Comment by wintermutestwin
9 hours ago
As an oldster who used to do weekly century rides and lost that ability due to nerve damage in my foot (thanks to decades of wearing pointy Italian riding shoes), I’d love it if we could focus on simply enforcing laws that exist rather than saddling arbitrary blanket regulations on lawful citizens.
I built an ebike and hell yes I put a throttle on it because it enables me to ride more technical trails. This bike has dramatically increased my quality of life. Please leave me alone and if someone uses a throttle bike in an illegal manner give them a ticket.
>> Please leave me alone and if someone uses a throttle bike in an illegal manner give them a ticket.
Well in most jurisidictions just the throttle is an "illegal manner", and if you're riding technical trails because of it I have no sympathy for your condition or improved quality of life; you're screwing it up for the rest of us. Maybe you should be the one who leaves.
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I'm sypathetic but ... unlike cars, bikes don't have large each to read license plates. People will scream about facial recognition. I'm not trying to take away your freedom. I've just wished they'd enforce traffic laws on cyclists but it's just not going to happen and cyclists know it so they almost all break traffic laws with impunity.
It's hilarious to see all the responses that are effectively "others break the law more!"
The license plate issue is that cities can, and are, adding more and more license plate scanners to catch cars. Those won't work for bicycles and ebikes (who drive like cyclists) unless they require license plates on bikes/ebikes and enforce. Yes, and enforce more on cars too.
Large license plates don't prevent cars from regularly breaking traffic laws. The percentage of cyclists who come to a complete stop at all stop signs and red lights is higher than the percentage of drivers who strictly follow the speed limit.
License plates do not seem to prevent dangerous and illegal behavior in cars, why should they help for bikes?
I can stand at any corner in any city in the USA and count the percent of cars that stop vs the percent of bikes that stop. Bikes about 1 of 10 will stop. Cars at least 4 of 5 will stop. So, cyclists, 10% compiliance. car drivers, 80% compliance.
As for license plates, I'd like both cars and bikes to obey the law. The only way I see that happening is cameras and scanners. For that to stop bikes requires the bikes to also have plates.
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You know what happens when a cyclist is involved in a traffic accident they cause? They might get hurt or cause some minor property damage. When the driver of a car is at fault they kill other people, so I'm not too worried about even negligent bike riders causing an accident.
We recently had a funeral for people killed in an accident that was not caused by the car driver. When cars and bikes share the same space, it might be an impact with a car that kills somebody, but that impact might be the result of a chain of actions initiated by a bicyclist.
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As a pedestrian I find your analysis a bit myopic... but on par for far too many cyclists.
You know who generally stops at a stop sign or stoplight? People on an e-bike, compared to people riding for sport or commuting on road bikes. It's not a big deal to stop and get started again when you have a motor. It's a pain in the ass when you're trying to make it to work on time with your legs.
Why is having a license plate even relevant here? Most traffic enforcement is done when an officer sees something happen.
How else will a witness be able to report the get-away bike in a bank robbery?