Since I am researching alot within the area of law and regulation for our beloved electric longboard, I believe it’s nice and proper to get some useful links and documentation in one spot rather than under my own build. This links is also particularly useful for You who want to try revolutionised our country rules and enforced them to accept / create / make an exception for a portable personal electric vehicle. One other mission of this post is to make clear what are the definition of “Public Road Safety Vehicle”. Hopefully we could learn how to make a public road safe vehicle as well as being able to enjoy what we are doing without being afraid of getting a fine / confiscation of our eBoard and the destruction of our eBoard.
Some of the links here are in Dutch as I am researching from the Netherlands. For sure some who are able to understand could also help post / send link to complete the library.
To begin with I believe this is the holy grail of what is so called EU law of vehicle and vehicle types (long and boring)
However below there are some useful tables that could help us determine what aspect EU are expecting from a safe vehicle.
Note: For this link we can put Electric Longboard into category of Moped L1E - A (Stated by multiple person from RDW)
RDW is an EU - world known vehicle type approval company, their job is to test safety of vehicle.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1454643772689&uri=CELEX:32013R0168
Known fact for The Netherlands law within the category of special moped
Link is http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0035848/geldigheidsdatum_05-02-2016
I am placing here some of the most important parameter, some of the rest might not be applicable / we already have it within our electric longboard.
(I will keep this updated, please inform me if I miss something)
Not more than 25km/h on normal road
Not more than 6km/h on walking road
Motor doesn't exceed 4KW
Have lights front & back
The light on the front emits no other than white or yellow
The taillight and brake light rays not unlike red
Must be older than 16 years old
Red and yellow / white reflectors
Have VIN Number (Vehicle Identification Number)
Dimension no more than: L 2.00m x W 1.10m /li>
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Efficient braking system whose deceleration is at least 4.0 m / s
Fitted with a working steering or a working operating system
The wheels are equipped with pneumatic tires (We need to equip all terrain wheels)
The special moped is fitted with a working bell or a functioning horn with fixed pitch
Sadly now its illegal, but it has never been fully legal anyway. So stay safe, cruise in city and open street don’t go beast mode till you hit the park!
I think there is no EU-wide legislation for light EV:s (except for pedelecs). Here in Finland the new light EV-law came in to force on 1. January 2016. Government wants new “innovations” to be born in Finland so they opened the road for all kind of electric vehicles.
Some specs of the law
Max speed: 25km/h
Max power: 1000wCE-markings
Required: Bell/horn, reflectors and user have to use helmet
No need to register (no VIN) or take an insurance
You can use bike lanes but not drive on sidewalk (same as for bikes)
Or if you want to drive on the sidewalk then the max speed can be only 15km/h
Link to english press release from the Ministry of Transport and Communications
Hope this information helps you. Good luck on your mission @laurnts!
They do stop you in the Netherlands apparantly if you drive an electric skateboard,
There was a guy on marktplaats.nl or some other Dutch second hand selling site that placed his Boosted Board up for sale, he had lot’s of troubles getting it here and when he took it out for a spin, the cops confiscated it.
He got it back however but put it up for sale to avoid legal issues…
Yes at this very moment cops could take it since Boosted also doesn’t have VIN number. Thats one of the necessary requirements and I am not sure how expensive and how hard to get it. What I know from a local shop before is that the cops use to confiscate an electric skateboard due to having no brakes. But now I suppose it’s alot safer with the technologies, so I really would like to push some mails to the ministry and the RDW for it.
Okay one of the great news just arrived from RDW. They considered electric longboard as a special moped, hence RDW can’t do anything to provide any paper / certification to the vehicle. Now it’s only the ministry who can decide the legality of the vehicle. I will contact the ministry next week, I have both the phone number as well as the email.
@laurnts great efforts you are putting in this, i hope they’ll legalize/accept these boards soon. I see the Yuneec E-go board and some boards called Skatey are being sold in The Netherlands, but with the “only use on private terrain” kind of message.
I think electric longboards are even safer than normal longboards, because electric longboards can actually brake when its needed, i hope the Dutch government shares the same opinion hehe.
Okay I have received new information. I’ve been sending email to the Dutch Ministry and expecting them to reply, it might take time otherwise I would call them. After calling the RDW again, it appears that the ministry decide if the vehicle is a special moped or not (rather confusing), but anyway according to the description it is. RDW only have certain test for special vehicle category, so special moped is not really one of them. Getting VIN number is relatively cheap about 100 euro, however if it requires certain - long test (depend on ministry I suppose) it could reach up to / begin at 800 euros (not quite sure). Thats it for now.
@laurnts, have there been any new developments in your endeavors since February to have the Dutch ministries/RDW allow motorized skateboards on public roads?
Hi, checking in now to see if there have been any updates since you last posted on May 19th and to see what we as community members can do to help in the process.
Hi @laurnts, really good work so far!
Is there anything I can do to help you and get things moving with the Ministry. I have an electric skateboard that I can make available for testing if that is what the Ministry requires.
I got fined big time by the police (383 euro) and they almost confiscated my board. As for the costs: I think we can do some crowdfunding here. I know a bunch of folks with an electric skateboard who would probably be happy to chip in.
Cheers!
Strange when i wae riding my friends Boosted Board in Utrecht and cops pulled me to the side i didn’t get a ticket. They said they stopped me because they were wondering what it was ( how i was going so fast ) and they thought it was pretty cool. They even tried it themself.
They also told me that they can’t manage them and aren’t really illegal. So they couldn’t give me a ticket.
My friend also said that happened to him a couple times, never had a ticket. Just asking what it was and some trying it out aswel.
Strange thing, I frequently ride in Gouda and even when I bypass police in cars or on bicycles they never take notice. Might be depending where you are in the Netherlands or also riding stealthy might help. Don’t know.
Last Sunday in Amsterdam :
So sad for the fine. Well the thing is that Boosted and Ego are fairly easy to notice by police. A custom board with a hub motor is harder to notice. They also very silent so it’s easy to be stealthy. By far many cops and police pass by me and I just keep the speed very low.
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