Street-Legal BBSHD (in '250w' australia)

[StuRat]

I like the dog tag idea. Might be better if you had blanks without the hole.

I was thinking of drilling another hole on the other end and make it look like it's riveted on there, like a compliance plate, but the rivet heads would be sugru-ed on only for aesthetics.

Like this. Over the bafang.
Might wait for some black sugru though.

 

[Chuggalugga]

Engrave something on the cover plates, maybe between the flanges and the pink or yellow slips of paper man, and you got the time to state case then so be it.

Unless this happens
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/18/cyclist-charlie-alliston-jailed-for-18-months-over-death-of-pedestrian

I don't see the connection. IMO, Alliston was let off far too lightly.

Sorry to raise this thread after such a long time. Long time lurker in the background gleaning lots of great info from you all.

I'm looking at the exact same situation as the OP, however, for me the above article is extremely relevant. If something like this happens while you're riding a self-built 250w pedelec, there would be even more serious questions about legal liability.

Has anyone actually legally converted their bike to either 200w or 250w Pedelec? I'm trying to convert a cargo bike for my wife and young son, so everything has to be above board, but the more I look into it, the more impossible it seems.

I'm not interested in dodgying up compliance plates and hoping for the best. I'm also not interested in the myriad of "street legal" kits advertised online by most resellers in Australia like the Bafang BBS01 unless they come with a compliance tag - these kits simply aren't legal otherwise in my understanding of the legislation.

For example, imagine you're just riding down the side of the road and a car pulls out in front of you and you mash their front window with your melon. Let's also assume someone sustains serious injuries (which involves the Police serious accident squad and insurance companies) which is a likely outcome of either collision.
The only way to prove you're not riding an unregistered, unroadworthy motorised cycle, on a footpath, without the appropriate helmet (all illegal in every state to my knowledge), is to hope to heaven your motor survives AND passes any tests the Police and or insurance companies want to put it through to test compliance with EN15194. Otherwise they will simply put the onus back on you to prove it was legal and to provide the EN15194 compliance testing certificate, generated by a certified testing provider that approved the use of the CE tag showing compliance with EN15194 (which you won't be able to provide). If you can't, you go from being the innocent party in a traffic accident, possibly entitled to significant insurance payouts, to being left with nothing except an NDIS referral for a carer to attend your premises once a day to help you toilet and shower. That's assuming you didn't hurt anyone else, if you did, there's possibly a whole other world of pain coming for you - especially if it was serious.
You'll probably be dragged before a court like the bloke in the newspaper article, and you'll probably also have insurance companies come knocking for everything you're worth.
It won't matter if the bike was 'technologically' identical to a compliant pedelec (unless you have an unusually sympathetic judge), the fact is according to the law it is still 'technically' non-compliant due to a lack of testing and marking for compliance by a authorised tester.

These laws are absurd, it actually makes it virtually impossible to build a new frame, or legally convert any existing bike to a 250w pedelec for a reasonable cost. The only way I have found to do this so far is with the Pendix system which already has the appropriate compliance tag on the motor. It'll only set you back around $3500!! However, part of EN15194 is ensuring that the frame is also compliant with the relevant EU standard - so there goes building your own frame!!

I'm yet to find anyone in Australia that actually does the full scope of testing for EN15194. How on earth could we have adopted legislation that makes it so hard for local frame builders to build a custom frame and legally convert it to a pedelec? My local frame builder can't legally build a custom frame and put a 250w motor in it without having it certified to be used in Europe before he can sell it to his next door neighbour in Australia.
Even if he was happy to put a 200w motor on it, good luck finding one that's not just a higher-rated motor (e.g. 250w/350w) limited to 200w. I've been in touch with our local Dep. Transport to try to identify where they sit on using a higher-powered motor limited to 200w & 25km/hr, but so far they've not been terribly responsive. From what I gather, other states deem this to be illegal, as the motor's still capable of a maximum power output over the 200w limit.

Has anyone LEGALLY converted their bike? Has anyone been able to obtain any official advice from authorities as to what they deem to be legal regarding conversions?

 

[Sunder]

Mate, I've spent nearly an hour trying to gather the evidence for you to set your mind at ease. Unfortunately I'm doing this on my employer's coin (Well, it is the first day of the new financial year, after just having done 6 weeks of 60-80 hour weeks, I'm probably owed it...) but I was struggling between walking the very fine line between giving you legal advice (which I cannot, as I am not a lawyer), and giving you anecdotes. I've decided to delete most of what I had written to avoid that risk and conflict, however, I don't want to leave you thinking electric bikes are almost all illegal and just waiting for a disaster or massive fines to occur. I'll give you some OPINIONS instead, which could give you some starting points to do your own research, include seeing a professional if you desire.

1. Look up the concept of "contributory negligence".

2. You know why you can't find an independent or government certifier? Because EN15194 is a MANUFACTURER certification. The only party who has the legal authority to issue a compliance certificate is the manufacturer.

3. If you did hurt someone else on a totally human powered push bike, your liability is the same as you stuck a pair of pedals onto a Zero SR/S 82kw Motorcycle and tried to claim it was covered under EN15194. What's the difference? Being in compliance with the law does not increase or decrease your liability to someone you injured. There might be some extra fines, but even they would be a rounding error compared your liability if someone had to spend a couple weeks in hospital.

I mean, all that said, you could have the misfortune of being distracted by the Goodyear blimp while walking slowly as a pedestrian, bumping someone waiting at a light, who then falls and dies from a head injury. You'd still be liable. Look up the Eggshell Skull doctrine while you're at it.

Anyway, not to be harsh, but it really sounds like electric bikes are not for you, but if you knew the full extent of what you could be liable for... Perhaps leaving the house without public liability insurance is not for you.

Ooops, there I go again walking the line between opinion and advice.

 

[markz]

Mate

Well worded Sunder

[deleted my long post on the matter, again]

 

[Chuggalugga]

Mate, I've spent nearly an hour trying to gather the evidence for you to set your mind at ease.

I appreciate that, and to be clear, I'm not after a professional legal opinion - I can very easily get one of those. I'm after some practical advice from people who have done legal conversions. While I'm fairly confident in my reading of the legislation, I'm also very happy to hear opinions on what it says. Isn't that the point of the forum?

I don't want to leave you thinking electric bikes are almost all illegal and just waiting for a disaster or massive fines to occur. I'll give you some OPINIONS instead, which could give you some starting points to do your own research, include seeing a professional if you desire.

Actually, you haven't provided any opinions on the legality of retrofitted bikes in your post. Possibly that was in the part you deleted? I genuinely would like to here this because you do seem to have some really good knowledge on the subject from what I've read. All that came through were your opinions on liability, but I wasn't really after them. Your post actually just left me with the feeling that making a bike street legal doesn't matter or isn't worth it, and that I'm unlikely to be held any more liable for operating an illegal bike than a legal one - which is quite an interesting point for you to make considering your concerns about "risk and conflict". I'll assume that wasn't your point and that there's some context that got deleted with the rest of the good stuff. I probably should have been more succinct - all the stuff in my example seems to have detracted from my question.

1. Look up the concept of "contributory negligence".

Looked it up, I'm not sure I fully understand your point here, and I don't think it's really addressing my question of how to convert a bike legally. What I think you're getting at is that the vehicle driver in the example above would still be negligent. Possibly, depending on the scenario but again, that's not really answering my question.

2. You know why you can't find an independent or government certifier? Because EN15194 is a MANUFACTURER certification. The only party who has the legal authority to issue a compliance certificate is the manufacturer.

Absolutely, yet testing still needs to be performed according to the process outlined within EN15194, this is usually done by certified testing stations under lab conditions. For example, Austest https://austest.com.au/australian-requirements-for-power-assisted-bicycles/ here in Australia will undertake testing of the electrical components but it doesn't appear that they do anything else. What I'm interested in is whether anyone knows of any other companies that provide testing services under EN15194? It only makes sense that the manufacturer relies on an independent testing supplier to undertake the testing and provide the required documentation before the product can be certified.

3. If you did hurt someone else on a totally human powered push bike, your liability is the same as you stuck a pair of pedals onto a Zero SR/S 82kw Motorcycle and tried to claim it was covered under EN15194. What's the difference? Being in compliance with the law does not increase or decrease your liability to someone you injured. There might be some extra fines, but even they would be a rounding error compared your liability if someone had to spend a couple weeks in hospital.

The difference is insurance. In my understanding (happy for you to correct me if I'm wrong - but this is from both personal experience and from working with a number of people in insurance investigations), in the very simplest of terms, if I'm not at fault and operating a legal vehicle, I'm covered. If I'm at fault and operating a legal vehicle, many policies will still provide 'at fault' coverage - although this may be significantly lower. However, if I'm operating an illegal vehicle, whether at fault or not, the insurance company will simply point to the clause that says they won't cover me if I'm doing something illegal (and then they will do everything they can to either prove the vehicle was illegal, or make me prove it wasn't). You're right, the fines (and probably losing your licence if the police prove you were operating an illegal motorised cycle) are fairly minor compared to the consequences of injuring someone else. Yet even though you say my liability is no different, this is no reason not to try to seek advice on, or build a street legal bike. Again however, this is kind of detracting from my question - admittedly I caused the distraction...

Anyway, not to be harsh, but it really sounds like electric bikes are not for you, but if you knew the full extent of what you could be liable for... Perhaps leaving the house without public liability insurance is not for you.

Ok, so this is a pretty stupid thing to say. Electric bikes are not for me because I want to install a legal kit? I'm asking for advice on how to make sure my bike is legal, and you're telling me maybe they're not for me? I'm not trying to pick a fight, but if someone can't ask how to do something legally on a forum like this without being told to go away without actually having their question answered is pretty pretentious. There's no need for belittling others. I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt that that wasn't your intention.

So, how about some examples of what people have actually done to make their bikes street legal?

 

[Sunder]

Okay, yep, sorry that post after editing probably didn't come across the way I intended. Let me reintroduce the anecdote I cut out, with again the emphasis that this is just opinion.

In my misspent youth, I used to modify cars. Unlike most hoons though, I had the luck of joining a club that not only had zero tolerance for illegal behaviour, they had an administrator that was a criminal lawyer specialising in traffic law (and 20 years later, he was in my wedding party!). This gent arranged for two police officers attend one of our club days, at Krispy Kreme no less (That actually wasn't a dig at the police - it's where we started virtually all our club cruises).

The aim of inviting those police officers was to understand not only the law - which the lawyer was in a much better position to explain - but how it was interpreted and applied by the front line police offices. One thing that stuck with me: When asked about defects, the police responded that they estimated that 70% of cars on the road could be defected by the letter of the law. They gave examples such as the "H" marking on a manual car's gear knob being too worn, would technically make it a defect. As would driving with "insufficient" windshield wiper fluid, or an aged but stock muffler raising the noise levels above 90dB.

But - Are 70% of cars defected, the drivers fined, and the car impounded? No.

Are 70% of insurance claims invalidated because the car was technically not road legal? No.

Because if someone has a rear end accident, and the reason that the car was not road legal was that the exhaust was too loud, this has no bearing on liability. However, if the reason the car was not road legal was because every brake light was blown... Well that is a different matter entirely.

This is where the concept of contributory negligence comes into it. If you were completely legal riding a bike, and as you said the driver turns across you, then they are entirely at fault. If you were riding an illegal electric bike, the liability is not waived. I've seen "bush lawyers" from the car club try to argue things like "Well if the car was not roadworthy, then it had no right to be on the road, and but for their illegal action, the accident would have never happened!" They are trying to shift the liability, by saying that your liability is greater than theirs, and establish that the cause of the accident was you, not them.

That's not how the law works, thankfully. If you both broke the law, then you have to assign contributory negligence. So a competent lawyer would not just stop at "He was riding an illegal electric motorcycle". Rather, he would argue "My client saw the injured party, and estimated he was at least 50 metres off, providing my client sufficient time to complete the turn safely, had the bike been traveling at the legally mandated 25km/h limit. However, no driver would reasonably expect a bicycle to be traveling at 50km/h, and I submit that he contributed to the accident by traveling at illegal speeds. I further put to the court, even had my client not seen the injured party, had the injured party been traveling at only 25km/h, their injuries would have been limited to a few minor bruises. By their own negligence for riding recklessly and furiously an illegal motorcycle at an estimated 50km/h, I put to you the injured party is almost entirely responsible for their own losses".

As they are the ones trying to shift liability, they would need to prove your bike was indeed traveling that fast and illegal. The onus is not on you to prove you were within the law.

How does this all apply? Well, there was one more point you still missed. There are no certifiers. Austest can do the electrical bits, because there is an independent certifier scheme for the electrical compliance. There's no TAFE course you can do to get a certifier's license for EN15194. If you didn't build the bike, you can't certify it. If you did, you can certify it with no formal education or license - but you are signing your own rights away by saying you checked and believe the bike was compliant. If you say it is compliant, it is up to them to prove that it was not. And if the evidence was destroyed in the crash, well, they don't have a leg to stand on.

Which is what leads me to the last section. I wasn't criticising you for wanting the bike to be legal. For a very long time, I did everything in my power to make sure my bike was 100% legal as well. But, if you're not constantly checking that your CAR is not one of the 70% that is not road worthy under the letter of the law, then why are you obsessing over why you can't get someone else to put a stamp on your bike, when it is otherwise compliant? You will not lose eligibility for compensation for someone else's wrong doing, unless your bike is so far from the standard, that you do significantly contribute to your own injuries - and unless you plan on taking public liability insurance for cycling, your risk for liability for injury caused doesn't change.

Every day we step out, we take risks. Having a bike that is compliant with the law, but not certified so, does not substantially raise that risk. That's all I was saying in a hyperbolic way.

 

[Chuggalugga]

Thanks for your response Sunder, that adds a lot of context to your original post, I appreciate it.

But - Are 70% of cars defected, the drivers fined, and the car impounded? No.
Are 70% of insurance claims invalidated because the car was technically not road legal? No.
Because if someone has a rear end accident, and the reason that the car was not road legal was that the exhaust was too loud, this has no bearing on liability

It's an interesting point, and I've not yet heard from TMR their viewpoint, but I'd expect the situation is slightly different. There is a difference with a defect coming about through age or wear and tear (as in your gear shifter and exhaust examples) and through knowingly and intentionally modifying a vehicle to be non-compliant. The first example that comes to mind for me here would be tampering with the speed-limiter on a heavy vehicle. Or rebuilding a car and writing my own roadworthy certificate without taking it to a qualified mechanic. Now of course in the first example the risk and penalties are extremely severe due to the possible consequences, and therefore compliance is also enforced fairly strictly and regularly. For the second example, I'm sure there's plenty of unroadworthy cars driving around, but the fact that the risk of roadworthy compliance being enforced is somewhat low, doesn't make it any less illegal. There may be a low risk of enforcement on an ebike at the moment, but who's to say that won't change? Should I build a non-compliant bike now just because the risk of enforcement and consequences is low? If enforcement is stepped-up, I'd then be in the position where my only option to comply would be to do the very thing I should have done in the first place and purchase a compliant kit (although probably just the motor at this point). To be clear, it will only take one idiot doing something stupid enough to injure or scare someone important for TMR/state police to start enforcing compliance. Qld has already amended their legislation to prevent bikes being operated by throttle alone due to some dangerous situations on the Gold Coast.

Further, regarding compliance here, in my understanding, the easiest way to tell the difference between a compliant motor and non-compliant motor is by inspecting the motor for the rated wattage and for an CE EN15194 tag. If the wattage is over 200w, and there is no compliance tag, that's the easiest way for an inspector to visually check compliance (it's what I'd do if I worked in that part of compliance - lowest hanging fruit). If the motor is not marked with a wattage, then it's questionable what the action would be - serve an infringement notice? Issue a caution? Impound and test? Why bother trying to outsmart them, why not just comply? (sorry, this is a bit of trolling here - mostly because this is actually what I'm interested in).

But, if you're not constantly checking that your CAR is not one of the 70% that is not road worthy under the letter of the law, then why are you obsessing over why you can't get someone else to put a stamp on your bike, when it is otherwise compliant?

For three reasons. Firstly, maybe I am. I noticed two brake lights out yesterday and immediately repaired one loose connection and went out to buy a new bulb for the other. Couldn't live with myself if someone rear-ended the car with my wife and child inside because they couldn't see the brake lights. It's my responsibility (to myself, my family and other road users) to ensure my vehicle is roadworthy and fit for purpose to the best of my ability and knowledge. Where my knowledge ends, I rely on my mechanic - but that doesn't absolve my responsibility except in very extreme circumstances. Call me naïve, but when it comes to two-tonne lumps of steel hurtling down the road at speeds of up to 110km/hr, I'd like to hope everyone else feels the same obligation. Maybe they don't, but that's on them - I do my part and can honestly say to any traffic cop that my car is roadworthy to the best of my knowledge.
Secondly, and somewhat related to the first point, because the person riding this bike will not be me, it will be my wife with my young son (it's a cargo bike). Further, my wife or I may well be carting other people's children as well. It's one thing for me to be happy to ride a non-compliant bike by myself (or whack on a sticker to provide a veneer of compliance) and accept any consequences, but it's another thing to ask or make someone else (or their children) take that risk (and in my opinion, unethical if you know it is not compliant and don't tell them).
Finally, because it's a reasonable question. Again, there's a difference you've glossed over regarding passive non-compliance through wear, tear and age, and active non-compliance through intentionally and knowingly installing or modifying something to be non-compliant. Let's be clear, while there may be a scale from slightly illegal to seriously illegal when it comes to our perception of risk and consequences (which is where you seem to be heading), non-compliance is still non-compliance. Maybe that's your point: why bother installing a 250w Pedelec system without a compliance tag if it's just as non-compliant as a 500w/1000w system? Are you operating on the assumption that if your compliance is assessed a Police/compliance officer is going to accept the justification that you've at least tried to make the 250w system as technologically compliant as possible? Will they really accept "Everything is exactly the same as a compliant Pedelec, except I've never had it tested for compliance, but I believe it complies with the legislation, and therefore I put that sticker on there myself"? Maybe they will...
I am genuinely interested in this justification, as I expect a lot of other people also rely on it.

Having a bike that is compliant with the law, but not certified so, does not substantially raise that risk.

Just because the risk of consequences at this point in time may not justify compliance, that is something which may change fairly rapidly. It's also not really prudent to say "the risk of consequences for my actions are low, therefore there's no need to obsess about compliance" as you've said above - especially when my original question is about how I can modify a bike to comply with the law, not "What are your opinions on the subject of complying with the law?".

So far your responses have become stuck on the philosophical point of whether we should comply with the law due to the risks associated with non-compliance, you've still not provided any practical advice on how to comply even if one wished to do so. I clearly accept that the law appears to be a significant hindrance, and you seem to have spent a lot of time trying to convince me that it's not worth trying to comply. In risk management terms, you appear to have rated the probability or likelihood of compliance being enforced as 'Low' and the consequences of such compliance also as 'Low', but that's not the case for everyone. Being found to be operating an illegal motorised cycle (e.g. riding an unregistered, unroadworthy vehicle without appropriate protective equipment, on a footpath) could lead to a loss of one's license, and subsequently their livelihood. The risk of this is still 'Low' in probability, but 'High' in expected consequences. I'm only saying this to point out that everyone has a different risk tolerance, and while the law may be unreasonable, someone's reasons for wanting to comply with that law may be perfectly reasonable.
Ultimately, we have laws that have been adopted with little forethought, that's a given, but my question was about how I can comply with them practically, not whether anyone has opinions on whether I should bother complying with them.

This is what is interesting to me, as it seems the general response from a lot of people is "don't worry about it, nobody checks compliance". But behind this there appears to be the more pragmatic reason that practically, it is difficult to gain compliance with the laws when retrofitting an existing bike because it's not practical to undertake the EN15194 compliance process or otherwise cost-effective to convert to the Pedelec standard, and because so few appropriate motors exist that are rated to the max 200w standard.

There's no TAFE course you can do to get a certifier's license for EN15194. If you didn't build the bike, you can't certify it. If you did, you can certify it with no formal education or license - but you are signing your own rights away by saying you checked and believe the bike was compliant.

Yes, that was what I was trying to get at in my previous comment. It's not possible to do this without going through the expense of having each specific test under EN15194 completed by a competent assessor, and currently I'm not even sure that there are testing labs in Australia that can perform all of the tests. It is somewhat equivalent to writing your own roadworthy certificate for a car that you've just put together when you're neither a qualified mechanic or certified assessor. The risk may be lower, but that doesn't make it any less illegal.

Which is what leads me to the last section. I wasn't criticising you for wanting the bike to be legal. For a very long time, I did everything in my power to make sure my bike was 100% legal as well.

This is what I came here for... and then you skipped right on past...and obviously decided it wasn't worthwhile. Why - from a practical sense?

You will not lose eligibility for compensation for someone else's wrong doing, unless your bike is so far from the standard, that you do significantly contribute to your own injuries - and unless you plan on taking public liability insurance for cycling, your risk for liability for injury caused doesn't change.

I am and many people would probably be covered by multiple schemes (membership with bicycle associations, Work Cover, third party and state insurance schemes etc.) each of which might cover slightly different situations. Again, you seem to be relying on the assumption that an insurance scheme, or company, would be disinterested in the fact that I knowingly and intentionally modified my ebike to be non-compliant. I find that very difficult to believe as one of the first things they would do is to determine whether I am eligible for compensation, and to do so, they first need to be satisfied that I have not breached our implied or explicit agreement (which usually says something about not intentionally doing something illegal, and fully disclosing anything that might affect my eligibility for coverage under the scheme).
If I came to you and said "I have a bike that is 'almost' compliant with the relevant laws, will you insure me?" I expect you wouldn't, and ultimately neither would anyone else who is aware of that fact. Insurance companies (and many schemes) aren't really the type who say "well, you technically breached our agreement to cover you, but here's a payout anyway". Nope, it'll be "Go try the NDIS, maybe they'll give you some money for a custom made 200w mobility tricycle". When it comes to insurance, it's best not to make assumptions they'll pay up if you know you're likely breaking your end of the agreement.

Seriously, does nobody have practical advice on where to source a legal kit from??

 

[neilB]

Hi StuRat,
Thanks for starting this thread. Some good discussion here
I too am also interested in an E conversion but don’t like the idea of an illegal system. I’m an injured mountainbiker (but without a 6-10K budget for a proper FS ebike) . Regulations I. The UK seem similar to Aus.
I like the Bafang conversion idea a lot, but can’t fail to I imagine a bad accident where a third party is injured (maybe in the woods) and where an ambulance is needed & the Police get involved.
With an illegal “motorcycle” you’d be in a lot of trouble. Kinda kills the relaxing “fun in the woods” cycling vibe!
Police here are getting E-savvy. They are currently confiscating lots of E- scooters.

So how about the BBS01 street legal kit. Seems it’s also more reliable than the 1000W BBSHD job.
https://edrivenet.com/bafang-bbs01-review/
Have you come across this?

Neil B

 

[neilB]

Oops. Just posting this so I can set “notify on reply”.

 

[izeman]

Oops. Just posting this so I can set “notify on reply”.

There is absolutely NO need to reply just to subscribe to a thread.