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> > the argument that without the motor the girls wouldn’t have been able to climb the hill and therefore the bike is bad is a terrible argument > I think it i
by rascul 4y ago
> > the argument that without the motor the girls wouldn’t have been able to climb the hill and therefore the bike is bad is a terrible argument
> I think it is a good argument. There is a difference between powered and unpowered vehicles.
I don't know about the hill in question, but when I was young (possibly 12), the neighborhood kids and I would climb hills on bicycles to ride down fast. If we couldn't make it then we would push the bicycles up the rest of the hill, after seeing who could make it the farthest. Electric bicycles would have helped us up the hills but the lack of them certainly didn't stop us even on the biggest hills, whether they be on road or off. So I don't think it's a great argument either, because I see no reason why the girls wouldn't have done the same thing if it were a regular bicycle.
- throwaway290 4y ago> I see no reason why the girls wouldn't have done the same thing if it were a regular bicycle. It takes effort to lug your own mass and a bicycle up a hill. If you manage it, you are likely in okay shape, alert and sharp--since you wouldn't be capable or motivated to do it otherwise. All of these conditions reduce chances of an accident. Powered transport removes this barrier. Sometimes lowered approachability is a feature.
- rascul 4y agoI don't see how any of that is going to stop kids from taking their bikes up hills to ride down.
- throwaway290 4y agoYou haven't met a single physically weak or tired (with resulting attention lapses) kid? They are much less likely to want to lug the weight of an unpowered bicycle plus their own weight uphill, no matter how hard you pretend to ignore this issue. With a motorbike they don't need to do it
- rascul 4y agoAhh I think we might be arguing past each other. I was arguing against the the argument that the kids wouldn't have gotten up the hill without an electric bicycle, as that's something that kids do often. I believe you're arguing that it's more difficult without the electric motor, and possibly less likely that they would have gone up the hill, and I agree with that.
- throwaway290 4y agoYeah, reduced likelihood is my primary point. Not a certainty of course, and this probably cannot be argued in court in this particular case, but in general I don't think it's obvious that cities should lower the bar so much for using powered transport on public streets just because it's electric...