5 ms·

Investigating a teen’s death on an ebike and the Rad brand’s safety

28 points by doctorpangloss 3y ago

IronWolve 3y ago
Steep hill and bicycle brakes, motorized or not, not a great combo.
- fnfjfk 3y ago
  Hydraulic discs are fine on steep hills, I have both GRX and Ultegra ones and they will stop you very fast. That’s on a much lighter bike though, and I doubt they’re putting Ultegra-tier bikes on cheap e-stuff.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    Brake fade is a real issue, even with high end brakes. On a long hill, someone who's not comfortable with the speed will ride the brakes, just like inexperienced folks in cars do.
  - taeric 3y ago
    For a different definition of "fine." The problem with the steep hill and brakes for anyone will be losing control from either panic or over application. Especially on a bicycle where you have a passenger onboard, high speeds are just best avoided.
- stevenwoo 3y ago
  It's pretty easy to get out of control on a descent in any type of motorized or non motorized vehicle on the hills in the area described when one has little experience. We don't prepare adults for this with cars or children with bicycles, a motorized bicycle however lets one dig a much deeper hole momentum-wise than one would otherwise be capable.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  Yes, but further into the article it seems to get more concerning - wheels falling off and brake failure, repeatedly. It seems like there may be more to this than ‘just’ angry, bereaved parents.
stefan_ 3y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32562957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32562957
denimnerd42 3y ago
These stories are going to come out more and more. I'm all for getting kids out and letting them be independent. I would ride my bike to the store across all sorts of roads when I was 12-13 year olds to buy rated R movies and Parental Advisory CDs. ("Mom, I'm going for a bike ride!") When you add these 20-25mph+ ebikes (they can be easily fooled to go faster than legal) and no prefrontal cortex development the situation can get scary quick. Unfortunately we don't have the infrastructure or dedicated, separated bike lanes that make them safe. so stupid solutions like "banning them" are obvious and lazy but there's not much else to do immediately.
- rottencupcakes 3y ago
  > Unfortunately we don't have the infrastructure or dedicated, separated bike lanes that make them safe. I don't think we had that when we were growing up either? We just didn't have the internet, so one kid dying on a bike somewhere one time wasn't national news.
  - denimnerd42 3y ago
    I do remember national and local news segments about kids dying or being disabled by cars while they were riding their bikes. Most of the time there had to be some kind of point to drive home so it was about lack of helmets or whatever. Not that they really help vs a car. But that's why I just lied about where I was going. I never would have been allowed to ride across the major roads where I was going. If I had died they would have victim blamed me too.
- dylan604 3y ago
  >When you add these 20-25mph+ ebikes I know you're talking in general, but this specific case, the Rad bike DOES NOT exceed 20mph under motor power. I own a different model than the one in this case, but mine stops powering the motor at 19.8mph. It is not possible for the bike to go faster than that under power. If they've modified the bike in any way to bypass that limit, that's not the manufacturer's fault. Clearly, this road has a pretty decently steep hill. That would easily make it possible to reach speeds greater than 20mph, but it would not be under power of the motor. At this point, it's not any different from a non-eBike. The fact that this particular bike was an eBike is just a red herring to me. So, stressing that a bike can go 20-25mph+ is misdirection. Any bike going down the incline described in TFA can reach those speeds. Parents not exercising parental controls and allowing their kids unsupervised activity in known dangerous conditions need to accept some responsibility.
karaterobot 3y ago
One of my least popular opinions, on the internet and in real life, is that you should have to be licensed to drive vehicles on the road. Including bikes. Not saying it's the same requirements to drive a car as it is to ride a bike, but just pretending you don't need to learn anything to ride a vehicle in traffic—especially a motorized one like an ebike—doesn't make sense to me. FWIW, I'm an avid bike rider, I just think it's hypocritical at best and dangerous at worst to say (as my jurisdiction does) that bikes are vehicles with all the rights and responsibilities of a car... but hey, you don't actually have to know what those rights and responsibilities are to drive one... or even prove you know how to operate the vehicle... just hop on and get goin'!
- changoplatanero 3y ago
  I guess the difference is that a bicyclist is unlikely to kill anyone from their bad driving
  - RankingMember 3y ago
    That is exactly the key difference.
- sschueller 3y ago
  I'm Switzerland there are different categories of ebikes. Bikes under 20km/h (25km/h pedal assisted) 500w max do not require anything other than you must be over 14. Ebikes that go faster (30 km/h or 45km/h pedal assisted max) 1000w max require a min. age of 16 and a special M license or vehicle license. Additionally you are required to get a plate for the Ebike and you must wear a helmet. All ebikes require day time running lights and fast ebikes will also require a tachometer in 2024. We do have issues with a new type of rollers that have replaced the old mopets. Those you can drive without any licenses or helmet if you are older than 16. This will probably change however even though they don't go over 20km/h they can still be dangerous.
  - mulmen 3y ago
    > fast ebikes will also require a tachometer in 2024. Do you mean speedometer? I don’t see how motor speed is relevant to safety.
notnmeyer 3y ago
i mean, aren’t 11 and 12 year olds a little young to be cut loose on motorized bikes? it seems slightly weird to me to be blaming the bike here. bikes experience failures, that’s true of any bike. a more complicated bike has more failure points. 2 youngish kids on an e-bike on a hill with a 14% grade? e-bike or not, that’s a dangerous situation.
- masfuerte 3y ago
  Let's not euphemise it. They are motorbikes.
- QuercusMax 3y ago
  I thought you had to be 16 to legally ride an e-bike in Cali; I guess the Radrunner in question isn't powerful enough to be under that restriction? In any case, 11 year olds shouldn't be riding these.
fnfjfk 3y ago
I’ve been riding in NYC for over 10 years and the ebike situation is getting ridiculous. People buy a bike that lets them ride fast with no training, and then ride like they are in a Terry Barentsen “Hotline” video (Google it). Except unlike the people in those videos, they have no skill at all. “Unearned speed” is the term in cycling communities. I’m genuinely surprised there aren’t more deaths. Blowing red lights without even looking, salmoning, texting while riding, it’s insane.
- cobbzilla 3y ago
  I suppose “Rich kid accidentally kills self with expensive toy” wouldn’t quite hit the front page. And I’m simply shocked, shocked that the rich lawyer power couple is seeking to absolve themselves of their culpability through a lawsuit.
- Tao3300 3y ago
  > salmoning Riding against the traffic in a one-way bike lane
blondie9x 3y ago
It's sad because if better transit options existed I doubt these e-bikes would have ever proliferated. Sad also how slow and ineffective government is, from the perspective of housing and transit, and more over from failure to regulate danger to the public well.
- xmprt 3y ago
  E-bikes are the most energy efficient forms of transportation. The problem isn't e-bikes. If anything making e-bikes more ubiquitous would be a good thing since it would lead to better dedicated infrastructure for cycles as well as more cycling training in everyday life.
  - blondie9x 3y ago
    No it isn't. Riding a bike to a nearby station doesn't require lithium mining and is better for your heart and body. Where did you come up with most efficient transit option? By what metric?
- dgacmu 3y ago
  As a counterpoint, I can't imagine a better form of transportation for the area in which I live. It's hilly enough that I really don't want to try and haul my kids (5 and 11, both quite tall) around on a non-motorized bike, but our cargo bike gets us most of the places we want to go faster than a car or bus would. And I get exercise in the process. It's the most delightful form of transportation I've experienced.
andsoitis 3y ago
> WHO IS RESPONSIBLE WHEN A CHILD DIES? Parents carry blame for buying a 13 year old a motorized vehicle that they the ride very fast. Also for endangering pedestrians who are now at the mercy of kids barreling down the road.
- bink 3y ago
  The article did say the parents of the girl who owned the bike settled for $1.5 million.
  - pphysch 3y ago
    Both parents are lawyers FWIW. It is a tragedy, but it is not clear to me that there wouldn't be a similar legal outcome even with a motorless bike.
thesh4d0w 3y ago
I started reading this and thinking the parents were solely to blame, but the reports later about failing breaks is pretty f'ing concerning. If there was any evidence of that happening here though, it would be in the law suit.
- drivers99 3y ago
  brakes*
_dain_ 3y ago
It's not that I'm against an in-depth accident investigation like this. Go for it, by all means. But this kind of thing is practically never done for the thousands of children and teenagers that die each year from being hit by cars. It's just expected, normal, the price of doing business. A notable exception is Strong Towns' Crash Analysis Studio, they do great work: https://www.strongtowns.org/crash-studio https://www.strongtowns.org/crash-studio Singling out ebikes seems like status-quo bias -- they get disproportionate scrutiny simply because they are new, not because of the level of risk they present.
- davidw 3y ago
  > Singling out ebikes seems like status-quo bias -- they get disproportionate scrutiny simply because they are new, not because of the level of risk they present. Yes. The local denizens of Nextdoor go on and on about the kids on eBikes, while it's the local drivers who are absolutely slaughtering each other and everyone else: https://ktvz.com/category/news/accidents-crashes/ https://ktvz.com/category/news/accidents-crashes/ Second the Strong Towns recommendation. They do great work.
taeric 3y ago
I don't want to imagine anything about this situation, and my day has been made worse reading up on it. Sucks enough that this family lost a child, but the other child on the bike not only gets to live through an accident that killed a friend, but also is the reason their family got sued for over a million dollars? And the rhetoric of "nobody has considered kids on these things" is ridiculous. Of course they have. ATVs have been a thing for a long long time. And it has been known for a long time that those are dangerous. Do we even allow three wheelers anymore? I remember we had motorcycles at that age growing up. I'm sympathetic to the idea that too many kids are getting on these bikes without training or proper headgear and such. I'm not clear on what this story is asserting to be done about it. Some vague assertions about bad designs, but no design points actually called out. They reference an older design that was problematic, but specifically do not accuse the current bikes of using that. I didn't get to what the current status of this lawsuit is. Is that known?
- stefan_ 3y ago
  It's long form, don't expect a bullet point news release. The other family settled, presumably for whatever their insurance would pay. The suit vs RadPower is ongoing as far as I can tell. There are two design problems. The first is quick releases, which no serious bike manufacturer would spec with disc brakes anymore; the actual industry had long moved on to through-axles at a time when RadRunner was still selling these bikes. They particularly don't make sense to spec when you are selling bikes to people who are expected to have no understanding of how they work. The other design problem is that manufacturers like RadPower will install the most garbage flexy throwaway shit for components in places where they assume the customer can't tell the difference. That's how you end up with mechanical disc brakes; sure, they have plenty of stopping power when adjusted correctly. But they need to be adjusted for pad wear and a million other things, and when they were made out of sheet metal, that can be hard to do. But we shouldn't lose track of the most likely cause - they were two kids on a very heavy bike with a very relaxed position (read: difficult to control) going down a 14% incline. They probably picked up much more speed than they were expecting to, panicked and binned it. 99% of the time, they walk away with scrapes, and very rarely, they hit their head in just the wrong way to cause massive damage.
davidw 3y ago
We have one of those Rad bikes, and we paid to have it assembled so it was done right. They don't have the best brakes. So we have it maintained regularly. They do work when maintained. Any kind of bike needs some maintenance from time to time. We are quite happy with the bike though. It has replaced a bunch of car trips for us, and among other things, I do most of the shopping for our family of four with it. I am pretty comfortable getting around with a regular bike. I'm a fit cyclist. But the eBike is a step up: * I can sit a person on the back of it. Even my wife if we're not going far (she's petite). * I can carry quite a bit of groceries with it and not break a sweat. * If it is hot outside, I use more pedal assist and get a pleasant cooling effect. In summer I'd much rather hop on my eBike than get in the hot car, as the eBike provides an instant breeze, whereas the car's AC takes some time. * If it is cold outside, I can layer up a lot more on the eBike. If I start to warm up and feel like I might sweat some, I can use more pedal assist. * I can cruise up hills, even on the hottest days, without showing up sweaty. * It is, of course, faster than a regular bike. I like riding bikes and enjoy spending time on them, but sometimes you have to get somewhere quickly. As others are saying, outside of a few issues with DIY bike assembly, the main issue with eBike safety is automobiles and especially the huge, heavy, high ones that have proliferated in the US in recent years. We know how to do safer bike infrastructure. There are great examples in other countries that have pioneered it. Whether we want to make it safer or not is a policy choice.
- rafaelmn 3y ago
  > the main issue with eBike safety is automobiles. If you're a fit cyclist, riding on decent surfaces, respect the safety speed limit and don't have to ride around pedestrians staring at phone with headphones randomly walking into your path. Even in countries with good biking infrastructure ebike accident rate is comparable to motorcycles - because for the most part they are shitty motorcycles (brakes, tires, forks/frame) with the safety advantage of being limited to very low speed (which many people circumvent). Strapping a child seat to a motorcycle would get me arrested/child taken by social services - bit strapping one on a ebike makes me hip.
  - iknowstuff 3y ago
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sbm_au 3y ago
Wow, I'm surprised that Keith Bontrager is quoted saying that quick release axles and disc brakes are not a design flaw. This is absolutely known as a design flaw! Downhill mountain bikers have known for decades (since say the 2000s?) that combination of brakes and wheels is problematic, and it's known as an immediate red flag that a mountain bike is poorly specced and designed. It is done solely because quick release axles are slightly cheaper. Front disc brakes require a thru-axle design on the front wheel! I also didn't see in the article, if the Rad bike had cable or hydraulic disc brakes. In my opinion, despite being very common, cable disc brakes are under-powered and unreliable for a heavy consumer e-bike. They are powerful but easily lose their adjustment (I have cable disc brakes on one of my own bikes). I'm pleased to see someone taking these cheap, bad e-bike designs to court.
- fnfjfk 3y ago
  Wow, I thought QR axles meant that they had a handle rather than a hex wrench socket. They ship these with QR skewers?? Forget downhill MTB, no reputable bike company ships road bikes without proper axles these days. Wow this company is crazy
endisneigh 3y ago
I have an ebike and actually prefer caliper brakes. I find disc brakes being a huge pain to adjust, but ymmv.
exabrial 3y ago
We have two of these exactly bikes for the office. Unlike Hydraulic Disc Brakes, Mechanical Disc Brakes ARE NOT self-adjusting! It is VITAL you adjust them as the pads wear!
- fnfjfk 3y ago
  Holy fuck they have mechanical discs on these beasts? Any lightweight road bike will have hydros and they weigh nothing compared to this.
  - exabrial 3y ago
    Yep. And it works about as well as you think it does.
Animats 3y ago
The child who was injured was not the driver. Two kids on one bike. The parents of the 11-year old driving, who survived, have paid out $1.2 million so far in a settlement.[1] Rad Power is suing them, on the grounds that the parents of the driver have to take on Rad Power's liability due to their child's bad driving. The mother seems to be milking this for attention. Lawsuits, Twitter postings, a foundation, a mural, press coverage in People and the New York Times. But where's the forensic evidence that the e-bike failed? One of the arguments in the lawsuit is that the manufacturer is liable because, without power assist, the kids would not have been able to get a bike to the top of that hill. That's pushing it. For an alternate view, see this article in Outside Magazine.[2] [1] https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2022/12/29/good-faith-settlement-reached-among-parents-involved-rad-power-case https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2022/12/29/goo... [2] https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/molly-steinsapir-death-rad-bikes-lawsuit/ https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/...
- mulmen 3y ago
  > The mother seems to be milking this for attention. Lawsuits Which mother?
michaelteter 3y ago
So the parents, attorneys, used their child's unfortunate accidental death to sue anyone they could - including their daughter's friend's family. This won't bring their daughter back, and it probably won't result in any improvement that would prevent a similar crash. It's just extortion because they can. And it probably will leave an even bigger emotional scar on the other girl who lived. The fact that this was an e-bike is irrelevant, aside from perhaps the extra weight. It's difficult to imagine the kid was using the electric features of the bike while going down that steep hill, because you could probably coast on any bike faster than 25mph on a hill like that. Plenty of non-electric bikes could have a brake failure, assuming that was the case in this situation. And riders can misjudge their bike's handling/braking capabilities with the extra weight of a passenger. None of these things are intentional or justify lawsuits. Perhaps the state should sue the parents for not helicoptering and ensuring that two kids didn't ride one bike down a steep hill. After all, if every other player involved is liable, then the parents should also be liable. Or nobody is liable because it was an unfortunate accident.
- analog31 3y ago
  I realize this is a quibble, but two people riding down a steep hill on a single bike would have been a really rare -- if not practically impossible -- occurrence before the advent of e-bikes. Very few conventional bikes were ever sold with capacity for a second rider, and getting to the point of trying that stunt would have involved more endurance than most kids are likely to possess. On the other hand, many of the the newer motorcycle-style e-bikes are being designed, marketed, and sold, as two-seaters. One of the rules for the "progressive drivers license" in my state, for teenagers, is that they can't have more than one teenager in the car at a time.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    Back in the old days you could easily fit two on a banana seat. Or if you wanted to up the danger a bit, your friend could sit on the handlebars.
  - taeric 3y ago
    May be uncommon, but so are deaths from bicycle falls. Doesn't make them not exist. I know we would file friends on bikes going down hills from time to time. Usually stopped when we got hurt.
Dave_Rosenthal 3y ago
I think there are a lot more of these stories to come. My town (Boulder, CO) is inundated with what look like 12-17 year-olds absolutely tearing around on e-bikes. They are rarely petaling, 50/50 on helmet wearing, and often going 20-30 (or more) mph. I assume they have just defeated the speed governors. This particular group is essentially underaged, unlicensed motorcycle riders that uses roads, bikes lines, and sidewalks as it seems convenient. One of the fundamental safety problems is that although people are very used to cyclists here, they are not used to the car-like speed that these things go.
- davidw 3y ago
  My town is inundated with people absolutely tearing around in automobiles. They often are staring at their phones, going above the speed limits, and driving huge trucks that are deadly in a crash with a cyclist or pedestrian. And those things don't even have speed governors!
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cameldrv 3y ago
This was a rollercoaster for me. The first half of the article, I'm annoyed at the parents for suing the other girl's parents, the helmet manufacturer, and the bike manufacturer, when they really can't point to anything specific that anyone did that was negligent. Accidents do happen. The second half, I completely flipped. The author doesn't specifically claim it in this case, but it seems pretty likely that the brakes failed, and that the brakes are either undersized or low quality on these bikes. I haven't owned an e-bike before but the idea that you need to do brake maintenance every 200 miles is totally unreasonable. I've owned owned several bikes and ridden them way more than 200 miles and I don't think I've ever had to maintain the brakes at all. I had been thinking about buying one of these actually, and now I will steer clear.
- tzs 3y ago
  > The first half of the article, I'm annoyed at the parents for suing the other girl's parents, the helmet manufacturer, and the bike manufacturer, when they really can't point to anything specific that anyone did that was negligent. There actually is something in the first half that if you read a little between the lines does seem like it might indicate some negligence by the other girl's mother: >> Kaye thought it was cute and snapped a photo with her phone and texted it to Eme’s mom, who’s a friend of hers. She replied that if at some point the girls wanted to ride Eme’s sister’s new electric bike (it was a bat mitzvah gift), they were welcome to walk over and use it. It was a new electric bike, and it was a gift for the sister, and the sister was probably 12 or 13 since that is the age for a bat mitzvah. I don't have any siblings, but from what I saw of friends who did growing up, a 12 or 13 year old who gets a gift like this is going to monopolize it for a while. I'd expect then that Eme had little to no experience riding it, which Eme's mother should have known. At the very least that means they should not have been allowed to ride together, since riding with a passenger is much harder than riding solo. Eme's mother than should not have invited the girls over to ride it, unless she was going to supervise to make sure they didn't do anything too risky for their skill level. If she did not supervise that might be negligent. If she did supervise but allowed them ride tandem that might be negligent.
  - cameldrv 3y ago

IronWolve 3y ago

Steep hill and bicycle brakes, motorized or not, not a great combo.

fnfjfk 3y ago
Hydraulic discs are fine on steep hills, I have both GRX and Ultegra ones and they will stop you very fast. That’s on a much lighter bike though, and I doubt they’re putting Ultegra-tier bikes on cheap e-stuff.
- Alupis 3y ago
  Brake fade is a real issue, even with high end brakes. On a long hill, someone who's not comfortable with the speed will ride the brakes, just like inexperienced folks in cars do.
- taeric 3y ago
  For a different definition of "fine." The problem with the steep hill and brakes for anyone will be losing control from either panic or over application. Especially on a bicycle where you have a passenger onboard, high speeds are just best avoided.
stevenwoo 3y ago
It's pretty easy to get out of control on a descent in any type of motorized or non motorized vehicle on the hills in the area described when one has little experience. We don't prepare adults for this with cars or children with bicycles, a motorized bicycle however lets one dig a much deeper hole momentum-wise than one would otherwise be capable.
lostlogin 3y ago
Yes, but further into the article it seems to get more concerning - wheels falling off and brake failure, repeatedly. It seems like there may be more to this than ‘just’ angry, bereaved parents.

stefan_ 3y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32562957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32562957

denimnerd42 3y ago

These stories are going to come out more and more. I'm all for getting kids out and letting them be independent. I would ride my bike to the store across all sorts of roads when I was 12-13 year olds to buy rated R movies and Parental Advisory CDs. ("Mom, I'm going for a bike ride!") When you add these 20-25mph+ ebikes (they can be easily fooled to go faster than legal) and no prefrontal cortex development the situation can get scary quick. Unfortunately we don't have the infrastructure or dedicated, separated bike lanes that make them safe. so stupid solutions like "banning them" are obvious and lazy but there's not much else to do immediately.

rottencupcakes 3y ago
> Unfortunately we don't have the infrastructure or dedicated, separated bike lanes that make them safe. I don't think we had that when we were growing up either? We just didn't have the internet, so one kid dying on a bike somewhere one time wasn't national news.
- denimnerd42 3y ago
  I do remember national and local news segments about kids dying or being disabled by cars while they were riding their bikes. Most of the time there had to be some kind of point to drive home so it was about lack of helmets or whatever. Not that they really help vs a car. But that's why I just lied about where I was going. I never would have been allowed to ride across the major roads where I was going. If I had died they would have victim blamed me too.
dylan604 3y ago
>When you add these 20-25mph+ ebikes I know you're talking in general, but this specific case, the Rad bike DOES NOT exceed 20mph under motor power. I own a different model than the one in this case, but mine stops powering the motor at 19.8mph. It is not possible for the bike to go faster than that under power. If they've modified the bike in any way to bypass that limit, that's not the manufacturer's fault. Clearly, this road has a pretty decently steep hill. That would easily make it possible to reach speeds greater than 20mph, but it would not be under power of the motor. At this point, it's not any different from a non-eBike. The fact that this particular bike was an eBike is just a red herring to me. So, stressing that a bike can go 20-25mph+ is misdirection. Any bike going down the incline described in TFA can reach those speeds. Parents not exercising parental controls and allowing their kids unsupervised activity in known dangerous conditions need to accept some responsibility.

karaterobot 3y ago

One of my least popular opinions, on the internet and in real life, is that you should have to be licensed to drive vehicles on the road. Including bikes. Not saying it's the same requirements to drive a car as it is to ride a bike, but just pretending you don't need to learn anything to ride a vehicle in traffic—especially a motorized one like an ebike—doesn't make sense to me. FWIW, I'm an avid bike rider, I just think it's hypocritical at best and dangerous at worst to say (as my jurisdiction does) that bikes are vehicles with all the rights and responsibilities of a car... but hey, you don't actually have to know what those rights and responsibilities are to drive one... or even prove you know how to operate the vehicle... just hop on and get goin'!

changoplatanero 3y ago
I guess the difference is that a bicyclist is unlikely to kill anyone from their bad driving
- RankingMember 3y ago
  That is exactly the key difference.
sschueller 3y ago
I'm Switzerland there are different categories of ebikes. Bikes under 20km/h (25km/h pedal assisted) 500w max do not require anything other than you must be over 14. Ebikes that go faster (30 km/h or 45km/h pedal assisted max) 1000w max require a min. age of 16 and a special M license or vehicle license. Additionally you are required to get a plate for the Ebike and you must wear a helmet. All ebikes require day time running lights and fast ebikes will also require a tachometer in 2024. We do have issues with a new type of rollers that have replaced the old mopets. Those you can drive without any licenses or helmet if you are older than 16. This will probably change however even though they don't go over 20km/h they can still be dangerous.
- mulmen 3y ago
  > fast ebikes will also require a tachometer in 2024. Do you mean speedometer? I don’t see how motor speed is relevant to safety.

notnmeyer 3y ago

i mean, aren’t 11 and 12 year olds a little young to be cut loose on motorized bikes? it seems slightly weird to me to be blaming the bike here. bikes experience failures, that’s true of any bike. a more complicated bike has more failure points. 2 youngish kids on an e-bike on a hill with a 14% grade? e-bike or not, that’s a dangerous situation.

masfuerte 3y ago
Let's not euphemise it. They are motorbikes.
QuercusMax 3y ago
I thought you had to be 16 to legally ride an e-bike in Cali; I guess the Radrunner in question isn't powerful enough to be under that restriction? In any case, 11 year olds shouldn't be riding these.

fnfjfk 3y ago

I’ve been riding in NYC for over 10 years and the ebike situation is getting ridiculous. People buy a bike that lets them ride fast with no training, and then ride like they are in a Terry Barentsen “Hotline” video (Google it). Except unlike the people in those videos, they have no skill at all. “Unearned speed” is the term in cycling communities. I’m genuinely surprised there aren’t more deaths. Blowing red lights without even looking, salmoning, texting while riding, it’s insane.

cobbzilla 3y ago
I suppose “Rich kid accidentally kills self with expensive toy” wouldn’t quite hit the front page. And I’m simply shocked, shocked that the rich lawyer power couple is seeking to absolve themselves of their culpability through a lawsuit.
Tao3300 3y ago
> salmoning Riding against the traffic in a one-way bike lane

blondie9x 3y ago

It's sad because if better transit options existed I doubt these e-bikes would have ever proliferated. Sad also how slow and ineffective government is, from the perspective of housing and transit, and more over from failure to regulate danger to the public well.

xmprt 3y ago
E-bikes are the most energy efficient forms of transportation. The problem isn't e-bikes. If anything making e-bikes more ubiquitous would be a good thing since it would lead to better dedicated infrastructure for cycles as well as more cycling training in everyday life.
- blondie9x 3y ago
  No it isn't. Riding a bike to a nearby station doesn't require lithium mining and is better for your heart and body. Where did you come up with most efficient transit option? By what metric?
dgacmu 3y ago
As a counterpoint, I can't imagine a better form of transportation for the area in which I live. It's hilly enough that I really don't want to try and haul my kids (5 and 11, both quite tall) around on a non-motorized bike, but our cargo bike gets us most of the places we want to go faster than a car or bus would. And I get exercise in the process. It's the most delightful form of transportation I've experienced.

andsoitis 3y ago

> WHO IS RESPONSIBLE WHEN A CHILD DIES? Parents carry blame for buying a 13 year old a motorized vehicle that they the ride very fast. Also for endangering pedestrians who are now at the mercy of kids barreling down the road.

bink 3y ago
The article did say the parents of the girl who owned the bike settled for $1.5 million.
- pphysch 3y ago
  Both parents are lawyers FWIW. It is a tragedy, but it is not clear to me that there wouldn't be a similar legal outcome even with a motorless bike.

thesh4d0w 3y ago

I started reading this and thinking the parents were solely to blame, but the reports later about failing breaks is pretty f'ing concerning. If there was any evidence of that happening here though, it would be in the law suit.

drivers99 3y ago
brakes*

_dain_ 3y ago

It's not that I'm against an in-depth accident investigation like this. Go for it, by all means. But this kind of thing is practically never done for the thousands of children and teenagers that die each year from being hit by cars. It's just expected, normal, the price of doing business. A notable exception is Strong Towns' Crash Analysis Studio, they do great work: https://www.strongtowns.org/crash-studio https://www.strongtowns.org/crash-studio Singling out ebikes seems like status-quo bias -- they get disproportionate scrutiny simply because they are new, not because of the level of risk they present.

davidw 3y ago
> Singling out ebikes seems like status-quo bias -- they get disproportionate scrutiny simply because they are new, not because of the level of risk they present. Yes. The local denizens of Nextdoor go on and on about the kids on eBikes, while it's the local drivers who are absolutely slaughtering each other and everyone else: https://ktvz.com/category/news/accidents-crashes/ https://ktvz.com/category/news/accidents-crashes/ Second the Strong Towns recommendation. They do great work.

taeric 3y ago

I don't want to imagine anything about this situation, and my day has been made worse reading up on it. Sucks enough that this family lost a child, but the other child on the bike not only gets to live through an accident that killed a friend, but also is the reason their family got sued for over a million dollars? And the rhetoric of "nobody has considered kids on these things" is ridiculous. Of course they have. ATVs have been a thing for a long long time. And it has been known for a long time that those are dangerous. Do we even allow three wheelers anymore? I remember we had motorcycles at that age growing up. I'm sympathetic to the idea that too many kids are getting on these bikes without training or proper headgear and such. I'm not clear on what this story is asserting to be done about it. Some vague assertions about bad designs, but no design points actually called out. They reference an older design that was problematic, but specifically do not accuse the current bikes of using that. I didn't get to what the current status of this lawsuit is. Is that known?

stefan_ 3y ago
It's long form, don't expect a bullet point news release. The other family settled, presumably for whatever their insurance would pay. The suit vs RadPower is ongoing as far as I can tell. There are two design problems. The first is quick releases, which no serious bike manufacturer would spec with disc brakes anymore; the actual industry had long moved on to through-axles at a time when RadRunner was still selling these bikes. They particularly don't make sense to spec when you are selling bikes to people who are expected to have no understanding of how they work. The other design problem is that manufacturers like RadPower will install the most garbage flexy throwaway shit for components in places where they assume the customer can't tell the difference. That's how you end up with mechanical disc brakes; sure, they have plenty of stopping power when adjusted correctly. But they need to be adjusted for pad wear and a million other things, and when they were made out of sheet metal, that can be hard to do. But we shouldn't lose track of the most likely cause - they were two kids on a very heavy bike with a very relaxed position (read: difficult to control) going down a 14% incline. They probably picked up much more speed than they were expecting to, panicked and binned it. 99% of the time, they walk away with scrapes, and very rarely, they hit their head in just the wrong way to cause massive damage.

davidw 3y ago

We have one of those Rad bikes, and we paid to have it assembled so it was done right. They don't have the best brakes. So we have it maintained regularly. They do work when maintained. Any kind of bike needs some maintenance from time to time. We are quite happy with the bike though. It has replaced a bunch of car trips for us, and among other things, I do most of the shopping for our family of four with it. I am pretty comfortable getting around with a regular bike. I'm a fit cyclist. But the eBike is a step up: * I can sit a person on the back of it. Even my wife if we're not going far (she's petite). * I can carry quite a bit of groceries with it and not break a sweat. * If it is hot outside, I use more pedal assist and get a pleasant cooling effect. In summer I'd much rather hop on my eBike than get in the hot car, as the eBike provides an instant breeze, whereas the car's AC takes some time. * If it is cold outside, I can layer up a lot more on the eBike. If I start to warm up and feel like I might sweat some, I can use more pedal assist. * I can cruise up hills, even on the hottest days, without showing up sweaty. * It is, of course, faster than a regular bike. I like riding bikes and enjoy spending time on them, but sometimes you have to get somewhere quickly. As others are saying, outside of a few issues with DIY bike assembly, the main issue with eBike safety is automobiles and especially the huge, heavy, high ones that have proliferated in the US in recent years. We know how to do safer bike infrastructure. There are great examples in other countries that have pioneered it. Whether we want to make it safer or not is a policy choice.

rafaelmn 3y ago
> the main issue with eBike safety is automobiles. If you're a fit cyclist, riding on decent surfaces, respect the safety speed limit and don't have to ride around pedestrians staring at phone with headphones randomly walking into your path. Even in countries with good biking infrastructure ebike accident rate is comparable to motorcycles - because for the most part they are shitty motorcycles (brakes, tires, forks/frame) with the safety advantage of being limited to very low speed (which many people circumvent). Strapping a child seat to a motorcycle would get me arrested/child taken by social services - bit strapping one on a ebike makes me hip.
- iknowstuff 3y ago

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sbm_au 3y ago

Wow, I'm surprised that Keith Bontrager is quoted saying that quick release axles and disc brakes are not a design flaw. This is absolutely known as a design flaw! Downhill mountain bikers have known for decades (since say the 2000s?) that combination of brakes and wheels is problematic, and it's known as an immediate red flag that a mountain bike is poorly specced and designed. It is done solely because quick release axles are slightly cheaper. Front disc brakes require a thru-axle design on the front wheel! I also didn't see in the article, if the Rad bike had cable or hydraulic disc brakes. In my opinion, despite being very common, cable disc brakes are under-powered and unreliable for a heavy consumer e-bike. They are powerful but easily lose their adjustment (I have cable disc brakes on one of my own bikes). I'm pleased to see someone taking these cheap, bad e-bike designs to court.

fnfjfk 3y ago
Wow, I thought QR axles meant that they had a handle rather than a hex wrench socket. They ship these with QR skewers?? Forget downhill MTB, no reputable bike company ships road bikes without proper axles these days. Wow this company is crazy

endisneigh 3y ago

I have an ebike and actually prefer caliper brakes. I find disc brakes being a huge pain to adjust, but ymmv.

exabrial 3y ago

We have two of these exactly bikes for the office. Unlike Hydraulic Disc Brakes, Mechanical Disc Brakes ARE NOT self-adjusting! It is VITAL you adjust them as the pads wear!

fnfjfk 3y ago
Holy fuck they have mechanical discs on these beasts? Any lightweight road bike will have hydros and they weigh nothing compared to this.
- exabrial 3y ago
  Yep. And it works about as well as you think it does.

Animats 3y ago

The child who was injured was not the driver. Two kids on one bike. The parents of the 11-year old driving, who survived, have paid out $1.2 million so far in a settlement.[1] Rad Power is suing them, on the grounds that the parents of the driver have to take on Rad Power's liability due to their child's bad driving. The mother seems to be milking this for attention. Lawsuits, Twitter postings, a foundation, a mural, press coverage in People and the New York Times. But where's the forensic evidence that the e-bike failed? One of the arguments in the lawsuit is that the manufacturer is liable because, without power assist, the kids would not have been able to get a bike to the top of that hill. That's pushing it. For an alternate view, see this article in Outside Magazine.[2] [1] https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2022/12/29/good-faith-settlement-reached-among-parents-involved-rad-power-case https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2022/12/29/goo... [2] https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/molly-steinsapir-death-rad-bikes-lawsuit/ https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/...

mulmen 3y ago
> The mother seems to be milking this for attention. Lawsuits Which mother?

michaelteter 3y ago

So the parents, attorneys, used their child's unfortunate accidental death to sue anyone they could - including their daughter's friend's family. This won't bring their daughter back, and it probably won't result in any improvement that would prevent a similar crash. It's just extortion because they can. And it probably will leave an even bigger emotional scar on the other girl who lived. The fact that this was an e-bike is irrelevant, aside from perhaps the extra weight. It's difficult to imagine the kid was using the electric features of the bike while going down that steep hill, because you could probably coast on any bike faster than 25mph on a hill like that. Plenty of non-electric bikes could have a brake failure, assuming that was the case in this situation. And riders can misjudge their bike's handling/braking capabilities with the extra weight of a passenger. None of these things are intentional or justify lawsuits. Perhaps the state should sue the parents for not helicoptering and ensuring that two kids didn't ride one bike down a steep hill. After all, if every other player involved is liable, then the parents should also be liable. Or nobody is liable because it was an unfortunate accident.

analog31 3y ago
I realize this is a quibble, but two people riding down a steep hill on a single bike would have been a really rare -- if not practically impossible -- occurrence before the advent of e-bikes. Very few conventional bikes were ever sold with capacity for a second rider, and getting to the point of trying that stunt would have involved more endurance than most kids are likely to possess. On the other hand, many of the the newer motorcycle-style e-bikes are being designed, marketed, and sold, as two-seaters. One of the rules for the "progressive drivers license" in my state, for teenagers, is that they can't have more than one teenager in the car at a time.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  Back in the old days you could easily fit two on a banana seat. Or if you wanted to up the danger a bit, your friend could sit on the handlebars.
- taeric 3y ago
  May be uncommon, but so are deaths from bicycle falls. Doesn't make them not exist. I know we would file friends on bikes going down hills from time to time. Usually stopped when we got hurt.

Dave_Rosenthal 3y ago

I think there are a lot more of these stories to come. My town (Boulder, CO) is inundated with what look like 12-17 year-olds absolutely tearing around on e-bikes. They are rarely petaling, 50/50 on helmet wearing, and often going 20-30 (or more) mph. I assume they have just defeated the speed governors. This particular group is essentially underaged, unlicensed motorcycle riders that uses roads, bikes lines, and sidewalks as it seems convenient. One of the fundamental safety problems is that although people are very used to cyclists here, they are not used to the car-like speed that these things go.

davidw 3y ago
My town is inundated with people absolutely tearing around in automobiles. They often are staring at their phones, going above the speed limits, and driving huge trucks that are deadly in a crash with a cyclist or pedestrian. And those things don't even have speed governors!

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cameldrv 3y ago

This was a rollercoaster for me. The first half of the article, I'm annoyed at the parents for suing the other girl's parents, the helmet manufacturer, and the bike manufacturer, when they really can't point to anything specific that anyone did that was negligent. Accidents do happen. The second half, I completely flipped. The author doesn't specifically claim it in this case, but it seems pretty likely that the brakes failed, and that the brakes are either undersized or low quality on these bikes. I haven't owned an e-bike before but the idea that you need to do brake maintenance every 200 miles is totally unreasonable. I've owned owned several bikes and ridden them way more than 200 miles and I don't think I've ever had to maintain the brakes at all. I had been thinking about buying one of these actually, and now I will steer clear.

tzs 3y ago
> The first half of the article, I'm annoyed at the parents for suing the other girl's parents, the helmet manufacturer, and the bike manufacturer, when they really can't point to anything specific that anyone did that was negligent. There actually is something in the first half that if you read a little between the lines does seem like it might indicate some negligence by the other girl's mother: >> Kaye thought it was cute and snapped a photo with her phone and texted it to Eme’s mom, who’s a friend of hers. She replied that if at some point the girls wanted to ride Eme’s sister’s new electric bike (it was a bat mitzvah gift), they were welcome to walk over and use it. It was a new electric bike, and it was a gift for the sister, and the sister was probably 12 or 13 since that is the age for a bat mitzvah. I don't have any siblings, but from what I saw of friends who did growing up, a 12 or 13 year old who gets a gift like this is going to monopolize it for a while. I'd expect then that Eme had little to no experience riding it, which Eme's mother should have known. At the very least that means they should not have been allowed to ride together, since riding with a passenger is much harder than riding solo. Eme's mother than should not have invited the girls over to ride it, unless she was going to supervise to make sure they didn't do anything too risky for their skill level. If she did not supervise that might be negligent. If she did supervise but allowed them ride tandem that might be negligent.
- cameldrv 3y ago