I live them. The problem is cars, not faster elctric bikes. Put them.on roads not sidewalks, ban fucking cars and that’s progress.
Ebikes tend to be significantly heavier than regular bikes. Once you add speed or a throttle to a 60+lb ebike, they become much more dangerous in pedestrian collisions.
I think bicycles need dedicated infrastructure, hands down, and ebikes over a certain speed/weight/throttle combination need to be kept off of pedestrian mixed-use pathways and sidewalks.
The ~30l-40bs difference in an ebike vs. a road bike seems kind of negligible compared to the weight of the rider (never mind comparing it to something like a car). How many people get killed by e-bikes every year vs. vehicles?
The argument that e-bikes are super dangerous to pedestrians just doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny when you compare it to cars.
This is what I see when looking at this topic. So much talk about dangerous ebikes, but in my area most of it is coming from anti-tax groups who are mad that a tiny portion of money went to paint a bike lane or fix a trail. So they blame bikes while they drive around hitting peds in their Excursions and F250s.
Can evokes be dangerous, yes. Are ebikes the pressing danger menacing our roadways, no. If we could keep full blown gas dirtbikes off multi-use paths and make a few cars stop at crosswalks, that would make a bigger impact than every ebike in the state disappearing overnight.
I ride a class 3 ebike 66% of the time and various muscle-powered bikes the remainder of the time. 30mph makes most roads in my downtown accessible to me. I bought a class 3 for this reason. We’re too suburban for class 2 to keep up with traffic on most roads.
Where I live: Multi use paths: 20mph (buttholes are trying to lower it to 15mph which I can beat on any muscle-bike) Neighborhood roads: <=25mph (bikable but tend to not connect well) Collectors: <30-35mph (sometimes uncomfortable, but okay) Arterials: 40-60mph (you probably gunna die unless you are going downhill, have passed cars at 45-50mph on the downhill. Never wish to repeat 😳 Expressways: 65+mph (um…)
We’re pretty spread out and a useful trip could be anywhere from 5-35 miles round trip.
The main argument here is “if you can go as fast as traffic then you are more like traffic”. Not Just Bikes did a 1.5 hour treatment on how US/Canadian bike infrastructure got the way it did, and the one man responsible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRPduRHBhHI
TL;DW
This guy believed that only “real cyclists” should be riding, i.e. people who ride racing bikes as fast as they can. Casual riders need not apply. He wrote a book on how to design streets for bikes based entirely around “real cyclists”. It’s commonly used today. The infrastructure it recommends is dangerous for most actual people who bike, so no one bikes. The video is a great 1.5 hr rant though, very entertaining.
Point is, this article falls into the trap of accepting the whole “real cyclist” framing of the argument. If there’s separate bike infrastructure, then the idea of needing speed to integrate with car traffic goes away, and the whole article is moot.
100% agree with you and NJB except that e-bikes that can go 30+ MPH should just bite the bullet and be regulated like motorcycles.
The single vehicle accident statistics with e-bikes are staggering. People don’t treat it as a dangerous vehicle and wear helmets at a minimum.
Generally agree. I don’t know enough of the data to say whether or not they should be motorcycles or a new category of vehicle that can be regulated separately, but I’m in favour of increased regulation and licensing as they get more powerful.
Yes, separate bike infrastructure would solve this. Though I’d argue you can drive faster once you don’t have to share the road with cars and pedestrians. Sadly I don’t think I’m going to get separate infrastructure anytime soon.
That is a really important video for any cyclist in North America.
Like many things in life, the same concepts that apply to motorcycles apply to bicycles. Having enough power on tap to just get the hell out of the way of crazy people is always beneficial.
Regarding the inevitable whining that will ensue about “dangers to pedestrians,” which the article also briefly touches upon, if your vehicle can go the same speed as car traffic you should not be operating it on the sidewalk in the first place. You should be operating it on the street, just like a motorcycle. That eliminates the pedestrian angle, or at least reduces it to the same magnitude as existing vehicular traffic. Just to name one example out of many, nobody cries about me riding my FZ6R down the sidewalk because I don’t.
The issue is, we shouldn’t be making bikes more like cars. The safety issue is cars not the speed of bicycles.
This is the same logic that has lead to huge SUVs in the US - by not addressing the root cause you just cause everyone to escalate.
the same concepts that apply to motorcycles apply to bicycles
100%! My acoustic bike riding style changed for the better after training for and obtaining my motorcycle license, and that same training provides me better situational awareness on my ebike. Because at the end of the day, automobiles are basically always out to get two-wheelers. And defensive riding pays dividends by simply not having a crash. That’s an invaluable benefit, I would say.
I certainly like speed. Especially on two wheels something like mountain biking downhill can be very nice. I mean I get why speeding on public roads isn’t a nice thing to do. And you might want to wear some proper motorcycle protection. A bicycle helmet isn’t going to do much at 30km/h and above. I live in a country that has ebikes limited to 25km/h and there’s a category which can do 45km/h but needs insurance and a driver’s license. But I’d agree, 25 is as fast as I can pedal on my own and you just can’t swim with traffic at that speed so there’s a lot of cars overtaking you and that can be dangerous or annoying. And it also limits what kind of distance you’d be willing to commute (to work) with a bike, because it’s just slow. I think it’d probably be safer if we all drive at the same speed in the cities. Though 50 is really fast. Definitely need a proper helmet at that, some glasses so the first fly doesn’t wreck your eyes. Maybe more because accidents happen regularly and these people get spectacular abrasions, bruises and head injuries at way lower speeds, even without an E in their bike. And we need to protect pedestrians. I’ve seen way to many near misses with the e-scooters in the last few years, they’re definitely the worst, and some people on bikes aren’t very bright, either.
E-scooter rentals are a scourge on society where I live. Super dangerous for the people riding them due to potholes and other road conditions, no protective gear, and no timely safety inspections on the scooters (good luck when the brake fails). Combine that with a high rate of scooter drivers riding against traffic, cutting off pedestrians, and abandoning scooters anywhere – it’s a nightmare.
Counterpoint - here’s what power (human or motor, doesn’t matter) is required at a few speeds starting from 25 to 45 (28mph) with anecdotal hurt from personal and family experience. The power level is important because it shows you the relative energy you carry as you’re moving with that speed, energy your body would have to absorb during an impact as it comes to a stop when you crash. The power grows exponentially with speed thanks to air drag. And so does the hurt.
Speed Power Hurt 25kph 150W Not too bad, maybe no road rash 30kph 230W Road rash likely, torn clothes, some impact bruising 35kph 350W Bad road rash, torn clothes, deep impact bruising 40kph 500W All of the above but worse, impact bruising so deep it takes weeks to months to heal, soft tissue damage likely 45kph 700W All of the above but worse, soft tissue damage likely, fractures possible After crashing a few times at 35 or over, the last of which had my palm hurt for months, I no longer cross the 30kph threshold for any extended period of time.
Source: been riding in Toronto, Canada for a couple of decades, electric for a decade, used to have a 1500W (limited from 3kW) Tangent Ascent.
E: Clarified what I mean by power. Thx @[email protected]
You can crash at 25kph and get killed, speed is a factor, but it’s not the only one.
For sure. It’s a cosntant factor though. As in, it’s always present and affects the hurt regardless of other factors.
I’m struggling to see how power has anything to do with the amount of hurt that will result in a crash. Yes, higher speed means higher hurt, and everyone from motorists, motorcyclists, bicyclists, and e-bikers will agree to that. But power is the wrong quantity to focus on.
Case in point: coming down a hill on an acoustic bike, I too can do 45 kph just like an ebike can. If both me and my ebike-riding compatriot both reach level ground at the bottom of the hill and are both doing 45 kph, and then we both crash separately, then it’s equal hurt for us both. Motor power (with mine being 0 Watts) has nothing to do with hurt. Speed is kinetic energy, and that’s the real worry when crashing: if that energy goes nowhere else, it goes into the fleshy human being.
↑Motor Power ∝ ↑Frequency of going at high speeds ∝ ↑% of time when a severe accident is possible.
I understand the argument that any given rider doesn’t have to use the power. It’s the same argument as “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. While technically true, it ignores all of the evidence that shows that having the thing accessible increases its use in aggregate. I’m okay with people choosing to put themselves at risk, but a user of a more powerful eBike increases the danger for those around them as well. That kinetic energy works both ways when you hit someone else, and it’s way easier to get up to that energy on a powerful eBike.
I hope we can agree that unlimited eBike power without a license is the incorrect policy. If my bike has as much power as a motorcycle (and electric motorcycles do exist), then I should need to be appropriately licensed. At some insane power, it should probably not be street legal. If you imagine a “smooth morph” between the most powerful electric motorcycle and the least powerful eBike on the market, there is some line where we need to transition categories. I’m willing to argue over where the various categorical lines around vehicle regulation and driver licensing should be, but I hope we can agree that they need to exist.
That said, I’m not sure that the ~25km/h limit in NY is the right limit, I might choose something more like 30-35km/h (~18.5-22 mph). But that’s without any data and I’m not an expert, so 🤷
I build my own bikes and I definitely used to go faster on average when I had a more powerful motor and/or higher limits. I’ve done trips on the 1.5kW Tangent where I’ve averaged 45kph. These days I ride small 250W hubs, limited to 700W (overpowered) but with pedal assist that tops out at 2x human power. That way I can’t go much more than 400W continuous. At the same time I get high torque when starting from a stop. Which is more or less what factory ebikes with torque pedal assist do. I now average 25-28kph.
Its an odd way to convey that they meant the kinetic energy once you impact something. But power is Energy over Time, so they are talking about energy at that speed and its irrelevant if it is manmade watts or ebike watts
I should have clarified. I didn’t mean motor power. These are power levels needed for any average bike to maintain this speed on level ground. You and your friend would definitely be hurt the same if you both went 45kph and fell the same way.
Speed is kinetic energy, and that’s the real worry when crashing: if that energy goes nowhere else, it goes into the fleshy human being.
100% and you can estimate how much kinetic energy is stored by looking at how much energy is needed to maintain that speed. Can use bike sim to get the numbers. And as you said - that’s the energy that the meatbag would have to dissipate. The real interesting part which isn’t obvious to everyone is that the energy grows exponentially with speed due to air drag. So falling at 40 hurts much more than 2x than falling at 20.
