The controversy surrounding electric bikes (e-bikes) or trikes (e-trikes) in our roads calls for a drastic and immediate action from our authorities, especially the Land Transportation Office (LTO).
Existing laws such as the 60-year-old Republic Act 4136, or the Land Transportation and Traffic Code, may no longer be enough to regulate this new mode of transport.
Even the more recent RA 11697, or the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act, and its implementing rules and regulations may need more tweaking to address the unregulated proliferation of e-bikes and e-trikes which has caused confusion nationwide.
For starters, not all e-bikes and e-trikes can be registered, as the LTO Administrative Order 2021-039 identifies only certain types that may be registered and be driven only by individuals with driver’s licenses. Some of these may not need to be registered as they are supposed to be allowed only on certain roads.
Subsequent legal issuances by the LTO further caused more confusion, as all such electric vehicles were required registration, even to the extent of making helmets mandatory for their drivers. This registration was later recalled by the LTO due to administrative and legal concerns.
Meanwhile, sales of e-bikes and e-trikes have skyrocketed, admittedly thanks to certain conveniences that they do offer to customers. For one, public transport fares, especially the “pakyaw” system for bringing children to school via tricycles daily have indeed become almost prohibitive.
No doubt, this felt need to avoid prohibitive tricycle transport cost has contributed to the popularity of e-bikes and e-trikes among ordinary households. With affordable downpayment and monthly installment terms, these electric vehicles that require no registration and little parking space may even be more convenient than a four-wheeled private vehicle.
But there’s the rub, exactly. Taking advantage of the situation and avoiding the need to secure a franchise from government regulatory agencies, many enterprising individuals have made e-bikes and e-trikes a public transport denomination where drivers rent them daily on a boundary system similar to tricycles, jeepneys and taxis.
Now, we have such individuals becoming de facto operators of electric vehicle fleets that run as public transportation units all over towns and cities, contributing to road congestion and posing as unfair competitors to legitimately-franchised public utility vehicles.
Worse, since these e-bikes and e-trikes do not have franchises, they put their lives and limbs of their passengers at risk since they are not covered by any accident insurance.
As such, LTO must swiftly come up with regulatory policies on these electric vehicles. Being unregistered, their owners do not even pay Road User’s Tax which only supposedly gives registered vehicles the right to be on our roads.