Crackdown on 'souped-up pedicabs'

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Fri 5 Dec 2008 14:57
Crackdown on 'souped-up pedicabs' - maz64
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7766458.stm

Quote:

Police have arrested six pedicab drivers over claims their vehicles have been modified to make them go faster.

A number of the pedicabs, described as "death traps" by Westminster City Council, have been seized in the operation on Thursday evening.

Police said about 80% of London's 1,000 pedicabs have been illegally adapted to run partially on car batteries, allowing them to reach speeds of 20mph.

End quote.

Ok, I can see these things are dangerous, but if they're 'death traps' presumably even the battery-less ones can't be that safe? It wouldn't take much of a downhill slope to allow a reasonably fit pedicab driver to get up to 20mph.

F
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Fri 5 Dec 2008 15:11
Crackdown on 'souped-up pedicabs' - billy25
So the "Authorities" want them insured, tested, licenced etc, obviously they smell revenue they are missing out on!
The "responsible" ? pedicab drivers welcome the crackdown! - whats to say a "battery-assisted" pedicab driver isnt responsible?.
I can see where this is going, Today pedicabs, Tomorrow battery-assisted pushbikes, then battery assisted mobility scooters/wheelchairs, then mothers with prams and pushchairs etc, etc, etc, oh! nearly forgot pedestrians! - must walk under 4 mph, carry red flag, and exchange details everytime they bump into somebody!! cant have them having accidents can we!!!!

Billy
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Fri 5 Dec 2008 15:58
Crackdown on 'souped-up pedicabs' - CGNorwich
Almost certainly prompted by this incident in Seattle

tinyurl.com/5m6z22
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Fri 5 Dec 2008 16:49
Crackdown on 'souped-up pedicabs' - Lud
In the Far East as a child, I longed to go in one of the elegant rickshaws then available in all towns (very like the one in oilrag's thread the other day, but more sombre and workmanlike, without the Chinese red paint). But my parents wouldn't let me, for what I now think was a combination of reasons: they were both explicitly squeamish about the implication of gross class difference, direct exploitation of another human's sweat, slavery almost; and my mother may also have thought them potentially insanitary.

The latter didn't bother me at all, and although I took in the social squeamishness aspect, it occurred to me even then that this was what those tough, lean, barefoot fellows did for a living, and what they really wanted was well-heeled, not too obese customers. But I was only a nipper and no one listened to my opinions on matters of that sort.

So I haven't been pulled or pedalled in a human-powered rickshaw to this day.
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Fri 5 Dec 2008 19:57
Crackdown on 'souped-up pedicabs' - nortones2
Used to get taken home from cinema in Ipoh (Malaya) in rickshaws when dad couldn't wangle a jeep. Felt rather an imposition on the poor devil pedalling, but that's how it was. Risky, but luckily very few cars about once outside the town. Don't think Ed Friend would allow it:)
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Fri 5 Dec 2008 17:32
Crackdown on 'souped-up pedicabs' - henry k
Almost certainly prompted by this incident in Seattle
tinyurl.com/5m6z22

>>

"Last month bystanders narrowly avoided injury after a pedicab mounted the pavement in central London's Soho and smashed into a restaurant window. "

>>It wouldn't take much of a downhill slope to allow a reasonably fit pedicab driver to get up to 20mph.
It is not very hilly in where they operate and a wee bit crowded. :-)
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Fri 5 Dec 2008 23:35
Crackdown on 'souped-up pedicabs' - 1400ted
I have no major thoughts one way or another on pedicabs but there is one form of transport I would like to see a crackdown on and have banned from the road. I think these small plastic and alloy trailers which people hitch behind bicycles in order to drag a couple of toddlers around must be one of the most lethal things ever invented.
I cannot understand any parent putting their children at such a risk from a rear end collision....and at bumper height to trucks and vans where they may be invisible. Oh, and at exhaust level as well. Ban them before it happens, not after.
Ted
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