Rental e-bikes in London borough get number plates to help track down rogue cyclistsNew measure comes amid growing concern over e-bikes being ridden in inappropriate and dangerous ways
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Matt Watts, News Editor2 minutes ago
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Rental e-bikes in a London borough are to be fitted with number plates to help track down rogue cyclists.
A third of the 1,500-bike fleet of Forest bikes in Richmond, southwest London, will be given plates to make it easier to identify riders “in the event of an incident or a parking issue”, the Telegraph reported.
It comes amid growing concern over e-bikes being ridden in inappropriate and dangerous ways, such as through red lights or on pavements.
While there is also concern about tracing riders who are involved in collisions.
Earlier this year, a woman recounted how she had been thrown face-first into a brick wall by a Forest e-bike rider, leaving her with severe facial injuries.
Sandy Peters told The Times: “My son said he thought he was watching his mum die, basically choking on the blood, because there was so much of it coming out of my nose and my mouth.”
Currently, individual Forest bikes can only be identified by a small five-digit number printed under the QR code that riders use to activate the bike.
Rows of Forest rental e-bikes are parked on a pavement area in LondonGetty
But under the company’s new plans, the vehicles will bear the same code on the number plate, the Telegraph reported.
A spokesman for Forest said: “The way it works is that if there’s an incident and the number is shared with us, just as with the bike number, we can immediately identify the bike and who was riding it at the time, and take the required action faster.”
It is understood that cyclists who persistently misuse Forest bikes could be permanently banned from being able to hire one again.
So far, around 500 number plates have been installed on Forest bikes in Richmond.
Similar numbers are painted on the right-hand side of London’s Santander e-bikes.
In June 2025, Lord Hendy, a transport minister, said that the Government had “no plans to legislate for the registration or insurance of e-bikes or pedal bikes”, adding that doing so “would be likely to put many people off cycling”.
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