Pedelec motors switch off when the rider reaches 25km/h or stops pedalling. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Police or transport officers can now order pedelecs off the road if they have not been registered, after a plea to put penalties on hold fell on deaf ears.

The sanction came into force this month following a warning issued by Transport Malta in August.

“Officers from the police or Transport Malta will be verifying if such vehicles being used on the road are registered and if not they will order their removal in accordance with the provisions of the Traffic Regulation Ordinance,” a spokesman for the transport watchdog said.

However, cyclists have encountered significant problems trying to register their electric bicycles, according to the spokesman for the Bicycling Advocacy Group, Jim Wightman, although he added it had become a bit easier in recent days.

The group has been calling for a moratorium on the need to register but has not yet heard from the authorities.

Pedelecs do not come with a type certificate or a logbook and owners have had to go back and forth between the seller, manufacturer and Transport Malta to get hold of the documents needed to complete the registration process.

Some owners were unable to present an original VAT receipt as they had submitted it to benefit from a past government subsidy scheme. Mr Wightman complained that 250w pedelecs were being treated like cars and their owners were even being given forms to fill that are used to register vehicles.

“Unlike the rest of the EU, Malta decided to underline a 2004 law stipulating that all motorised bicycles need to be registered,” he said.

“This was in response to a single accident involving an elderly pedestrian allegedly hit by a petrol-powered bicycle on a pelican crossing two years ago.”

Clamping down on people using the environmentally friendly pedelecs would not push down the number of illegally converted bikes running on petrol, Mr Wightman said.

Unlike such bikes, pedelecs have an electric motor attached to them that switches off when the rider reaches 25km/h or stops pedalling.

While the sales of pedelecs have increased in Europe, the threat of stiffer regulation has discouraged the use of these bikes in Malta, Mr Wightman added.

“It’s not clear what Malta’s government will do to increase pedelec uptake… or what will happen if a tourist turns up on a pedelec.”