'Kingdom of bicycles' in the electric age

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'Kingdom of bicycles' in the electric age

(Xinhua) 19:33, August 21, 2013

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China, the "kingdom of bicycles", is facing the challenge of streams of electric bikes on congested urban roads along with conventional vehicles.

A new regulation in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region requiring electric bicycles be registered for a license plate has aroused controversy. Henceforth, all electric bicycles must be registered with the police, and all new purchases must meet national standards, with limits on weight and speed, or be banned from public roads.

In Guangxi, the so-called "e-donkeys" are widely used means and have caused more and more accidents.

In the four years since 2009, there have been over 1,800 traffic accidents involving electric bicycles, with 538 deaths and over 2,000 injuries.

With the growth of the urban population in China, inexpensive, fast and relatively clean electric bicycles are increasingly popular.

In spite of being called bicycles, the e-donkeys are faster than common bikes and can be tricky to handle.

The national standard for such bikes was set in 1999 and now more than 90 percent of the bikes on the market fail to meet it, breaking the traffic rules by speeding and overloading.

A significant number of traffic accidents in China are caused by e-donkeys and the riders are usually untraceable by current law.

In Nanning, capital of Guangxi, the number of electric bicycles amounts to about 800,000. They have been involved in about 30 percent of the city' s traffic accidents.

Some other provinces and cities in China already have regulations to tame the e-donkeys.

When the new regulations were issued in Guangxi, locals were concerned that the selection of e-bicycles they can buy in the future will be curtailed.

On August 9, electric bicycle market in Nanning saw a rush to purchase, as bikes bought before August 10 can be registered even if they do not meet the national standard.