The problem isn’t the speed, there aren’t speed restrictors on motorcycles or cars.
The problem is there’s no safe lane for them to be ridden. There’s no infrastructure accommodation for them. They can’t be ridden on the sidewalk, and they’re unsafe in regular traffic. Bicycle lanes aren’t ubiquitous enough or designed well enough for bicycles, let alone these mixing with bicycles.
As usual, rather than raising taxes on the filthy rich to fund better infrastructure for the good of the people, they limit what we can do because it’s cheaper and we have less power to resist, or at least, aren’t organized well enough to exercise the power we have.
Weird you missed another key distinction: testing, licensing, and associated age restrictions.
At these speeds they’re electric motorcycles. They should be treated accordingly (and I say that as an avid cyclist who’s incredibly supportive of e-bikes).
licensing
What’s next, a license to make toast in my own damn toaster?!
(libertarians are unhinged and deeply unserious people)
Why not just classify them as mopeds? Mopeds have been around for ages, started out as motorized bicycles, are limited to around 28mph, and have standard age, and license requirements. You have to get a license, and plates. I think there is an insurance requirement also.
I feel like applying all the same guidelines to e-bikes would go a long way to resolve the chaos they have been causing.
Obviously there would need to be some new parameters around what exactly qualifies and all that.
If an ebike can go fast enough riding in regular car lanes shouldn’t be too much of an issue. It wouldnt be any more dangerous than driving a motorcycle.
The main reason bikes don’t do well in car lanes is because they can’t keep up with the flow of traffic typically and cause cars to pile up behind them and then people get impatient and aggressive.
An ebike that can go 50-60kph would basically just be a motorcycle in traffic that could then slip into a bike lane when traffic gets bad.
I unlocked the speed limiter on my ebike soon after I bought it. It was easy to find out how by reading the instruction manual - hold down some key combo on the display box and enter secret menu.
Did some testing on my rural road and got up to 45 MPH going downhill in its top gear. It felt very unsafe so I only tried that once.
No, I’m not doing that on sidewalks or around any people. Also I am licensed to drive a motorcycle on public roads.
It’s illegal to ride on sidewalks at all. No new law needed for that.
Is that part of the highway act?
It’s always been illegal where I’ve lived, rarely enforced, so I just thought it was municipal.
The speed is fine, the stopping power is the problem. Like the musclecar guys with 50s front drum brakes. 😕
Even 70 km/h seems terrifying on what are essentially wide MTB tires. Hit a pot hole and you’re dead.
I’ve done 60 downhill on a commuter bicycle, and with the steering geometry forces being different downhill the bike gets uncorfortably unstable. I turned to take a driveway off the main road and the back end slid around, then caught suddenly, the rear wheel tacoed itself, i highsided and slid, ground through my shirt and jacket. Helmet kept my head safe, but I was in really rough shape and a little bloodied.
I see kids flying by helmetless on their tweaked scooters and ebikes. 🙏
What level of car-brain causes someone to use a hidden camera to snitch in hopes of getting non-car mobility shut down or nerfed to the point of uselessness?
None?
My problems are:
- E-bikes going down bike paths and trails at 80km/h
- e-scooters going down pedestrian sidewalks at 50km/h
- 11 year olds on e-devices thinking that since their devices can go 50km/h, they can ride them in traffic at those speeds.
Nerfing non-car mobility brings the speeds down to what is safe for an unlicensed vehicle driven by an unlicensed operator in public spaces.
I have no issue with e-motorcycles, with the appropriate licensing.
“How dare I be asked not to go down a sidewalk at 120 km/hr, I have places to be”
Why are your ebikes being forced to go on sidewalks? Could it be that cars have made riding an ebike on the roads very dangerous or clogged them up with traffic?
- You don’t require a license for a e-scooters.
- As such, most people on e-scooters aren’t educated on traffic laws like drivers are.
- As such, minors who are uneducated on traffic law are also able to use them.
- Going back to point 2, when you pair people ignorant to traffic laws going 120 km/hr on a device with no built-in protection with the fact that helmets aren’t legally required for them, you get a strain on public health for stupid reasons.
- We already set speed limits on conventional bikes for safety reasons.
- “Pedestrians” (which should include e-scooters and e-bikes), are at a 90% rate of injury for car collisions at 90 km/hr . I highly doubt this changes when it’s an e-scooter hitting another e-scooter or an e-scooter hitting a pedestrian.
No matter how you spin this, 120 km/hr on a scooter is beyond stupid.
Quickly adding that where I live, we have designated, separated bike lanes people using these things are supposed to use, and they still go zooming down sidewalks nearly hitting people, no helmet on, without so much of a ring of a bell for warning.
Take cars off the roads and I guarantee you won’t have any problems getting bikes to use the street rather than the sidewalk.
Congrats on completely ignoring points 4 to 6.
Have a good day.
Actually, let’s just remove the ability for humans to be injured in collisions. That’s probably easier.
How would you recommend doing that?
I’m not sure, I thought we were imagining a fantastical world
They are an amazing technology. Slowly they will change transportation in cities. A 120 km/h and a 100 km range is a game changer.
I get annoyed by them all the time because people rip them around in places you wouldn’t take a car, and they’re getting powerful enough to be dangerous. Still, the potential is huge. They use so much less space, infrastructure, and energy than cars. They’re also significantly cheaper.
They’ve killed off the 50cc Vespa gas scooter, just too good of a technology. The old 50cc’s were a pain, have to gas them up, and not always starting. Couldn’t bring them inside, too dirty of a motorcycle. It’ll be a slow change, still a newish technnology. Much to figure out about using them in traffic and such.
They have been banned in the CBD of my city because they are ridden on footwaths plenty and after numerous collision injuries someone was killed by an electric scooter. They are need to be regulated, licenced and only ridden on the road/cycle paths if they go that fast (whilst also being practically silent mind you).
Ah so these are the people riding down sidewalks where I live
You just reminded me, I was very slowly coasting my bike (one metre per second?) down the sidewalk next to my apartment as I waited for traffic to clear to get on the road. I saw two young boys, approx three and four years old, ten metres up the sidewalk but they hadn’t seen me yet. The older brother saw me, shrieked, and stepped over to shield his little brother from my rampage. It was so cute. :)
Darwin has awards to award
Candidates for manslaughter?
Bicycles are supposed to ride on the road (not sidewalk) yes? So why are they being limited to a speed that is actively disruptive to traffic? Going 30 in a 50 zone means you are going 20km/h under the limit, which is considered disruptive and is actuality a ticket-worthy offense if you are in a car. So why are bikes being limited to that? This makes no sense. If you don’t want bike lanes and want bikes to ride with traffic, then they need to be able to flow with the speed of traffic. Absolute mindless nonsense! It’s safer to be going the speed of traffic than to be going slower and have an impatient car try to get past the slow AF cyclist.
That also seems really slow, to me.
On a modest downhill on my POS rusty mountain bike, I’m pretty sure I get up to about 50 km/h, and can go the speed of traffic. I sometimes need to brake so I don’t pass cars! On an efficient road bike, I imagine I could sustain speeds above 32 km/h on level roads, too.
I just looked it up, and indeed: 1 km cycle speeds of 40+ km/h are fairly pedestrian.
A 32 km/h level-ground limit seems really slow.
I am an experienced (adult) driver, cycle defensively, about major roads, drive according to conditions, etc., so I know how to use roads safely. If I had one of these, I imagine I would be really frustrated to be going slower than I could cycling, so I’d probably disable the limiter myself, too—but I wouldn’t be going north of 50 on any bike, electric or not.
Going highway speeds on a bicycle is insanity, regardless of age. And children shouldn’t be operating motor vehicles at all. (Well, aside from walking- or jogging-speed toys, not on roads). But 32 km/h seems overly restrictive, and inviting non-compliance.
The solution is to reduce the speed limits then, not give every kid a motorcycle
I know this is a Canada thread, but surely one of these stores is City e-Bike in the small Colorado town of South
ParkAmericaWas at the fair they were doing a drawing for an RC remote control car they claim will do 80MPH. That alone is insane.
Good. Faster eBikes = less vehicle usage
It sounds like most people don’t understand what a meat crayon is. It’s fine, just require a license and make sure the class shows what motorcycle accidents look like, all the gore and the screaming. I remember one video, even with having all the bike gear, hit a bump and headbutted a stone wall. Dead.
I have read that many parents regret having their children. Somehow I think there is a link.
Just require a license for anything that can be unlocked. If that doesn’t help then insurance requirements.
Should be the same licence requirements and insurance as a limited speed motorcycle (must be under 50cc) which are limited to 70 km/hr.
