E-bike crash ruined my life - rules need to change

When 83-year-old Maureen Welch set off for her weekly aqua aerobics class in October, she had no idea that her life was about to drastically change.

As she stepped into the road at a pedestrian crossing in Lewisham, south-east London, a cyclist on a Lime bike failed to stop at the red light and hit her with full force, before riding away.

"All of a sudden this bike came in between the buses and went straight into me and knocked me over," she explains.

Maureen spent five weeks in hospital with a broken leg.

Still recovering, she now walks with a stick. Theres a commode in her living room until she can get a downstairs toilet, and wall rails have had to be fitted to help her move about.

"Its ruined my life," she says.

Maureens son-in-law, Italian celebrity chef Aldo Zilli, was among the first called, along with her daughter Nikki.

"It was absolute devastation," says Aldo.

"We are very close as a family. Maureen is a big part of our life, she helps with the business, we take her to Italy every year.

"We have had to adapt to a new life. I had to refuse work, Nicola my wife had to refuse work. Its been life-changing for the whole family."

"The fact that she was safe to cross the road and this happened, is unacceptable," Nicola says.

The Zilli family is now calling for tighter regulation of e-bikes.

"Me and my husband are both very keen cyclists," says Nicola.

"But there are no rules and regulations in place for these electric bikes. They can speed, jump red lights, use their mobile phones, swerve onto pavements.

"No-one is really taking responsibility for rules and regulations to be put into place."

Her husband agrees.

"I see it every day, people chucking them all over the pavement outside my restaurant in Kingsway," he says.

"Its atrocious. Im upset and I want to take it further to be honest. I want go and meet the mayor of London and speak to him about it."

But responsibility for managing dockless e-bikes in London, such as Lime, does not rest with the mayor of London, or any devolved mayor in England.

Some local councils have limited powers to manage designated no-parking zones and work with operators through voluntary agreements, but they can not regulate schemes; that falls to the Department of Transport.

A spokesperson for the mayor of London said: "The mayor and Transport for London continue to lobby government about the dangers of unregulated e-bikes.

"The government has announced plans to provide cities with the powers to manage dockless e-bikes, and improved safety should be at the centre of better regulation in the future."

The government is looking at ways of updating the decades-old cycling legislation, with new offences of causing death or serious injury by dangerous cycling to be debated soon in the forthcoming Crime and Policing Bill.

Mandatory sentences of five years for serious injury and life in prison for causing death are being proposed for those found guilty.

A Department for Transport spokesperson told the BBC: "Dangerous cycling is completely unacceptable, and the safety of our roads is a key priority for this government.

"Thats why the government is proposing new offences and penalties for dangerous cycling, updating legislation that is over 160 years old, to ensure that the tiny minority who recklessly disregard others face the full force of the law."

Personal injury solicitor Ronnie Hutcheon has written about the rise in the number of e-bike incidents in London.

He believes the law has fallen behind the technology.

"When the original legislation was being drafted, e-bikes werent invented," he said.

"What we have now is a debate about what constitutes a motorised vehicle in accordance with laws and in accordance with Motor Insurance Bureau scheme."

He has his own ideas about how this sort of collision might be prevented in the future.

"Maybe one way might be for the riders to undergo some sort of highway code training and proficiency test.

"But you can have all the tests in the world but if someone is inclined to fail to stop at a pedestrian crossing, then there is not a lot anyone can do."

The rise in the number of e-bike accidents is something trauma surgeons across London are also witnessing.

Jaison Patel, a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon at the Royal London Hospital, said he saw a lot of patients injured from the powered bikes.

"Theres definitely been a spike, we see quite frequently that people have e-bike injuries," he said.

Mr Patel added injuries were more severe when compared with conventional bikes.

"Were seeing things like broken collar bones, arm fractures, wrist fractures as people are falling awkwardly on their sides. Were also seeing head injuries - thats a life-changing injury for sure."

He added the majority of patients were users of e-bikes, rather than pedestrians.

Despite the trauma they cause, e-bikes were "good for London" Mr Patel added, but said they needed better regulations to make them safer.

He also said more needed to be done to maintain the bikes as he has had patients whose brakes had failed while others have used bikes where the wheels had not been aligned.

Mr Patel added that the British Orthopaedic association had begun collecting data from hospitals to monitor injuries from e-bikes, with a view to the data being used to inform regulations around e-bike use.

Maureen and the Zilli family have found getting in touch with the right department at Lime to be a frustrating experience.

Despite repeated attempts to contact Lime for information, the Metropolitan Police has also been unable to establish who was riding the bike at the time.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said officers were called to the incident in Molesworth Road at 11:15 BST on 2 October.

They said the pedestrian suffered "life-changing injuries" but "after extensive inquiries there was insufficient evidence to progress the case, and the investigation was filed".

A Lime spokesperson told the BBC that they were "deeply shocked and saddened" and that their thoughts were with the individual involved and her loved ones.

"The majority of Lime riders use our service responsibly and incidents like this are rare, however individual rider behaviour is not always within our control."

The spokesperson added: "Lime takes incidents of this nature very seriously and has well-established systems to help us work closely with the police.

"In this case, the incident was not reported via our dedicated law enforcement reporting portal, which exists to help us share customer data with the police in a way thats compliant with UK law.

"We will continue to work alongside law enforcement bodies in London to ensure these types of incidents are dealt with quickly and appropriately."

For Maureen, now 84, it will be a long road back to recovery.

She said she used to be a social butterfly, regularly out meeting friends and going to fitness classes, but now she is mainly confined to moving around slowly in the downstairs of her home.

"Its made me slow down. I used to go out on the buses and trains but I cant do that now.

"Im just trying to get my confidence back."

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