Jeremy Harris
100 MW
This daft situation where it's legal to sell something but illegal to use it, really annoys me. These scooters are just the latest example of stuff that's been sold by unscrupulous vendors to unwitting purchasers, before them we've had everything from radio transmitters to petrol power bike conversion kits sold, often via eBay, with slightly misleading adverts.
The last eBay seller (the chap who did a runner after Trading Standards became involved) was pretty clever. His advert said that he 'believed' these scooters to comply with the EAPC regulations and then linked directly to the text of the EAPC regulations. At first sight, you could read this as being some sort of statement that they were compliant, but he was clever enough to only say that he "believed they might" comply, implying that customers should check as there was some uncertainty. The advert wasn't exactly misleading, but neither was it entirely honest, so I am pretty sure he would have ended up with nothing more than a telling off had he been caught.
The victims in all these cases are always the innocent purchasers, who buy these things in good faith, only to find that they've got no real way of seeking recompense from the vendor if they subsequently get caught using them. Of course, there's always the chance that they won't get caught, the police aren't that familiar with the EAPC regulations and may not bother to check. Whether ignorance of the legal situation regarding these scooters would be accepted as mitigation in court, should you be unlucky enough to be caught, is debatable. My guess is that discussing it on an open forum like this may well undermine ignorance of the law as a mitigating factor. The really worrying aspect, in terms of penalties for breaking what is a pretty arcane bit of law, is the fact that it lays the rider open to charges of riding without valid mandatory third party insurance, an offence that the courts don't tend to treat lightly.
Jeremy
The last eBay seller (the chap who did a runner after Trading Standards became involved) was pretty clever. His advert said that he 'believed' these scooters to comply with the EAPC regulations and then linked directly to the text of the EAPC regulations. At first sight, you could read this as being some sort of statement that they were compliant, but he was clever enough to only say that he "believed they might" comply, implying that customers should check as there was some uncertainty. The advert wasn't exactly misleading, but neither was it entirely honest, so I am pretty sure he would have ended up with nothing more than a telling off had he been caught.
The victims in all these cases are always the innocent purchasers, who buy these things in good faith, only to find that they've got no real way of seeking recompense from the vendor if they subsequently get caught using them. Of course, there's always the chance that they won't get caught, the police aren't that familiar with the EAPC regulations and may not bother to check. Whether ignorance of the legal situation regarding these scooters would be accepted as mitigation in court, should you be unlucky enough to be caught, is debatable. My guess is that discussing it on an open forum like this may well undermine ignorance of the law as a mitigating factor. The really worrying aspect, in terms of penalties for breaking what is a pretty arcane bit of law, is the fact that it lays the rider open to charges of riding without valid mandatory third party insurance, an offence that the courts don't tend to treat lightly.
Jeremy
