Quote:
Originally Posted by SueW
First of all, thanks for starting the petition. I sincerely hope they become legal in the UK at some point.
My question is how is the Airwheel which Maplins sells legal in the UK (or appears to be) but not the Segway?
Sue
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Hi Sue
It's my belief that they are not legal for use on public land! I owned an Airwheel for a while (some of my joy and 'pain' of owning one is discussed here:
http://forums.segwaychat.org/showthread.php?t=32064)
The company (Airwheel in the UK - I've not looked at this since Maplin started selling them) states they are UK legal (or at least they did when I purchased mine) but I was asking myself the same question you are asking here. I looked for any kind of actual legal loophole or category for the Airwheel or any discussion with the DfT. Didn't find anything. So, I asked the DfT the question outright. Here is their reply:
Quote:
Thank you for your email dated 1 March to the Department for Transport regarding Electric Unicycles. Your correspondence has been passed to us in International Vehicle Standards (IVS) as we have responsibility for vehicle safety.
I can confirm that Electric Unicycles are not permitted on pavements, cycle paths or the highway. The legislation which is relevant to these vehicles is EU Regulation 168/2013 and domestic GB legislation which is in the process of being amended.
The current GB legislation is SI 1983/1168 and this will be amended on 6April 2015 by SI 2015/24. The links to both SIs are below:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1.../contents/made
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2...0150024_en.pdf
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I didn't look any further but did mention this to Airwheel in the UK who said that my information was different to their information - but no additional info was provided.