Comment by NikolaNovak
4 years ago
If something has that average speed capability, why is not licensed, registered, insured and held accountable as any vehicle would be? My 50cc scooter appears to have comparable speeds (maybe 10kph higher), and I wear proper armour & helmet, took the classes passed the test, am registered, licenses & insured.
That's my massive pet peeve & safety concern: I WANT to love e-Bikes, and all those sorts of things; and like a fellow poster, I've been riding both 500-650cc motorcycles and 50-125cc scooters for more than a decade so 2-wheelers are part of my life; but basically all the ads, shops, and salespeople over here are focusing on "You don't need license, you don't need insurance, you don't need to behave like a vehicle and obey the rules" as their main and primary sales point; and therefore the behaviour of riders is equally nonchalant. In the Toronto area (and it's important to be explicit because this is definitely different in different geographies), the relationship between cars and non-gas two-wheelers is charitably described as "strained" ("murderous/self-righteous hate" may be more accurate), and we all need to get better and understanding how we can co-exist and behave responsibly on the road.
I drive, walk, and bike often in San Francisco. I rode a 650cc motorcycle for 10 years when I was in my 20s.
In the Panhandle, for example, there is a mixed use bike / walking path. It is very dangerous for the walkers even with normal bikes, as the bikes are whizzing by the walkers at 20mph. However one day I was walking, and a HUGE mutant E-bike with massive fat tires & very heavy frame, flew by me at what seemed like 30-40mph -- and to me, it felt exactly like a near miss from a motorcycle.
There are other safety concerns with recent trends, with the Slow streets. Everyone walks in the middle of those streets & the pedestrians treat them as their exclusive domain: kids playing, etc. But the drivers long ago stopped respecting the "slow street" concept, and whiz around the traffic cones, and then go 30mph down the street. The city is still treating them as an experiment, which is a part of the problem.
I love both E-Bikes and the Slow Streets, and they should be a huge part of our future: * Cities should make the Slow Streets official and modify them to make them impractical to use for driving a car (perhaps making them have a single curving central lane). * Likewise the E-Bikes need a bit more regulation and limited strictly to bike only lanes, not the mixed biking / pedestrian paths.
As it is currently the progress of society and technology has created a bit of a dangerous situation.
One of the problems with SF streets (especially in Sunset where I live) is street width. With residential streets wide enough for six cars side by side, drivers feel like they can go faster without danger to themselves.
The solution is to make streets feel more dangerous to them: narrow streets, or at least obstacles like concrete planters that force drivers to go around them.
I’d love to see half of the width of Sunset’s streets reclaimed with wider sidewalks, planters with trees, and bike lanes. But I don’t see it happening to anywhere near the extent of Netherlands efforts, and simply narrowing the roads to Japanese or Korean neighbourhood width wouldn’t be realistic since they are already built.
You get caught speeding in a slow street here it will put you in serious trouble, and rightly so.
a single curving central lane is one solution.
i also like the dutch solution, in which entrances into these slow zones are generally with a raised crosswalk that acts as a speed bump.
I know here in Ontario, Canada we do have regulations for ebikes. They are not allowed to exceed 32km/h (or ~20 mph). This seems like a somewhat reasonable limit. They also impose other requirements like minimum wheel widths, having two independent braking systems with stopping distance requirements. You can't even ride them if you got a criminal conviction that prohibits driving (such as a DUI).
Reference: http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/driver/electric-bicycles-fa...
I think the only problem here is that some of these things can be hard to regulate with making random enforcement stops. And people typically aren't much of a fan of random stops which is understandable, I'm not either. So I guess you'd have to happen to catch them by LIDAR, but I don't even know how accurate such a reading would be against a small bike. Not sure it would be admissible in a court.
In the US my ebike stops giving assist at 20mph. (Class 1 I think) I can go faster just pedaling but not for very long.
My average speed on the ebike only increased by 3-5 mph over my regular bike, but my distance and usage has gone up.
Should regular bicycles have to be licensed? When I studied in Vietnam I'd ride my bike amongst traffic in bursts of 55 KPH and cruise around 40kph (I had a Garmin mounted). Generally I can only do 30 kph in the countryside, but in the city & amongst traffic there is much less air resistance.
Additionally a bicycle can do Lane splitting much better than a motorcycle can.
I however don't ride my bike in the US because it's not safe to. There's not the proper infrastructure which just annoys drivers, but if there was I wouldn't have a problem sticking to riding 20kph in the city until I get to rural parts for training. Riding fast in bicycle lanes seems irresponsible if you're amongst commuters.
I suppose I just kinda answered this. There should be speed limits for bike lanes inside cities.
In part because regular bikes can go that fast with top athletes. The world record 1h speed is over 55kph on level ground, people can go significantly faster over shorter periods especially in sprints or down hill.
In the EU, they are. Ebikes are hard-limited to 25 km/hr. If you have one which is capable of more than that (manufactured or modded), it is regarded as a motor vehicle and you need a license.