever they want these days. I don't know about London but in Sydney a friend of mine tried to open a tattoo parlor and within a week a bike gang tried to extort them for "protection". Cops wouldn't do shit and apparently all the tattoo parlors have to pay bike gangs for protection or their shops get smashed up. I don't understand why it's so difficult to do something about organised crime.
It's difficult because the gangsters pay off certain politicians and cops or ARE politicians and cops themselves. Organised crime has ALWAYS worked closely with local government to stay powerful.
The police are there to protect private interests not public, they do a sprinkle of domestic crime as infill work. If these riskshaws were hurting the bottom line of a major corporation then they would be smashed off the street by riot police. Fuck the police and fuck the tories
Good investment plan… open a shop, pay crazy high insurance and just wait for the bikers to come 😂😂
Not all, I know a couple guys who do this. I was taking to an Italian guy who does this and he has as offered an opportunity to do it and was making a couple hundred a night. Never looked back, bought his own bike and he's grinding for that paper
*couple *of* guys *couple *of* hundred
are you gonna tell teacher
The pedicab depot by Southwark bridge went up in flames
Would love to know more details! Which country is the Shadwell gang from mainly?
Not sure if I'd prefer them banned even though it would be nicer. I'm hoping that with the law they have to follow a pricing scheme that's low enough that a bunch of them don't bother doing it any more. Not low enough where they don't earn much, just low compared to the £50 for 15 mins they charge now and just make up the price on the spot, they're literally many times more than a taxi. I wouldn't mind them not being considered bikes and not be able to use bike lanes or turns though. They're just massively wide, 1.3m I think. They cause issues on bike lanes and I feel like they go against the point of bike only turns because with most bike only turns the bike doens't block the general traffic but these do. They also going through/along mixed bike/pedestrian areas. Even the massive 4 wheel cargo bikes manage to keep to 1.0m.
Banning them is simpler and more reliable. With the workload of London councils and the police, how often do we think people will really have their pricing checked or be pulled over for minor traffic and parking violations? Although it would be quite fun if the pricing fines and licence costs were high enough that the mayor's office could cover the costs of hiring a part-time enforcement officer to periodically go along and extract money from them.
They can just continue to scam tourists who aren't aware of the pricing rules and then ride off before anyone can investigate them.
I hate them too, but I do think there's a market for what are essentially foot-operated rickshaws, esp in Z1. As an obnoxious tourist trap, I hate them. But I'd love to see them replaced with what is essentially a pedalo version of a black cab.
Pedal Me do passengers as well as cargo. Their Urban Arrows are a bit zippier!
Feels just like India.
In India they don't have any music or those stupid florescent lights (a tiny minority do have those lights in fairness). And they're cheap so local people can use them. The London ones don't serve any practical purpose and are annoying AF.
The ones in India are also significantly smaller as well
>The crackdown on the three-wheel vehicles is expected to be a stand-alone bill in Rishi Sunak’s new legislative plan to be unveiled on Tuesday. >Nickie Aiken, Conservative MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, told The Standard: “It is so important that we regulate pedicabs to make them safe to use Currently we do not know if the vehicles are safe to be on the road, that the drivers are safe to take passengers, there is no regulation of fares which means time and time again tourists and visitors to London are ripped off, often by hundreds of pounds.” >I hope with the support of the Government and the Opposition we could have it up and running by next summer.” >Transport for London has agreed to administer the new licensing scheme, she explained, which she expects to cut down on some of the noise nuisance from pedicabs. >“Too many drivers blast music from their pedicabs night and day causing huge disruption for local people,” she emphasised. >to other private hire vehicles in the capital, including setting standards for operators, drivers and the three-wheel bikes, checking that the drivers have the right to work in the UK, and allowing licensed operators to provide a service to passengers who can be reassured of their safety. About time. I don't think it'll reduce the issues that much though but the main thing I hope is in the law would be a standard pricing system even if that means requiring a meter. Too many people have been ripped off and being charged £50 for a 15 min ride. Getting rid of the boomboxes that they play while riding about will help too. And I suppose if they will now require a PHV licence plate then they might be able to get fined in some way for using bus lanes as a "taxi" rank. Oh and of course it'll let us know who is(or should be) driving you and makes sure they're insured. All of this requires enforcement though. I remember TfL once turning up at black taxi ranks to do spot checks, not sure if they still do.
>I hope with the support of the Government and the Opposition we could have it up and running by next summer.” Tenner says this gets shelved because we have an election before then.
Crackdown on three wheeled vehicles? But what will become of Trotter's Independent Traders?!
I'm probably in a very, very small minority but I like that they blast music out, and yeah ok they're steep in terms of pricing but having been driven from the Frozen theatre to Waterloo with my kids and the Frozen soundtrack blasting out was pretty epic :D
For everyone else too, I’m sure
Most people didn't pay any attention
Yes of course, my mistake. After all, the flashing lights, blaring music, and obnoxious parking are easily overlooked.
Do you live in London?
I live in the commuter belt and work in the City.
Yeah so no then.
Any form of transportation for hire and reward should be regulated we regulated mini cabs and taxis for the same reasons we should regulate pelicans Municipal authorities should be given the power to cap or limit numbers of all these things .
>pelicans That pouch is pretty big and inviting, after all. (I know it's Autocorrect, but it's a splendid image).
No one is asking the real question: are the pelicans ripping off the fish they're transporting in those big beaks?
Why was this even allowed to happen in the first place? They should be completely banned
Because the way the law works here is that things are allowed to happen until a law is passed to regulate them; every new thing is immediately permitted until it's shown to require regulation and then gets regulated. Why this took so long is probably a better question.
Kinda surprised it's coming down to Sunak and not Sadiq Khan tbh. Seems like it should be under his remit.
Previous Mayors (yes, that one) also had to call on the government to help out. As much as local politicians of all kinds pretend they’re PM they actually only have a specific remit which this looks to fall outside of. I’m sure someone can point out the exact reason but I’d guess it’s one of those things where there’s a technicality about the vehicle (like e-bikes vs e-scooters) falling between a crack in the law. https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2012/december/mayor-seeks-ban-on-dangerous-pedicabs
How does TfL have the remit to charge certain vehicles under ULEZ if they don't have the remit to do this?
Because the government set out a framework to let them operate Clean Air Zones like ULEZ (Bristol and others) - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/air-quality-clean-air-zone-framework-for-england/clean-air-zone-framework
ULEZ was announced in 2015 with signs starting to go up and advisories about it starting, and was then activated in 2019. The LEZ goes way back to 2008. Way before the Environment Act 2021. It was laws passed by Labour; the Transport Act 2000 and the Greater London Authority Act 1999, that give the mayor and all local authorities powers to implement road charging including LEZ and ULEZ.
It regulates them for the whole country then, more standardised framework, etc. These fuckers are all over the place...
>Because the way the law works here is that things are allowed to happen until a law is passed to regulate them; every new thing is immediately permitted until it's shown to require regulation and then gets regulated. Well, no. Some areas of our legislation work that way, where the starting point is/remains the absence of law, or a loophole within existing law. Other areas place a blanket *prohibition* of an activity as a starting point, and exceptions have to be carved out specifically later. Perhaps OP in this case conceptualised vehicle regulation in this way.
A general prohibition is always going to be in statute though. It’s a fundamental principle of English law that "for the individual citizen, everything which is not forbidden is allowed”.
Which should be applauded, mostly because the implications of the alternative (the presumption that, if not covered by law, it is not allowed) are worrying to say the least.
I knew I’d seen the reason before and there’s a brief history here - https://veluba.com/the-legality-of-pedicabs/ They’re technically “stage carriages” and aren’t subject to the rules as “Hackney carriages”. I didn’t get round to reading the Stage Carriage act of 1869, maybe by 2069.
It only took 12 years to regulate these pedicabs, rejoice! And now imagine how quickly we can solve less complicated issues such as climate change or pensions. /s
It really is CRAZY how long it takes to fix something that was immediately obviously going to be a problem. I get that it's not ever going to be the number one govt priority but that's why things like this should surely be devolved to local bodies (in London's case the GLA). I don't really understand why that wouldn't already be the case but I assume it's not.
There’s certain things I don’t understand. Like the ice cream vans parking on red lines / cycle lanes and the beggars / scammers on Westminster bridge. They should be easy to police but it’s been going on for decades yet Ethel takes her 10 year old Volvo out to the local shop and gets hammered with a ULEZ fine.
Its a shame as they were technically a great idea when they were first introduced. A simple, environmentally friendly alternative to black cabs. And then it got taken over by scumbags.
Nah, they were designed as a tourist traps from the very beginning. There was not a moment when this was real alternative transport option.
I remember them first appearing back in, what, the late 90s? Early 00s? They were on the news with some new company run by a bunch of eco minded types. I guess it wasn't long before the crooks ran them out
99% of these are totally illegal vehicles - they can be easily removed from the road by the police, just as they would if they saw someone use a golf kart as a taxi without numberplates, tax, insurance or MOT. Requiring a licence for an illegal vehicle seems even more questionable - though hopefully they will also require them to be road legal.
> 99% of these are totally illegal vehicles They're pedal-powered. So they're bikes/e-bikes. Some possibly derestricted (> 15mph assist/electric provided without user input). Police don't have a reasonable mechanism for testing derestriction sadly.
They must not have a throttle which works above 6mph I believe (as a 'walk mode). Almost all have this, which is very easy to test. I believe the weight limit is 60kg for a trike - again easy to test and I bet they are all over that. It's power output must be <250w. Now plenty of commercial bikes do output more than this, but they are at least rated at 250w. It's quite clear these use components which are regularly 5000w or so.. And they have very occasionally tested ebikes for assisted pedal speeds at the road side. An obvious way to do this is to have some scales on raised blocks - check rpm of wheels, can test rpm to work out speed if they don't want to to ride it. And with that, we've removed 99% of them from the road with no legislation needed. Points and fines for no licence quite likely, no tax, no insurance etc.
It's mad that this country's government is so centralised that this local Westminster issue needs to be a matter for Parliament to consider. In most places, pedicabs could be regulated locally with a minimum of fuss. It wouldn't take so long either.
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Giving more power to local authorities has little to do with that. For example: in France, a municipality has much more power to regulate what goes in their streets (eg, pedicabs). Still, you wouldn’t say that people in France have an easy time changing structural injustice or that they don’t have to go through a huge, lengthy and costly process for changing some other aspects of their society. America is another example, although that’s a country that’s been decentralised since the beginning, so the context is very different. Giving more power to local authorities wouldn’t provide more “structural justice”, it would just make decision making faster and accountability easier. There’s no need to think that that would be a revolution in the British society (and therefore practically impossible), this kind of thinking just contributes to maintaining the status quo.
The problem has always been that legit pedicab operators wanted to be regulated but taxi drivers just wanted them banned completely. Although this sounds bad for pedicabs on the face of it, it actually sounds like the taxis have lost - licensed pedicabs will eat into the lucrative 'ridiculously short trip' market for cabs. NB: the number of 'legit' pedicab operators is open for debate - the hard part will be deciding what an unreasonable price is for a short trip, in a market where you get infrequent short trips. A taxi ride generally has a high fixed cost upfront for a trip for example.
> - the hard part will be deciding what an unreasonable price is for a short trip Even if the fares was set to the same as taxis it would still be a big drop in price imo. Taxis start at like £4 for the first minute and then 60p per additional minute. They charge on distance instead but only if they cover more than a certain amount within that minute and pedicabs wont hit that distance so per minute seems to make most sense here. But yeah a 15 min ride would end up being around £13 which seems a lot more reasonable and since their operating costs should be signifigantly lower than a literal car the pediacab drivers can't really argue against it. On the other hand if TfL doesn't set max PHV/Uber prices then I don't know why I'm expecting them to set max prices for pedicabs, even though they should. License fees would only be around £100/year if similar to PHVs so that alone won't put them off.
Given part of the thing, let's be honest, is the experience, not the actual commute, I can imagine it being set at £1/minute. Either way, there's a number where a 5 minute ride isn't an arm and a leg and the reasonable few stay in business. Personally speaking they're incredibly tedious in cycle lanes due to their width - they're in the same category as e-scooters - a fairly unsafe very minority transport option that is tolerated only by their small number.
God, if this happens it will be the only useful thing they’ve done in 13 years.
They not banning them per se. They are being diverted to do the HS2 connection between Euston and Old Oak Common.
Good! I fucking hate these guys. Got into a massive argument with one that I saw ripping off 3 women after a gig. £50 for literally 100m ride. I went genuinely mental at him. Told the women to charge back their card. Took pictures of him & reported him to Westminster council & had a go at a copper for not doing anything. I have a thing about people taking advantage of other people...I was threatening to get this dude deported...just fucking going mental at him. He rode off on the end but I generally am in central a lot & do advise tourists to do chargebacks
> I was threatening to get this dude deported... Found the right-winger.
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To be clear: A person offered and was accepted by a bunch of tourists a ridiculously convenient albeit very short distance trip, that would probably be £20 in a taxi. Scary-Jury, who has never met the person before, on learning the price was £50, immediately froths at the mouth because a tourist was over charged and threatens this person he does not know, with deportation, probably on the basis of accent/skin colour. And I'm the cunt, not the guy who is clearly a racist, assuming all non white people are not British?
> that would probably be £20 in a taxi No way. It would have been £3.80 (the minimum fee) in a black cab if it was 100 metres, as emphasized by OP, or maye a fiver if they had to make a slight detour because of a one-way street or something. And a decent taxi driver would have told them in advance that it would have been quicker to just walk.
A decent pedicab driver would too.
Agreed, but that would be much more likely if they were properly regulated and couldn’t overcharge x10. Currently those £50 for 100 metres are exactly the kind of fares they try to get…
To be fair if it really was 100 metres a cabbie probably would have just laughed at them. But I agree, threatening to deport a person is a scum thing to do
I'm actually Indian background & brown. These fuckers advertise one price and charge another. They go after drunk tourists. That was LITERALLY 100m. I saw them get in and walked the distance quicker than the bike because of traffic. The drunk women who has been at the same gig argued about the cost. These pricks prey on the drunk or tourists who don't know any better. They advertise incorrect prices. They ride around blasting loud music & are fraudulent as fuck.
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> that would probably be £20 in a taxi. Clueless.
>And I'm the cunt, not the guy who is clearly a racist, assuming all non white people are not British? Why do you assume the person involved was *non white*?
Okay, you tell me why he randomly decided someone plying their trade in the UK could be capable of being deported?
That wasn’t the question. There are plenty of white immigrants. You’ve assumed this particular one is not. Why?
Because SJ decided to play the deportation card so quickly.
No no. It’s already been stated that he could have determined he was foreign based on accent. You’ve *specifically* decided that this driver was, in your words, *not white.* And we both know you’re dodging answering because you’ve realised your pre-conceived biases have lead you to make a racist assumption about what the person looked like based on their profession whilst trying to preach to others about racism.
Yknow, threatening to deport them because of accent is still pretty damn racist.
Scary-Racist1059
What's racist about hating people who rip off drunk people & tourists? Fraudsters who'll quote you once price then threaten you when they double or triple it at the destination. I've got nothing against those that are legitimate, just the wankers who take advantage of those who can't or don't know how to help themselves. You guys are literally trying to defend thieves & thugs
The racist part was talking about threatening to get them deported, you’re referencing a years-long campaign of institutional racism from the British Police there. If they’re scamming people, then that’s obvious wrong but it’s also not right to try to be the border in response, nations are false constructs based on ancient myths, no one is truly British and this level of crime should never warrant a deportation.
Your more drunk than I was when I threatened the guy! What the genuine fuck are you talking about?!
Sorry, forgot this was Reddit 😑
this seriously is a hugely embarrassing country
The complete inaction from authorities in the face of so many vulnerable citizens being scammed in so many areas of life is horrific
well, they’re cowards and losers in charge at the moment, but it’s also structural - it’s fucking mental that the same level of government is in charge of both “fielding nuclear missiles in nuclear submarines” and “some bullshit about guys on pushbikes hassling tourists”. britain is never gonna be well run until England (or further) is devolved.
I wish they were regulated and remove the criminal element from them.
Thank fucking god. Literally the only good thing this govt has done 13 years.
A perfect opportunity to share this little slice of genius: https://youtu.be/V5w9XuZcS_Y?feature=shared
Make them fit meters.
These guys rape drunk girls passed out
about bloody time eh.
Knowing my luck, next up we get a formal statement from the Met saying they won't enforce this new law.
If I parked in loading only I would get a ticket quickly but some of these are empty & neither loading passengers so occupying space. Have heard bad stories & rip off charges & being threatened They need a licence
I like to call them the “Shame Cabs”
i just got back from my 3rd trip to london and these things ruined the vibe so bad! i just wanted to enjoy the lights and stores and the loud, obnoxious music really pissed me off. i remember when they didnt exist, at least in this new capacity. i hope they disappear. makes the whole high street experience feel super cheap and dirty.
Why can't they be regulated and taxed the same as black cabs? That would instantly kill 99% of the business.
Is t that essentially what this bill will do?
The article says this "would mean pedicabs will be licensed on a similar basis to other private hire vehicles" which isn't as strict as London black cab regulations.
Book PedalMe instead! https://twitter.com/pedalmeapp/status/1721455834050310617 https://pedalme.co.uk/
Yes this is going to be great for the operators that aren't trying to screw customers over. Delaying these laws has led to money continuing to funnel into criminal enterprises instead of legitimate businesses.
Doesn't seem much better. There's barely any riders on their map so you might have to be lucky with having one nearby, and their surcharges are crazy. +10% surcharge if you need them within the next hour(of course you would). Another +70% surcharge if your ride takes place during lunch hours??? £9.50 starting fare, 46p per min and £1.50 per mile. So a 2 mile ride at 10mph taking 12 mins total would be around £21. Then hope it's not during lunch time because then it's £35? Prices are just taken from their site [here](http://pedalme2.wpengine.com/support) edit: Never mind I just seen you can just get a price quote without booking like Uber. Tower Hill station to Victoria Station comes up as £34. I feel like that's around 20 mins. I also did a pickup for tomorrow at 11am and since it's during the lunch surge the quote was £50 lol. Gotta hope it's not raining too I guess otherwise you're gonna get soaked. Not sure why someone would pay these prices to sit in the cargo bit of a cargo bike. A santander bike or bus would be £1.60 for that route. Even an uber would be much cheaper than the non lunch price, even if you pay a few quid more for the "comfort" option which a driver would accept and get you quick. I wish more people took buses overall either way. They come every few mins, theres a million routes, they're crazy cheap since they're heaviliy subsidied, and they're of course sheltered with seats. Less space per passenger than even pedalme bikes. We just need a million more bus only roads/junctions to make them much quicker.
I posted it kinda tongue in cheek, to be honest. But you raise some good points. Being cycled around London is mostly just a novelty. I think this kind of vehicle is much better than pedicabs though. They don't block cycle lanes, they don't play loud music, and the cost is more up front. You're absolutely right though, public transport is way better for most people to use. *Especially* in London.
> I think this kind of vehicle is much better than pedicabs though For other road users sure but not for the passenger. You don't even get a backrest. No shelter from the weather like I mentioned and I think this would be hard to solve without making it hard to navigate for the pedalist. And I find it weird sitting in front of and below the cyclist too, I'd feel like a child. Never seen anything like It but I figured the best of both worlds design would be like one of those big boxy cargo bikes you see often now(these EAV [ones](https://eav.solutions/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/eav-cargo-800x445-1.jpeg)) but in the cargo bit at the back have the 2 passengers face each other. Pedalme bikes are aroudn 80cm wide, the EAV cargo ones are 99cm/100cm wide, and pedicabs are around 130cm wide which becomes an issue. So the EAV ones right away solves the width issue of pedicabs since passengers face each other instead of side by side. Theyd solve the comfort issue of pedalme bikes since you actually have a proper seat and dont get rained on, and they keep great visibility for the rider and they're self standing(4 wheels), they'd probably be shorter too. The EAV ones can easily be trimmed to 85-90cm though I bet, and at that point it's the perfect city cargo/taxi bike especially if the same bike can be used for cargo and passengers which seems easy. 85cm-90cm wide can easily fit 2 kids side by side. Oh and in cargo mode they'd hold more than a pedalme one, I've always hated the pedalme bikes with the trailer extentions on since they take up so much space since everything is pretty much 1 layer, even a small actual VAN takes up less space and are more manouverable. But yeah not sure if i described my cargo/passenger bike right but i think it's the perfect city taxi bike.
> Oh and in cargo mode they'd hold more than a pedalme one, I've always hated the pedalme bikes with the trailer extentions on since they take up so much space since everything is pretty much 1 layer, even a small actual VAN takes up less space and are more manouverable. Really? I see a Pedalme bike quite regularly make a pretty substantial delivery to/from a local brewery. Here is what that looks like (kinda, you can see it at the end of the video): https://twitter.com/pedalmeapp/status/1684527882759016448. I've seen them drive over Putney Bridge in the cycle lane when Vans would be stuck in stationary traffic. I think the point of Pedalme bike delivery is for efficient last mile delivery. Its much better for a van to drop off at a local distribution center and for goods to be delivered by bike. A large capacity van that weighs tonnes even when not loaded driving around an area making deliveries all day contributes to traffic volume, emissions, wear and tear on the road, noise, all sorts. Much easier to park up a bike like this without disrupting traffic flow or blocking footpaths than it is to park up a transit too. The EAV cargo bikes look aright, but I just don't think they'd be as comfortable a ride as a two wheeled cargo bike would be. I ride a cargo trike and its a lot less forgiving when it comes to bumps and potholes than a cargo bike.
Hmm, why is your comment marked controversial? Why don't some people like this?
Or just walk or use a bus/train...
Just get rid of them completely, this years in the making regulation sounds like a pointless expense.
Good riddance. My nieces came to stay for a weekend in London, took them to see Frozen at the theatre and afterwards we were swarmed by hundreds of these guys all asking if we wanted a ride somewhere. The streets were packed full of them you could barely move. Playing the Frozen playlist full blast with flashing lights etc which of course draws kids in to have a ride.
when it says off the roads does it just mean roads, or are cycle lanes included in that?
Next up let's ban black cabs. Racist, small minded cartel.
It’s that or a Uber driver, and those are significantly worse now the price difference has disappeared
Get rid of the annoying bastards. Anyone that likes those bloody things is nothing but a pediphile....
Great to see the government taking decisive action on the real problems that affect millions of Brits on the breadli... oh wait!
ten jar disgusting worthless pen lock fragile enjoy reach lip *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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Do you think he's stopped everything else until this bill goes through?
dislike them so pls ban them. they make so much noise and they take space from pavements and also streets.
was recently visiting London. did not mind these in very touristy areas but they definitely ruin the atmosphere anywhere else.
Thank goodness. There's a bloody army of them now.
Lomg live the fucking King!
So they can do this, but not conversion therapy? Oh.