Your Odds and Ends column (TMID, 23 March) asked why insurance is not mandatory for electric bicycles on the basis that such bicycles can develop “substantial speed”.

For the benefit of this reader, the facts are these: fitting a small electric motor to a bicycle does not convert it into a high performance motorcycle. The major advantage of a motorised bicycle is that it takes the work out of climbing hills and so allows the cyclist to continue uphill without slowing down too much – motorised bicycles are barely faster on the level than a normal pedal-driven bicycle.

Only professional and sports cyclists maintain quite high speeds on the level and this is faster than an electric bicycle can do. The average cyclist, motorised or not, only travels at “high” speeds when coasting down a hill – here the speed attained is much faster than a motorised bike. Otherwise the average cyclist rarely exceeds about 10-15 mph on the level, motorised or not.

A motorised bicycle is therefore no more dangerous than an ordinary bicycle but it can move its rider about 1,000 times more fuel-efficiently than a car (but slowly without additional pedalling) so that it is virtually non-polluting. The public (and this includes the reader who wrote in to complain about electric bicycles) should be encouraged to get a bicycle, motorised or otherwise, and help reduce our traffic pollution by leaving their car at home on fine days.

Any trend to low pollution travel must be promoted in every possible way. People should not be discouraged by the introduction of unnecessary limitations. We have lived with unlicensed and uninsured bicycles for well over 100 years with no complications. Adding a little motor to a bicycle to ease the ascent of hills has not altered the situation.

George Debono

Sliema