Dear Editor,
Based on news reports, my understanding is that the government is considering the registration and licensing of electric bikes and scooters, please allow me to make the case that this is not a good idea. My name is Lakeraj Singh Debi and I am a re-migrant since 2018, I have lived 50 years in Toronto, Canada and returned to Guyana to be part of wherever Guyana is going. In the interest of total disclosure, I am an importer of Electric Scooter and a wholesaler and retailer of e-scooter.
A bad law is a “Jackass” and I have seen many, especially with the laws that has strict penalty, and registration and licensing of e-bikes is going to be a “Jackass Law”. We will be broadcasting to the world that we are unable to deal with anything complex and that we only have one response and it’s a sledge hammer. E-Bikes are not Motorcycle or Motor Vehicles but exist in a category of their own, they are a disruption transportation technology and I suspect the government is under pressure from the lobbyist of the disrupted, the taxi and transportation industry and by extension the motor vehicle importers, the GRA tax grabbers and the less than honourable GPF.
I call the e-scooters the Michael Jackson of Bikes. Why? Because I am also in the music business and I have seen granddaughters and grandmothers, grandson and grandfathers and everyone in between come into record stores with their eyes aglow and ask for that boy, Michael Jackson… this is exactly what happens at our store with the e-bikes. The e-bike is a poor man and the less fortunate means of transportation, it allows parents to take their children to school instead of taxi fares they can’t afford, it allows an older person the freedom to go to the market, the person with a heart condition to go to the stores, the lady with the food stand can now stock it by herself, e-bikes have increased retail store sales and economic activity. So, because e-bikes use the road we feel we have to do something, but what?
The greatest invention of all time, the bicycles use the road too, but we don’t register or license or insure them, though we did at one time but saw the light. Twice as many people died on scooters than bicycles, so what? There are 10 times more scooters than bicycles, two words, statistical probability? If you think we have to register e-bikes because we license and register motor vehicles, then we should revisit that 18th century law; cars are built to be road worthy for at least ten years so we don’t have to do it every year but the lawmakers don’t really care, yearly fitness is a steady stream of income, so is yearly vehicle registration. Ontario, Canada just eliminated plate renewal stickers, so then is it a tax to use the road?
If it is then why don’t we charge everyone who use the road – push cart venders, cow owners, paddy dryers and pedestrians? Guyana does not need to reinvent the wheel, look around the world and with our ingenuity we can be ahead of the curve. You may have noticed I used e-bikes and e-scooter interchangeably, here’s what is currently available for electric personal transportation:
1. e-bicycle
2. e-scooter
3 e-Tricycle/ Mobility scooter
4. e -scooter skateboard style
5. e Dirt Bike/BMX style
6. e-motorcycle style
So, what do you register and have a license to operate? And where do we draw the line? Do we give everyone a license plate and make them buy insurance and provide yearly fitness? That seems to be an unnecessary, expensive bureaucracy and not very creative, these bikes belong in the category between a motorcycle and bicycle, too complex for the lawmakers? Let me help them. It is not a scooter problem, it’s a people problem, here’s how we can resolve it.
1. Requirement that all Bikes/Scooters should have a serial number.
2. Mandatory 3-day course to learn the rules of the road, like we used to do with bicycles.
And certificates of course should be carried on them like a license.
3. Operators should be at least 14yrs, the same age they get ID cards.
4. Retailers should submit purchaser name and bike serial numbers to GRA for ID purposes, electronically, let me repeat ELECTRONICALLY, no stupid inefficient horror lines at G.RA
5. The problem of insurance will have to be a personal liability in the event of property damage.
The choice of making a Jackass law or satisfying every one without the burden being placed on those least able to afford it will have political consequences in WCB and I will be leading the charge.
Sincerely,
Lakeraj Singh Debi
