6 ms·

I agree with you, other than the murder part. Electric bikes allow people who don’t have fast riding skills to ride faster than they can control, which makes t

I agree with you, other than the murder part. Electric bikes allow people who don’t have fast riding skills to ride faster than they can control, which makes them a danger to other users of the footpath.

jacquesm 6y ago
All motorized vehicles allow people who don't have fast riding skills to go faster than they can control. E-bike users usually have a better handle on the control part than the users of other motorized vehicles, if not they won't make it past the first turn. Besides that, all e-bikes sold legally have a motor that progressively down-tunes as it approaches it's legal limit speed (usually at or near 15 mph / 24 km/h). That's easily achievable on a regular bike so people can't ride faster than they could normally. They can however do so for longer and it takes them less effort to start up or go against the wind or up a hill.
- rangibaby 6y ago
  > All motorized vehicles allow people who don't have fast riding skills to go faster than they can control. Yes, but all other motorized vehicles need a licensed operator and to be driven on a road, which I think should be the case for e bikes as well > That's easily achievable on a regular bike That really depends on your definition of a regular bike. The Japanese commuter bikes everyone rides to work or school might get up to 10km/h with some effort. Giving someone who has only ever rode at about a pedestrian’s jogging or running pace a machine that can hit twice that is a recipe for injuries or death. TL;DR: E bike riders should be licensed and not share footpaths with pedestrians
  - xavieralexandre 6y ago
    I'm wondering if a workable idea would be instead of having pedestrian paths and bike lanes and wondering where new kind of vehicles should go to have different tiers of lane with different speed and weight limits. For exemple: * < 10 km.h^-1 & < 15 kilograms vehicle for pedestrian paths (Which would for exemple allow small kids to ride there). * < 25 km.h^-1 < 30 kilograms for the bike lane equivalent. * > 25 km.h^1 or > 30 kilograms on the road.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    E Bikes that require a license exist (Stromer, many others), those go > 25 Kph, which is a speed most fit cyclists can easily achieve. So if you want E Bikes to be licensed you should also require regular bikes to be licensed. Where I live that would cause a national revolt on the scale that no sane politician is going to go near it.
    - rangibaby 6y ago
      The difference is the vast majority of people riding push bikes here aren't "cyclists", they are schoolchildren, parents, and office workers, riding very slow bikes. That's why I think E Bikes should require licensing where regular bicycles don't.
      - jacquesm 6y ago
        Here everybody rides bikes, and E-bikes have - if that was still possible - driven adoption higher still. The number of people that cycle to and from work/school is very large, parents, office workers and children here cycle up to 30 km round trip daily to just get to where they're going. High school age kids from Monnickendam/Marken/Edam go to school in Amsterdam-Noord and quite a few of them make the trip by bike. Requiring high school age kids to get a license for a bicycle would make absolutely no sense because there is nothing that such a license would give them that they didn't already have. Traffic lessons start pretty early at school here and by the time kids are 10-12 depending on how good they are at this they go to school on their bikes by themselves. What really helps is that bike traffic here gets prioritized in many places over vehicles, that hitting a cyclist with a car is going to get you into a lot of trouble and that most vehicle drivers are also cyclists. Those things more than anything else helps to keep cyclists safe.
        rangibaby 6y ago
        I guess urban Japan is just denser than The Netherlands. I would say most people don't ride more than 5km in one direction; any further and people will generally rent a spot at a train station closer to their destination and bike the last leg of their commute. It makes sense that's why my opinion is that e Bikes are too fast to be used on footpaths and yours is different. > What really helps is that bike traffic here gets prioritized in many places over vehicles, that hitting a cyclist with a car is going to get you into a lot of trouble and that most vehicle drivers are also cyclists. Those things more than anything else helps to keep cyclists safe. This is exactly the same in Japan. A car hitting a bike is automatically judged to be at fault even if the bike was breaking traffic laws, so drivers are very cautious. In principal the same applies to cyclists vs pedestrians. That of course, doesn't stop people from being terrible drivers or cyclists! I don't think there should be a draconian licensing scheme, just the same rules that apply to the slowest grade of motorcycles (speed limit 30 km/h) - Must pass a theory test. The moped test written test is quite easy but anyone who can pass it will know basic road rules and that pedestrians always have the right of way, and that if you hit someone you are in big, big trouble. - age 16+ - must wear a helmet
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  My grandma used to have a motorized bicycle to help her get around, the difference with ebikes is that it had a LOT less torque, and that it made a sound so you could hear them coming up from behind you. E-bikes are a lot more zippy and quiet. Even worse are the high powered e-bikes (rated for 50kph, helmet required), because their users ride them as if they're either a bike or a scooter depending on the situation, zipping between bike lanes and the road whenever. And they're silent. https://www.sparta.nl/alles-over-sparta/geschiedenis/spartamet https://www.sparta.nl/alles-over-sparta/geschiedenis/spartam...
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    Legally they are classed as scooter so I don't see why they shouldn't be driving them like scooters. You won't see me near one, going fast on a racing bike is already dangerous enough, anything faster and I'll take four wheels over two any day.

jacquesm 6y ago

All motorized vehicles allow people who don't have fast riding skills to go faster than they can control. E-bike users usually have a better handle on the control part than the users of other motorized vehicles, if not they won't make it past the first turn. Besides that, all e-bikes sold legally have a motor that progressively down-tunes as it approaches it's legal limit speed (usually at or near 15 mph / 24 km/h). That's easily achievable on a regular bike so people can't ride faster than they could normally. They can however do so for longer and it takes them less effort to start up or go against the wind or up a hill.

rangibaby 6y ago
> All motorized vehicles allow people who don't have fast riding skills to go faster than they can control. Yes, but all other motorized vehicles need a licensed operator and to be driven on a road, which I think should be the case for e bikes as well > That's easily achievable on a regular bike That really depends on your definition of a regular bike. The Japanese commuter bikes everyone rides to work or school might get up to 10km/h with some effort. Giving someone who has only ever rode at about a pedestrian’s jogging or running pace a machine that can hit twice that is a recipe for injuries or death. TL;DR: E bike riders should be licensed and not share footpaths with pedestrians
- xavieralexandre 6y ago
  I'm wondering if a workable idea would be instead of having pedestrian paths and bike lanes and wondering where new kind of vehicles should go to have different tiers of lane with different speed and weight limits. For exemple: * < 10 km.h^-1 & < 15 kilograms vehicle for pedestrian paths (Which would for exemple allow small kids to ride there). * < 25 km.h^-1 < 30 kilograms for the bike lane equivalent. * > 25 km.h^1 or > 30 kilograms on the road.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  E Bikes that require a license exist (Stromer, many others), those go > 25 Kph, which is a speed most fit cyclists can easily achieve. So if you want E Bikes to be licensed you should also require regular bikes to be licensed. Where I live that would cause a national revolt on the scale that no sane politician is going to go near it.
  - rangibaby 6y ago
    The difference is the vast majority of people riding push bikes here aren't "cyclists", they are schoolchildren, parents, and office workers, riding very slow bikes. That's why I think E Bikes should require licensing where regular bicycles don't.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      Here everybody rides bikes, and E-bikes have - if that was still possible - driven adoption higher still. The number of people that cycle to and from work/school is very large, parents, office workers and children here cycle up to 30 km round trip daily to just get to where they're going. High school age kids from Monnickendam/Marken/Edam go to school in Amsterdam-Noord and quite a few of them make the trip by bike. Requiring high school age kids to get a license for a bicycle would make absolutely no sense because there is nothing that such a license would give them that they didn't already have. Traffic lessons start pretty early at school here and by the time kids are 10-12 depending on how good they are at this they go to school on their bikes by themselves. What really helps is that bike traffic here gets prioritized in many places over vehicles, that hitting a cyclist with a car is going to get you into a lot of trouble and that most vehicle drivers are also cyclists. Those things more than anything else helps to keep cyclists safe.
      - rangibaby 6y ago
        I guess urban Japan is just denser than The Netherlands. I would say most people don't ride more than 5km in one direction; any further and people will generally rent a spot at a train station closer to their destination and bike the last leg of their commute. It makes sense that's why my opinion is that e Bikes are too fast to be used on footpaths and yours is different. > What really helps is that bike traffic here gets prioritized in many places over vehicles, that hitting a cyclist with a car is going to get you into a lot of trouble and that most vehicle drivers are also cyclists. Those things more than anything else helps to keep cyclists safe. This is exactly the same in Japan. A car hitting a bike is automatically judged to be at fault even if the bike was breaking traffic laws, so drivers are very cautious. In principal the same applies to cyclists vs pedestrians. That of course, doesn't stop people from being terrible drivers or cyclists! I don't think there should be a draconian licensing scheme, just the same rules that apply to the slowest grade of motorcycles (speed limit 30 km/h) - Must pass a theory test. The moped test written test is quite easy but anyone who can pass it will know basic road rules and that pedestrians always have the right of way, and that if you hit someone you are in big, big trouble. - age 16+ - must wear a helmet
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
My grandma used to have a motorized bicycle to help her get around, the difference with ebikes is that it had a LOT less torque, and that it made a sound so you could hear them coming up from behind you. E-bikes are a lot more zippy and quiet. Even worse are the high powered e-bikes (rated for 50kph, helmet required), because their users ride them as if they're either a bike or a scooter depending on the situation, zipping between bike lanes and the road whenever. And they're silent. https://www.sparta.nl/alles-over-sparta/geschiedenis/spartamet https://www.sparta.nl/alles-over-sparta/geschiedenis/spartam...
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Legally they are classed as scooter so I don't see why they shouldn't be driving them like scooters. You won't see me near one, going fast on a racing bike is already dangerous enough, anything faster and I'll take four wheels over two any day.