Overview
- The Metropolitan Police have rolled portable Dynostar and Wenger 'rolling road' test kits into stop sites across London to quickly measure whether e‑bikes or e‑scooters can propel themselves above the 15.5mph legal limit.
- In a Friday operation near Tottenham Court Road officers seized 29 e‑bikes and seven e‑scooters and made two arrests for public order, theft and assault on an emergency worker.
- So far in 2026 the Met has impounded more than 2,500 illegal electric two‑wheelers, exceeding the 2,241 seized across all of 2025.
- Each roadside test takes about one minute, riders are typically held for under 15 minutes, and owners have 14 days to produce licence or insurance before machines are stripped for parts and destroyed.
- The force credits the crackdown with a near‑halving of West End phone thefts and a 14% drop in neighbourhood offences to June, and it plans more summer operations while developing partnerships to manage seized bikes and offer education or work routes.