Apparently they've been in use for a while now although I've never seen one. (I'm all legal by the way), but if these things get rolled out nationwide I wonder how long it will take before they start targeting gangs of greying middle aged men who resent spending a few hundred quid to pass their tests but think nothing of forking out 4 grand for an engine?
Apparently been about since 2008 so had plenty of time to roll em out. Police funding is so tight I suspect they will never go national. They have much more import tasks like terrorism to be dealing with rather than find a few oversized scooters.
i do think that this is aimed at people who are riding on l plates, if its a moped its supposed to be restricted to 30mph which they can measure speed on the dyno, unless its a pre 77 moped then its allowed to be unrestricted but must have pedals, if its a 125 they were restricted for provisional riders during the early 80s i belive it was 11kw, so if you have a lambretta or vespa that your running on l plates your fine with go faster engine mods as long as its not too new to have to be restricted, that been said 11kw is about 15bhp so if your under that power output i doubt any questions would be asked, i guess some may insure and register a larger capacity machine as a 125, they may be able to work out you have a bigger engine if your above the 15bhp mark, eg a ts1 that will do a lot more power wise.
I'd love to get pulled up on the VB1 and sidecar, I can just imagine it, 'How come if this is a 150 like you say it is, it is not even making 3hp?' Still as it appears it takes three of them to operate the machine, at least there will be someone on hand to lift up the sidecar wheel!
Many Police Authorites have been using them for years, they use them to target mopeds ridden by 16 year olds to establish the power output and maximum speed. When my lad was 16 he rode a Yamaha Aerox which shall we say was a bit faster than it should be. I told him that if he ever got stopped by the police and they wanted to do carry out a dyno test , unless they had previously clocked at an excessive speed to ask for a deferred inspection.
