BROOKLYN PARK, Md. — An accident between a vehicle and a purported e-bike on Ritchie Highway in Brooklyn Park set the debate in motion.
“I told him I was calling the police, because he hit me,” said Zackary Brown, “I called them. I waited for them. An ambulance came. I got checked out in the ambulance and when I get out, the cop was waiting for me with like 10 tickets.”
Tickets for riding an unlicensed motor vehicle on the street despite Brown’s insistence that it was a Class II legal e-bike.
He showed us a video he took as he tried to explain it to the officers.
Here how experts describe Brown's e-bike
“See right there? MX650,” he explains in the footage, “It goes 18 miles per hour. It’s chain driven. It meets all the requirements of a Class II e-bike. It’s under 750 watts. I can show you the law.”
But Jay Robinson of Robinson Cycle in Calvert County spotted our story on line and immediately saw a few problems with Brown’s claim.
”When we first saw the video, we said, ‘Wait, the MX650. That’s considered a toy and it’s not for street use and this is one of the reasons why. It has foot pegs. Maryland law requires operable pedals for it to be considered a street legal e-bike. Also, this Razor has been modified.”
Robinson says someone switched out smaller batteries with one large one and added a high-powered, high-current control to make the bike travel faster.
Perhaps the most damning evidence of the so-called e-bike’s road unworthiness seems to come from the small print found on the bike itself.
“We noticed when the vehicle was towed it did have a sticker on the front fork that says not to be used on public roadways or sidewalks,” said Marc Limansky of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, “so it’s very clear to the individuals who purchase these things and operate them that these are not supposed to be used in that fashion.”
Police warn consumers to read advertisements for these types of vehicles carefully since they may promote them as Class II e-bikes even if they don’t meet that definition under the laws here in Maryland.
