Cheshire Police looks set to turn to drone technology to catch illegal e-bikers in the county, the Crime Commissioner has revealed.
Dan Price called the use of drones against those speeding and causing havoc on illegally adapted e-bikes will be a “gamechanger”.
Mr Price said he could not give a date when this would be deployed.
But he confirmed Cheshire Police is pursuing the latest drone technology and is at the front of the queue in the North West for using that capability.
He said he became aware, during a citizens’ assembly, of how big a problem speeding e-bikes had become for local people.
There have been a number of incidents in Nantwich involving e-bikers in recent weeks, including one which left a pedestrian seriously injured last week.
Mr Price told today’s (Sept 12) Cheshire Police and Crime Panel: “I immediately started touching base with the national police chiefs’ lead in this, and got Cheshire prioritised ahead of other areas in the North West.
“I have no doubt that that is going to be an invaluable tool at dealing with e-bikes.
“Having the ability to have drone technology that can see a bike, or other device, travelling way over the 15mph limit is going to be invaluable.”
He said there had been operations where officers have gone out proactively looking for e-bikes which had been adapted so they could go above the legal speed limit.
But he said this was not the most efficient use of police time.
“Having the public report it and having drone technology in the air, in that proximity, within a minute, is absolutely going to be a game changer,” Mr Price told the panel.
“And to be able to follow them somewhere and then make a seizure of that equipment where they’ve got to, as opposed to some of the scenarios that we’ve seen where there’s been police officers chase individuals, and we’ve had fatalities as a consequence – not happened here in Cheshire, I’m pleased to say, but we don’t want that as a solution either.”
Just ban them, before someone is killed,