How one police force plans to chase criminals the environmentally friendly way

A UK police force will be the first in the world to pursue criminals using eco-friendly, three-wheeled electric tricycles.Northamptonshire Police has added 12 petrol-hybrid Yamaha motorbikes to its fleet of fuel-powered vehicles.

The trikes, costing around £14,000 each, have been hollowed out so they are ultra lightweight and have a top speed of 95mph.

Each bike weighs 293kg compared to normal police motorcycles, which weigh 360kg. The vehicles can also last for up to six hours - or around 100 miles - through just one battery charge.

As they are three-wheeled vehicles, they can be ridden by officers who just have a driving licence for a car.

Neighbourhood policing teams will use the bikes around Northamptonshire with a view to them being rolled out to forces across the UK.Chief Constable Nick Adderley said: “You will not see these machines anywhere else in the world.”

He said that as the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for motorcycling, he had been working with a local company to design the motorcycles.

“It starts to attack that green agenda which all emergency services are battling with right now,” he said.

“We are the world’s first in terms of getting this machine running; in terms of a police force that has this bike, the aerodynamics and the engineering that has gone into it has not been seen anywhere in the world.”

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