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.
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
I find it so weird that some people are fine with vehicles going faster on bicycle lanes (and even worse with pavements for countries that allow that, which I also find weird, where is the pedestrian supposed to go in these cases ?). These fast vehicles make it so annoying and unsafe for other users.
I agree with you that if people want to go fast, well we already have roads for that.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone would be advocating for allowing gas powered mopeds traveling at 40kph (25mph) on the sidewalk but when it’s electric they somehow feel differently about it. Where ever we draw the line is going to be arbitrary but it needs to be drawn somewhere. I think 25kph (15mph) is a good limit as it’s about the speed you can comfortably maintain with an acoustic bike as well. Me plus the bike is around 120kg (250lbs). That’s a lot of energy hitting a pedestrian even at 15mph. It’ll definitely cripple a grandmom.
I hear the gas powered moped coming.
Where you draw the line is arbitrary. We can instead use facts and reason.
I didn’t draw that line - the European Union did. They probably have their facts and reasons for that but please, enlighten me about how combining pedestrians and fast moving vehicles is more reasonable.
I’ve made no claims except that I can hear a gas powered moped coming. The burden isn’t upon me to explain.
Appeal to authority. Instead, explain why they reached their conclusions.