The family of a 94-year-old woman seriously injured in a collision with an electric motorbike has backed calls for a crackdown on riders who wear balaclavas or face coverings. The intervention comes as an SNP MSP warned that young men are roaming Scottish communities “dressed in black, wearing face coverings, terrifying people”.
Elderly woman's family backs clampdown
Peggy Maxwell, 94, was returning home from a lunch date in May when she was involved in a collision with a Sur-Ron dirtbike in the Fife village of Lochore. She broke her neck, back, clavicle, several ribs and one ankle as a result of the smash. She is now back home recovering, and her family are campaigning for tougher laws regulating the sale of electric motorbikes, e-bikes and e-scooters.
Peggy's daughter June has welcomed an intervention from SNP MSP David Linden, who highlighted an “epidemic” of e-bikes and e-scooters “being driven by young people, often completely wearing black and wearing face coverings”. June told the Record: “It's a massive issue. You see these bikers wearing face coverings all the time. We all know why they're trying to cover their faces - they don't want to be identified.”
MSP warns of serious injury or death
Linden, a member of the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee, said: “I fear we are getting to a point where someone is going to get seriously injured, or worse still killed. That is how serious this situation has become, particularly in our city and urban communities.”
Linden warned that young men were roaming Scots communities “dressed in black, wearing face coverings, terrifying people”. The city of Nottingham recently granted police and council officers the power to order the removal of balaclavas and face coverings when used to conceal a person's identity during anti-social behaviour, and Linden said he would be “exploring” with the Scottish Government if similar action could be taken in Scotland.
Police federation calls for law change
“We have entered new territory with people wearing face coverings, often complemented with people dressed completely in black,” he said. “That is unsettling for people in our communities, so I do want to work with the Cabinet Secretary (for Justice) to see, do we need to look at a situation where the police are given more powers, because we cannot have a situation where people, whether they are adults who should know better, or young people, are roaming around with balaclavas. We live in the 21st century and this is just not acceptable for people.”
David Kennedy, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), also said there is a need to “do more on face coverings”, saying police should have “powers to remove them, to see who the individuals are”. He added: “The face coverings, we need a law change, we need to give police more powers. We are able to remove them on certain occasions, but it needs to be more matter of fact that they (police officers) can do it.”
While he accepted there would be cases where someone has a religious or medical reason for wearing a face covering, Kennedy insisted: “We need police officers on the street, when they come across somebody, that they have the power to tell them to remove their mask so they can see who they are.” He also raised concerns that individuals on e-bikes and e-scooters wearing balaclavas may not be wearing a helmet. “If you are on an e-bike and you are wearing a face covering, the concern I have got is you are not wearing a helmet. I don't see many people travelling about the city centre on e-bikes wearing helmets,” he said.
