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Regulations require electric bikes to be 'pedal-assist' and is holding back sustainable transport. Let lightweight vehicles travel 25kmph without pedalling and

Regulations require electric bikes to be 'pedal-assist' and is holding back sustainable transport. Let lightweight vehicles travel 25kmph without pedalling and these regulatory hacks won't be needed. It will likely lead to safer vehicles too compared to these regulatory hack solutions.

choeger 5y ago
I'd say 30kph. I never understood the 25kph rule. Make 30kph the default speed limit in cities and let e-bikes drive with that speed on most roads, what's problematic with this approach? Are 5kph more really that more dangerous that you need to create a speed difference between even slow cars and bikes?
- avianlyric 5y ago
  25kph is average cycling speed of a male cyclist, 20kph for female. The limits there because these devices are just meant to be cycling assistance, not replacements. You don’t want to be mixing two distinct classes of transport together (this is whole reason why protected cycle ways are so important), because overtaking etc is inherently dangerous. There’s nothing preventing people from just creating electric motorbikes etc and driving them on the road with other road traffic. But having vehicles like that mix in close proximity to pedestrians and un-assisted cyclists just moves the problem we already have with car-bike conflict on to cycle lanes and pedestrian spaces. Also that extra 5kph is gonna have a pretty negligible impact on transit times, so is it really worth all the extra problems?
  - mauvehaus 5y ago
    "25kph is average cycling speed of a male cyclist, 20kph for female." Wait, what? I bike commuted for a while in both Cleveland and Boston. I can pretty handily maintain 30kph, and regularly hit over that when either warranted by traffic conditions or on a slight downhill. I do not consider myself a fast cyclist by any measure. I am quite confident that even the most casual group ride of semi serious cyclists would drop me in 5 km on a good day. Is my view of cycling speeds that skewed, or is the distribution very weird in some way? As for the extra 5kph making a difference, no it's not a huge deal in time. It's immensely important to riding safely in faster traffic. I find that the closer you can ride to the speed of traffic, the fewer boneheaded things people do to get past you. Being able to do 40kph for short stretches to basically match the speed of cars through a dodgy intersection is a huge improvement in safety. 30 isn't 40, but every little bit helps.
    - avianlyric 5y ago
      > Is my view of cycling speeds that skewed Yes > It's immensely important to riding safely in faster traffic This why it’s skewed. I agree that riding close to the speed of traffic is important. But over here in Europe we have far better cycle infrastructure compared to North America. In many cities you don't ride with normal traffic, so you don’t need to go that fast. Instead your just cycling with with other bikes. It sounds like you cycle in a fairly hostile area for bikes, so speed is needed just to be safe. Can totally understand why you would do 30kph+, and indeed I do the same in nastier parts of London. But a consequence of the hostile environment is that you’ll only be cycling with people who have made an active choice to cycle and are more advanced cyclists who are happy to deal with shitty car drivers. As you move towards proper cycle infrastructure the average cyclist becomes increasingly casual and amateur. Riding not for sport, fitness or to be green. But rather riding because it’s just easier that other public transport options or using a car. Cyclist in this category cycle slower, and more casually. They just wear normal clothes and cycle nice and slow so they don’t get sweaty. If you wanna see more, I would recommend the YouTube channel “NotJustBikes”. It can be quite eye opening to see a world where everyone cycles because it’s just cheaper, easier and faster than every other option.
      - thor_molecules 5y ago
        I second the recommendation for "NotJustBikes", very eye-opening in regards to city planning and infrastructure
    - teekert 5y ago
      Make that 10-15 kph (6.2-9.3 mph) for 8-16 year old students with all their school books or people in suits on one of these: [0], which is the majority here in the Netherlands. I think you are confusing what Americans know as "cyclists" (a subculture), with just "people on bikes" (our culture), which is most people, at some point during the day. Bike lanes look like this during rush hour: [1]. Silent, broader, 25 kph electric vehicles are much more disturbing in this setting. [0]: https://www.wheelerz.nl/fietsen/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/omaecomatzwartrekkrat-scaled.jpg https://www.wheelerz.nl/fietsen/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2... [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=druk+fietspad+nederland&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjMiNeXipDzAhVFjqQKHayJAe8Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=2560&bih=1338&dpr=1 https://www.google.com/search?q=druk+fietspad+nederland&hl=e...
  - choeger 5y ago
    Ok then how about a speed limit of 20km/h on bike lanes?
    - avianlyric 5y ago
      How are you planning to enforce that?
- stdbrouw 5y ago
  The 25 kph is on the assumption that people will use these e-bikes on bike lanes. Pretty much everyone who bikes regularly hates race bikes and speed bikes and anything else going over 25 kph, or frankly, going over 20 kph, because it's dangerous and unpredictable for other riders.
  - carlob 5y ago
    As an owner of both a road bike and a shitty commuter, I agree with you: if you wanna race, use the road.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    > The 25 kph is on the assumption that people will use these e-bikes on bike lanes. In fact the 25kph is so they are legally bicycles across europe, no questions asked. Countries can allow faster or more powerful devices, but the european baseline is that a pedelec is a bicycle period.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Cities tend to have speed limits closer to 50 km/h. (Is "kph" an accepted spelling?)
  - carlob 5y ago
    Bike friendly cities are converging towards 30 km/h. Kph, mt, sec: are all widely used but wrong.
    - avianlyric 5y ago
      As an example (for GP) many London boroughs (city councils/districts) now enforce a global 20mph (32kph) speed limit on all their roads. With recent legislation making it trivially easy for boroughs to do this (I think it used to require consultations etc, but now they can be unilaterally applied with consultation with the public). Additionally TfL have had the entire of central London (within the congestion zone) 20mph.
patall 5y ago
For the city, maybe. For everywhere else, I doubt it. When I am up in the regional hills with my bike, I am (almost) the only one without battery. Its still okay but has become a lot less remote. If you now remove the pedaling, it becomes even more interesting for all those 'down-hillers' that run down narrow forest paths at insane speeds. If have also see people with insane carge-bikes in public transport. If we continoue that way, we will have to bann all bikes from there. There are electric motorscoters and there are ebikes. Only the latter should, in my honest opinion, use the full bike infrastructure.
calpaterson 5y ago
My personal experience sharing space with electric bicycles/scooters in a large town (London) is that the public is very quickly getting sick of 25kmph vehicles that travel on the pavement and to - a lesser extent - even when they are cycle lanes. 25kmph is about the max speed for a street cyclist but vehicles that sustain this speed for long periods and can achieve it with no effort on the part of the rider are qualitatively different from the bicycles whose shape they share. Drivers of these vehicles also usually don't want to go on the road proper so I am not very sure where they will go at all. Removing pedal-assist is only going to make these things more anti-social and people won't put up with it for long.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  > the public is very quickly getting sick of 25kmph vehicles that travel on the pavement > Drivers of these vehicles also usually don't want to go on the road proper so I am not very sure where they will go at all. This is really great news - it will create a much stronger incentive for the government to put in proper cycle lanes.
  - calpaterson 5y ago
    Sorry if I was unclear: I don't agree. I feel pretty mixed about "pedal-assist vehicles" in cycle lanes and oppose scooters and everything else.
    - wongarsu 5y ago
      I have no problems with pedal-assisted vehicles or scooters on proper bicycle paths that are at least 2m wide (per direction, so 4m if there's oncoming traffic). There overtaking isn't an issue, and 25km/h vehicles are somewhat average in terms of speed is there's no incline (leisure bikers are slower, while a good road bike goes faster). The problem are those 0.5-1m wide "bike lanes" they squeeze in as an afterthought in cities. Overtaking on them is basically impossible without breaking some rules, so scooters and pedal-assisted vehicles make it worse than it already is.
- worldmerge 5y ago
sparsely 5y ago
There's a big difference in perceived (and probably actual) safety between sharing a narrow bikelane with current pedelecs and an electric moped. I do think that the use cases for bikelanes should be made more explicit and varied, but unless cities start building substantially bigger ones I don't think they can get much faster. In any case, in cities something which can go over 25kph without pedaling is likely safe enough to drive like a vehicle.
avianlyric 5y ago
You can already buy an electric motorbike today that isn’t pedal assisted, and they’re pretty much the same price as a good e-bike. Why force normal cyclists and pedestrians to deal with these much faster vehicles in cycle lanes and pavements when we already have roads, and conflicts between road users today is already problematic.
- siosonel 5y ago
  I average about 10mph or 16kph on my e-bike, and gets passed by routinely by 'normal' cyclists going faster than my pace. E-bike users do not necessarily ride faster; I use one to help with the many hills in my area, not to go fast. I don't think it'd be fair to force me to use roads and mingle with cars just because I use an e-bike.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Even at the cutoff of 25 km/h you will get passed by roadies all day long.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    I think our perspectives are in complete agreement, and your comment proves that allowing e-bikes to go faster than 25kph, or operate without use of the pedals isn’t necessary. I’m certainly not advocating that e-bike should mix with cars. I’m saying the than an e-bike that assists beyond 25kph, or doesn’t require peddling, isn’t an e-bike. It’s just an unlicensed motorbike pretending to be an e-bike.
NoGravitas 5y ago
Fine, as long as you don't allow them on the sidewalk or the bike lanes.

choeger 5y ago

I'd say 30kph. I never understood the 25kph rule. Make 30kph the default speed limit in cities and let e-bikes drive with that speed on most roads, what's problematic with this approach? Are 5kph more really that more dangerous that you need to create a speed difference between even slow cars and bikes?

avianlyric 5y ago
25kph is average cycling speed of a male cyclist, 20kph for female. The limits there because these devices are just meant to be cycling assistance, not replacements. You don’t want to be mixing two distinct classes of transport together (this is whole reason why protected cycle ways are so important), because overtaking etc is inherently dangerous. There’s nothing preventing people from just creating electric motorbikes etc and driving them on the road with other road traffic. But having vehicles like that mix in close proximity to pedestrians and un-assisted cyclists just moves the problem we already have with car-bike conflict on to cycle lanes and pedestrian spaces. Also that extra 5kph is gonna have a pretty negligible impact on transit times, so is it really worth all the extra problems?
- mauvehaus 5y ago
  "25kph is average cycling speed of a male cyclist, 20kph for female." Wait, what? I bike commuted for a while in both Cleveland and Boston. I can pretty handily maintain 30kph, and regularly hit over that when either warranted by traffic conditions or on a slight downhill. I do not consider myself a fast cyclist by any measure. I am quite confident that even the most casual group ride of semi serious cyclists would drop me in 5 km on a good day. Is my view of cycling speeds that skewed, or is the distribution very weird in some way? As for the extra 5kph making a difference, no it's not a huge deal in time. It's immensely important to riding safely in faster traffic. I find that the closer you can ride to the speed of traffic, the fewer boneheaded things people do to get past you. Being able to do 40kph for short stretches to basically match the speed of cars through a dodgy intersection is a huge improvement in safety. 30 isn't 40, but every little bit helps.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    > Is my view of cycling speeds that skewed Yes > It's immensely important to riding safely in faster traffic This why it’s skewed. I agree that riding close to the speed of traffic is important. But over here in Europe we have far better cycle infrastructure compared to North America. In many cities you don't ride with normal traffic, so you don’t need to go that fast. Instead your just cycling with with other bikes. It sounds like you cycle in a fairly hostile area for bikes, so speed is needed just to be safe. Can totally understand why you would do 30kph+, and indeed I do the same in nastier parts of London. But a consequence of the hostile environment is that you’ll only be cycling with people who have made an active choice to cycle and are more advanced cyclists who are happy to deal with shitty car drivers. As you move towards proper cycle infrastructure the average cyclist becomes increasingly casual and amateur. Riding not for sport, fitness or to be green. But rather riding because it’s just easier that other public transport options or using a car. Cyclist in this category cycle slower, and more casually. They just wear normal clothes and cycle nice and slow so they don’t get sweaty. If you wanna see more, I would recommend the YouTube channel “NotJustBikes”. It can be quite eye opening to see a world where everyone cycles because it’s just cheaper, easier and faster than every other option.
    - thor_molecules 5y ago
      I second the recommendation for "NotJustBikes", very eye-opening in regards to city planning and infrastructure
  - teekert 5y ago
    Make that 10-15 kph (6.2-9.3 mph) for 8-16 year old students with all their school books or people in suits on one of these: [0], which is the majority here in the Netherlands. I think you are confusing what Americans know as "cyclists" (a subculture), with just "people on bikes" (our culture), which is most people, at some point during the day. Bike lanes look like this during rush hour: [1]. Silent, broader, 25 kph electric vehicles are much more disturbing in this setting. [0]: https://www.wheelerz.nl/fietsen/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/omaecomatzwartrekkrat-scaled.jpg https://www.wheelerz.nl/fietsen/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2... [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=druk+fietspad+nederland&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjMiNeXipDzAhVFjqQKHayJAe8Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=2560&bih=1338&dpr=1 https://www.google.com/search?q=druk+fietspad+nederland&hl=e...
- choeger 5y ago
  Ok then how about a speed limit of 20km/h on bike lanes?
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    How are you planning to enforce that?
stdbrouw 5y ago
The 25 kph is on the assumption that people will use these e-bikes on bike lanes. Pretty much everyone who bikes regularly hates race bikes and speed bikes and anything else going over 25 kph, or frankly, going over 20 kph, because it's dangerous and unpredictable for other riders.
- carlob 5y ago
  As an owner of both a road bike and a shitty commuter, I agree with you: if you wanna race, use the road.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > The 25 kph is on the assumption that people will use these e-bikes on bike lanes. In fact the 25kph is so they are legally bicycles across europe, no questions asked. Countries can allow faster or more powerful devices, but the european baseline is that a pedelec is a bicycle period.
frosted-flakes 5y ago
Cities tend to have speed limits closer to 50 km/h. (Is "kph" an accepted spelling?)
- carlob 5y ago
  Bike friendly cities are converging towards 30 km/h. Kph, mt, sec: are all widely used but wrong.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    As an example (for GP) many London boroughs (city councils/districts) now enforce a global 20mph (32kph) speed limit on all their roads. With recent legislation making it trivially easy for boroughs to do this (I think it used to require consultations etc, but now they can be unilaterally applied with consultation with the public). Additionally TfL have had the entire of central London (within the congestion zone) 20mph.

patall 5y ago

For the city, maybe. For everywhere else, I doubt it. When I am up in the regional hills with my bike, I am (almost) the only one without battery. Its still okay but has become a lot less remote. If you now remove the pedaling, it becomes even more interesting for all those 'down-hillers' that run down narrow forest paths at insane speeds. If have also see people with insane carge-bikes in public transport. If we continoue that way, we will have to bann all bikes from there. There are electric motorscoters and there are ebikes. Only the latter should, in my honest opinion, use the full bike infrastructure.

calpaterson 5y ago

My personal experience sharing space with electric bicycles/scooters in a large town (London) is that the public is very quickly getting sick of 25kmph vehicles that travel on the pavement and to - a lesser extent - even when they are cycle lanes. 25kmph is about the max speed for a street cyclist but vehicles that sustain this speed for long periods and can achieve it with no effort on the part of the rider are qualitatively different from the bicycles whose shape they share. Drivers of these vehicles also usually don't want to go on the road proper so I am not very sure where they will go at all. Removing pedal-assist is only going to make these things more anti-social and people won't put up with it for long.

IshKebab 5y ago
> the public is very quickly getting sick of 25kmph vehicles that travel on the pavement > Drivers of these vehicles also usually don't want to go on the road proper so I am not very sure where they will go at all. This is really great news - it will create a much stronger incentive for the government to put in proper cycle lanes.
- calpaterson 5y ago
  Sorry if I was unclear: I don't agree. I feel pretty mixed about "pedal-assist vehicles" in cycle lanes and oppose scooters and everything else.
  - wongarsu 5y ago
    I have no problems with pedal-assisted vehicles or scooters on proper bicycle paths that are at least 2m wide (per direction, so 4m if there's oncoming traffic). There overtaking isn't an issue, and 25km/h vehicles are somewhat average in terms of speed is there's no incline (leisure bikers are slower, while a good road bike goes faster). The problem are those 0.5-1m wide "bike lanes" they squeeze in as an afterthought in cities. Overtaking on them is basically impossible without breaking some rules, so scooters and pedal-assisted vehicles make it worse than it already is.
worldmerge 5y ago

sparsely 5y ago

There's a big difference in perceived (and probably actual) safety between sharing a narrow bikelane with current pedelecs and an electric moped. I do think that the use cases for bikelanes should be made more explicit and varied, but unless cities start building substantially bigger ones I don't think they can get much faster. In any case, in cities something which can go over 25kph without pedaling is likely safe enough to drive like a vehicle.

avianlyric 5y ago

You can already buy an electric motorbike today that isn’t pedal assisted, and they’re pretty much the same price as a good e-bike. Why force normal cyclists and pedestrians to deal with these much faster vehicles in cycle lanes and pavements when we already have roads, and conflicts between road users today is already problematic.

siosonel 5y ago
I average about 10mph or 16kph on my e-bike, and gets passed by routinely by 'normal' cyclists going faster than my pace. E-bike users do not necessarily ride faster; I use one to help with the many hills in my area, not to go fast. I don't think it'd be fair to force me to use roads and mingle with cars just because I use an e-bike.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Even at the cutoff of 25 km/h you will get passed by roadies all day long.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  I think our perspectives are in complete agreement, and your comment proves that allowing e-bikes to go faster than 25kph, or operate without use of the pedals isn’t necessary. I’m certainly not advocating that e-bike should mix with cars. I’m saying the than an e-bike that assists beyond 25kph, or doesn’t require peddling, isn’t an e-bike. It’s just an unlicensed motorbike pretending to be an e-bike.

NoGravitas 5y ago

Fine, as long as you don't allow them on the sidewalk or the bike lanes.