Market monitors, security officials must take steps to end e-bike menace

The management of electric bikes is becoming increasingly challenging for city administrators in the country given the rising number of such two-wheelers. Statistics show there were more than 350 million electric bikes in the country by the end of last year, averaging one e-bike for every four Chinese nationals. Big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have more than 5 million e-bikes each.

While e-bikes have become a lifeline for delivery people and made commuting more convenient for people, they are also mainly responsible for the increasing road accidents. According to an investigation by Guangzhou hospitals, between 60 and 70 percent of serious injuries from traffic accidents involve e-bikes. And in Jiangsu province, accidents involving e-bikes make up 70 percent of the total traffic accidents. Nationally, traffic accidents involving e-bikes have increased by more than 8 percent per year on average over the past decade.

While the increasing number of e-bikes can largely be blamed for the increase in traffic accidents — more than 40 million e-bikes are sold every year — e-bike owners' illegal retrofitting of devices in the two-wheelers and the riders' negligence and violation of traffic rules have also contributed to the rising number of accidents.

Since e-bikes are considered non-motorized vehicles in China, traffic controllers have limited their speed to 25 kilometers per hour. But many people illegally retrofit their e-bikes with devices to increase their speed to 50-60 km per hour. In one case, it was reported that the police caught an offender whose retrofitted e-bike was traveling at more than 100 km an hour. E-bike riders don't need a driver's license and many of them are, in fact, ignorant of traffic rules. And many of those who know the traffic rules turn a blind eye to them, believing they will never be caught red-handed speeding or breaking other traffic rules.

As rule-abiding citizens, we always have to check both the left and right side to make sure no e-bike rider is speeding towards us before crossing the road. We have to make way for e-bike riders traveling, silently, at breakneck speed, many of whom simply ignore the traffic rules. Speeding and traffic rules-breaking e-bike riders are a threat to not only others' lives but also their own lives.

We can avoid being knocked down by e-bikes on the streets but cannot avoid the menace that parked e-bikes create in our neighborhood.

A recent Xinhua investigative report said that last year the National Fire and Rescue Administration received a total of about 21,000 e-bike related fire reports, with 3,243 fires breaking out when e-bike batteries were being recharged. Also, spot-checking found that 22 percent of the e-bike batteries were substandard. The news agency went on to say that 90 percent of the fires broke out when the e-bikes were parked or being recharged in building corridors or inside apartments.

There are posters in the elevators of our building showing the e-bikes exploding, with warnings that e-bikes and their batteries are banned from being carried into the apartment building. The bloody pictures and warnings made me feel as if we were living among bombs which could explode any moment without warning.

The substandard e-bikes are said to be produced and sold by dubious entities. Since millions of such e-bikes are running on the streets of cities, I don't think it is difficult for our market supervisors and security officers to find dubious entities and hold them accountable.

It is good to learn that starting from this month, the related departments have introduced stricter product admission requirements for e-bikes and asked the e-bike industry to further regulate its operations. The traffic control departments in many cities have also pledged to tighten the reins on e-bike-related offenses.

I hope we will be able to cross the streets without the fear of being hit by a speeding e-bike.

The author is former deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily.

kangbing@chinadaily.com.cn