Police e-bike seizures nearly double as campaigners call for clampdown on 'menace' bikes

Police are seizing e-bikes at nearly souble the rate than they would usually, new data has revealed, leading campaigners to call for an urgent crackdown.

Figures obtained by the Press Association show more than 7,000 of the vehicles were taken off UK streets in a 12-month period, an increase of 83 percent in a year. The data, obtained via a freedom-of-information request, showed that police confiscated 7,049 potentially dangerous models across the UK in the year to May 19.

The number is a steep increase on 2025, when 3,858 were seized, and has prompted police, politicians and Brit charities to call for new laws clamping down on bikes - which have caused deaths and serious injuries in some cases.

Sargeant Stuart Ford, who leads the City of London Police cycle team, called the illegal bikes "a menace", while Julie Minns, the Labour MP for Carlisle who has been campaigning for a ban on sales of illegal e-bikes and conversion kits, said they were the "perfect accessory to phone theft, mugging and drug dealing".

The MP has said the bikes are also a danger to motorists and pedestrians, and called on Andy Burnham's Government to designate them an "unsafe product".

Warning how e-bikes can put other motorists and pedestrians at risk of injury, she said they do not have an MOT, they are not licensed or insured and cannot be traced as they do not have registration plates. Ms Minns told the Press Association they were a "growing problem driven by a prevalence of delivery riders".

But she added it was also an "accessory of choice" for phone-snatching, particularly in London. She said: "Something needs to be done about this and I think the way to do it is to designate an illegal e-bike because you have a definition of what a legal one is - the motor that will cut out at 15-and-a-half miles an hour - and as long as it does that, that's a perfectly legal e-bike ... which are a brilliant way of getting people cycling.

"The illegal ones, however, are a problem and we need to do something about them. And the way to do it is to say, if it's not legal, it's an unsafe product.

"I think an illegal e-bike is an unsafe product and I think the Government should designate illegal e-bikes so that the ones that don't meet the definition and the kits that create them that don't meet the definition of a legal e-bike, designate those an unsafe product and say to retailers you can no longer sell them."

During a recent e-bike crackdown in Cardiff, South Wales Police arrested four riders on suspicion of drug offences after a man in his 20s was found with 33 wraps of crack cocaine and heroin worth about £1,000.

Under UK law, legal e-bikes are known as electrically assisted pedal cycles (EAPCs) and must meet certain safety regulations such as their electric motor having a maximum power output of 250 watts and cutting out when a speed of 15.5mph is reached.

Many illegal e-bikes confiscated by police have been modified to travel much faster than the law allows, with some exceeding 70mph.

Non-compliant machines are effectively electric mopeds or motorbikes, which must be registered, taxed and insured.