The sight has become part of the urban landscape — rented e-bikes gliding serenely through red lights, often forcing pedestrians and cars to swerve. At a junction in central London, the FT counted 43 per cent of rented e-bike riders not stopping at the traffic light. Nearly a third of conventional cyclists also failed to stop.

A variety of explanations has been given for the bad behaviour, including a lack of police enforcement and by-the-minute pricing that encourages e-bike customers to rush to their destination. The companies that rent the e-bikes now say they are developing ways to sanction rogue cyclists. Forest, which says it has 2mn registered users across London, is rolling out number plates that will make it easier to identify riders “in the event of an incident or a parking issue”.

If a pedestrian or another road user spots a Forest bike parked inconveniently or being ridden dangerously, they can — in theory — provide the company with its number. Forest will match this to the rider responsible, and may impose sanctions such as warnings, fines or bans on repeat offenders. About 500 of its bikes in Richmond upon Thames now have number plates.

Forest is also rolling out an in-app sobriety test: a reaction-time check, triggered by geolocation data, which assesses when and where the risk of drunk riders is greatest. Wayne Ting, chief executive of Lime, which operates in six English cities and more than 200 worldwide, says it plans to introduce bikes and scooters that will “hopefully . . . see if somebody is running a red light”. Repeat offenders could receive warnings and even be “[kicked] off the platform”, he told the FT.

However, he offered no timeline for the release of the feature. Rented e-bikes have surged in popularity over the past decade, as residents seek to bypass traffic jams and reach areas not well served by public transport. Lime raised $167mn in an initial public offering in July.

Operators have long come under scrutiny for their potential safety risks. In London, bone-crushing injuries became so common that they earned the name “Lime bike leg”. Stuart Ford, cycling team lead at the City of London Police force, said that some riders “don’t quite understand they’re on a 20-30kg, heavy bike”.

Perhaps the most common complaint about dockless e-bikes has been antisocial parking, with vehicles often blocking pavements and doorways. Mike Bell, head of public affairs and campaigns at Thomas Pocklington Trust, a charity that supports the blind and partially sighted, said: “When a bike is left across a pavement, it can turn what is normally a familiar, safe route into an obstacle course.” Ting said Lime invested “a lot” in addressing concerns about parking tidiness and speeding, including in technology that can detect when a vehicle has been left on the pavement. In London, Lime bikes can in principle be parked only in a designated bay, in a bike rack or “neatly” to the side of the pavement.

Voi, which operates about 213,000 bikes and scooters in more than 100 European cities, has introduced camera sensors on a number of its e-scooters. It was now looking to add them to its e-bikes, Christina Moe Gjerde, vice-president for northern Europe, told the FT. “Hopefully in London, you’ll very soon see the cameras on the Voi bikes as well, which will also be able to detect whether or not you’re riding in a bike lane or if you’re riding on a pavement,” she said. People who repeatedly cycle on the pavement may be subject to bans.

Voi currently rewards safe riders with discounts and vouchers through tools such as an AI-powered camera that recognises when a cyclist is wearing a helmet. For now, “no one has the tech that can detect red-light riding”, Moe Gjerde said. The rapid adoption of rented e-bikes has left regulators struggling to catch up.