Last September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law SB-1271, which redefines and adds to several electric bicycle regulations in…
Last September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law SB-1271, which redefines and adds to several electric bicycle regulations in…
Perhaps an unpopular opinion but I think that if it has a throttle and goes faster than 15mph (25kph) then it belongs on the road with cars.
I see where you’re coming from, but we also need to consider the mass of these vehicles, not just their speed. Person+bike at 50km/h vs pedestrian at rest means a roughly 1:1 split on the inertia after impact, and a pedestrian accelerated to 25km/h. Car at 50km/h vs person+bike at rest is a 1:10 or 1:20 split in inertia after impact, and rider accelerated to very nearly 50km/h.
IMO sharing a space with pedestrians is the lesser harm outcome if we cannot provide safe infrastructure which separates such vehicles from both cars and pedestrians.
In the Netherlands we have quite good infrastructure for bikes, but e-bikes/scooters going >25kph really fuck up the safety.
I’m with OP, if you want to go that fast you should be in the road.
It’s not all about the impact. It’s also about the chance or impact. If you’re going at that speed on pedestrian zones, you’ll eventually hit someone, or be very close to doing so. Pedestrians go in any direction, and can change at any time in an instant. If you go fast, no matter how fast your reflexes are, they won’t be fast enough to brake in time on pedestrian zones.
The roads not being safe for non-cars is not the problem for pedestrians. Use the bike lane in those cases.
Well, at least it was a free opinion even if it doesn’t turn out to be a popular one.
I would even say that a normal bike with a >25km/h drive does not belong in public traffic. You can only put a certain amount of breaking power on a bike.
My radwagon motor tops out at 32kph, I can pedal it up to about 40kph. At 40kph I can stop in 3m on dry tarmac, about 6m in snow.
For comparison, the cars I’m forced to ride with have a 24m braking distance at 40kph, but let’s be honest, there’s usually doing over 50kph despite the limit, so it’s more like 38-55m
Unless you mean trying to do 60 to 0km/h over a few meters is harder to stop without being launched, there is no way there is any notable limit to braking power. I can easily stop in half what a small car can do in any conditions, and less if I hang off the back and squeeze the seat with my thighs really hard to not launch over the bars. I could probably push it even more and do even shorter but it would need a lot more traction and front vs rear weight considerations and wear the tires super fast.
Now teach this to the senior citizens here who have learned to run their ebikes at top speed without having the skills to control it.
And in case you wonder, they brake with the power they remember from riding a normal bike many years ago.
I dunno, I guess its a regional thing. I live between a couple popular areas for downhill. all the old guys I worked with are downhill mtb and road racers. they taught me the advanced braking among other things.
I also don’t get the brake memory thing because hydraulic disc brakes on my first adult bike are way stronger than my kid bike rim brakes from when I was in school and I stopped full power and did that front wheel down rear wheel in the air thing on my second or so ride. Even cable brakes on my brother’s ebike stop strong but just feel worse.
Maybe it is. We had several issues and accidents here with elder people and ebikes that resulted from loss of control or insufficient brake use. Of course those bikes have hydraulic disc brakes here, too, but my personal theory is that many older riders who grew up with rim brakes are afraid to use modern braking systems because they are so powerful.
So the list of ebikers hitting something (mostly in the dark), running off the road in curves, or hitting people (often in places where they did not belong in the first place, like pedestrian zones) has become a real issue here.
Most of it is either self-inflicted, or accidents with pedestrians where the biker is at fault.