If you want to use an electric bike To get around Michigan’s Mackinac Island, the rules are pretty simple: You can not. not youunless you have a mobility disability that “substantially limits the individual’s ability to ride a bicycle.” In that case, you are allowed to have 1 . electric bike that only provides assistance while you are pedaling and you must be licensed. It is possible to use a Class 2 e-bike, but the electric throttle must be permanently disabled, bringing it back to Class 1. But are you listening? Of course not. Now is the year 2023.
Detroit Free Press reported that in the past three weeks, Mackinac Island police have seized between 50 and 75 e-bikes. And according to Sheriff Doug Topolski, it’s not that the rules aren’t clearly communicated.
“Usually when they come back and get the bike, they admit that they know about the ordinance but argue. [that] they can’t do without the throttle,” Topolski told the Free Press. “Or they’ll tell us they haven’t managed to get a license yet.”
With cars banned on the island, people tend to walk or ride a traditional bicycle. Alternatively, they could party like it was in 1823 and take a cab by horse-drawn carriage. It gives the island a deliberately slow pace of life, largely disconnected from the Modern world. And with others moving relatively slowly, they don’t want some to run twice as fast as others. They also had a few e-bike fires this summer.
As Topolski told the Free Press:
The ordinance here is very clear and many see e-bikes as a slippery slope as well as an existential threat to the island when it comes to potential battery fire. This is not a new ordinance. E-bikes have never been allowed here and are currently only allowed for people with mobility impairments and are only allowed to use the type without throttle and with an assisted top speed is 20 mph. The only change to the ordinance is that those who want to comply with a Type II bike with a throttle must now ‘permanently modify’ that bike. … The reason this change is being made is that too many people will just disconnect the gas line to license the bike and then reconnect it as soon as they leave the police station.
Maybe with enough signs and e-bike seizures, people will eventually get notified. But this is America, so maybe not.
