Aldo Zilli reveals e-bike rider knocked over his mother-in-law, 83, on pedestrian crossing and broke her leg as he calls for Lime bike crackdown
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Celebrity chef Aldo Zilli has revealed that his elderly mother-in-law was mown down at a pedestrian crossing by an e-bike rider who had jumped a red light.
Maureen Welch, 83, was hospitalised for five weeks with a broken leg after the horror crash in Lewisham, south-east London.
She said she was crossing the road on her way to the gym when a Lime bike rider suddenly came from 'between the buses' and knocked her down, before riding off.
Her son in law, Italian restaurant owner Mr Zilli, has now called for a crackdown on e-bike riders that break the rules.
He told the BBC: 'It has definitely changed her life. She was a very active elderly lady. She was on her way to the gym to do swimming.
'Now it has all changed. It has affected me, my life, my children, holidays. We can't take her this year to Italy.
'This is not just Maureen we are talking about here. It is a whole situation with these bikes.'
He added: 'It is happening every day. People are losing lives, they are losing limbs.
'People's lives are changing. Maureen, she now needs care, she had to alter her house, it's not fair.'
As a result of her injuries, Ms Welch now walks with a stick and has had to have wall rails fitted in her home.
She also is having to use a commode in her living room until she can get a downstairs toilet.
Mr Zilli said: 'The problem is the longer you have these bikes for, the more you pay so they are trying to get to their location as fast as possible.
'They go on the pavement and they jump red lights - that is the issue. We need more control on the roads.
'As drivers we are not able to jump red lights and go on the pavements as we would have our licences taken away so why are these bikes allowed to do what they are doing.
The celebrity chef also raised concerns about the danger of e-bikes outside of his restaurant in London.
'London is saturated with all these bikes. The pavement outside my restaurant is mayhem,' Mr Zilli said.
'We can't sit people outside because of these bikes. They swerve in and out. Yesterday one of them tried to snatch my phone.'
A spokesperson for Lime said they were 'deeply shocked and saddened' about the crash involving Ms Welch.
They added: 'The majority of Lime riders use our service responsibly and incidents like this are rare, however individual rider behaviour is not always within our control.'
'Lime takes incidents of this nature very seriously and has well-established systems to help us work closely with the police.
'In this case, the incident was not reported via our dedicated law enforcement reporting portal, which exists to help us share customer data with the police in a way that's compliant with UK law.
'We will continue to work alongside law enforcement bodies in London to ensure these types of incidents are dealt with quickly and appropriately.'
Introduced as a green and cost-efficient way to get about town, Lime bikes have become a popular mode of transport especially for young Londoners.
There now are thought to be more than 30,000 of the bikes in the capital alone.
However, there is little regulation for e-bikes unless they go faster than 15.5mph, at which point they technically become mopeds.
Critics say the law is ridiculous and out of date, with the rollout of 20mph zones providing fresh justification for cyclists to be legally forced to abide by the speed limit.
There have been a number of high profile deaths involving the mode of transport, including last year 15-year-old Saul Cookson died when his e-bike collided with an ambulance in Salford.
Weeks earlier, teenagers Kyrees Sullivan, 16, and Harvey Evans, 15, were killed in Cardiff when the electric bicycle they were riding together crashed.
The devices have also been used in London in numerous acts of anti-social and sometimes criminal behaviour.
Shocking dashcam footage from 2023 showed one brazen thief using an e-bike as a getaway vehicle after swerving up onto the pavement to steal a woman's phone metres from The Ritz Hotel.
The helpless victim was left crumpled in a heap on the pavement while the criminal sped off, swerving between moving vehicles to get away.
Aside from concerns over the safety of the public when used by careless riders, there have also been warnings over the risk of fires caused by the batteries that power them, particularly when using conversion kits that turn normal bicycles into e-bikes.
In February last year, Ian Potter, assistant coroner for Inner North London, issued a warning over the lack of regulation on e-bike conversions and the potential risk of fires, which are caused by a build up of heat when charging.
It came after a pensioner, Bobby Lee, 74, died in a house fire caused by an overcharged battery.
Coroner, Mr Potter, warned that batteries sold in e-bike conversion kits are often 'significantly inferior quality and construction' in comparison to the ones installed on purpose built electrical bikes.
He said: 'There is currently no British or European standard specific to e-bike conversion kits and/or chargers and consequently:
'It is relatively easy for people to buy, particularly from online marketplaces, e-bike conversion kits and/or lithium-ion batteries that are not of sufficient quality or otherwise not of an appropriate standard to charge safely.
'There is an increased risk of people mixing and matching lithium-ion batteries with chargers that carry a different voltage rating.
'It is clear to me though that there is a substantial existing, ongoing and future risk of further deaths while it continues to be the case that there are no, or insufficient, controls and/or standards governing the sale in the UK of lithium-ion batteries and chargers for electric powered personal vehicles and e-bike conversion kits.'
