Editorial | Accelerate Hong Kong e-bikes law to boost public safety
- City crackdown on unauthorised mobility devices in rural districts and their growing use in urban areas calls for faster legislative action
A recent crackdown on increasingly popular electric bikes and other unauthorised mobility devices in the New Territories has again put the spotlight on road safety compliance. It also has revived concerns about how the time from innovation to regulation may stall the safe and effective adoption of new technologies.
The government should speed up its review of the issue to enable the use of devices without compromising personal and public safety.
In what is seen as the biggest operation of its kind in recent years, as many as 84 people were rounded up by police in just three days this month. About one-third of the devices seized were linked to the delivery of food.
Some parents were also found taking their children to and from school on electric bicycles.
Earlier, two high-profile arrests were made in Sheung Shui and Tin Shui Wai after images of two women carrying several children on electric bikes went viral on social media.