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Important context that may explain it somewhat further down in the article. > “Since e-bikes do not require a license, drivers of e-bikes can simply ignore the

Important context that may explain it somewhat further down in the article. > “Since e-bikes do not require a license, drivers of e-bikes can simply ignore their traffic summons with no repercussions whatsoever, making any enforcement futile,” the police spokesperson said. However, the new requirement that cyclists appear in court, or face an arrest warrant if they fail to, creates “a strong incentive to show up in court.” Cannot speak for its accuracy. Anecdotally (London not NYC) I feel like I am "endangered" by e-bikes much more often than cars, because they seem to regularly skip red lights and come silently shooting out from the other side of a car while you are crossing, which a car simply cannot do. They are far heavier than a normal bike and seem to be closer to a small incredibly quiet moped. Obviously lives-saved is the most important metric, but that doesn't mean the "feeling of safety" component is worthless. The comparison around deaths is only useful if those figures are primarily car deaths caused by running red lights. I feel like the most sensible policy is requiring licenses for e-bikes above a certain power level (not easy!) and then bringing parity to the treatment of cars vs e-bikes after that

wnolens 1y ago
> e-bikes above a certain power level This is already true in NYC. It just another law that there aren't enough resources to be enforced IMO
- addicted 1y ago
  It's largely enforced fine with e-bikes. However, you do have car lane legal scooters that also ride in the bike lanes when convenient which are a real problem. These aren't e-bikes, however, and are not supposed to be in the bike lane in the first place.
addicted 1y ago
> Anecdotally (London not NYC) I feel like I am "endangered" by e-bikes much more often than cars Speaking of NYC, not London, there are several reasons I see for this. 1. NYC has used bike lanes as pedestrian safety infrastructure, siting the bike lanes right against sidewalks, providing a buffer from cars. NYC DOT has done a lot of research every time a new bike lane has been added, and every time they did that pedestrian deaths and severe injuries dropped. However, the flip side is that you're gonna have e-bikes much closer to you than cars. 2. Street infrastructure, including red light timing, etc. is entirely based on cars and not bikes. The bike lights, for example, switch directly from green to red, providing no "yellow" period to stop. This actually makes sense because bikes are significantly safer, but it leads to different behavior than cars, which some pedestrians feel is "unfair". What would actually be fair would be to design the infrastructure suitable for bikers as well. 3. Pedestrians simply have different expectations of cars/ebikes. You will reliably see tourists not even look for bikes while crossing the bike path and stand in the middle of the bike path or walk in the bike path in a way they never would with a car lane. 4. Bikes are just given much poorer infrastructure. In NYC, you have narrow bike lanes, several of which are interrupted with slick and dangerous sewer gratings, and with no space to pass, with car parking right next to them leading to people constantly hopping through the bike lane from their cars to the sidewalk without looking, constantly creating a danger of opening their doors without looking causing bikes to be "doored", etc. There's way too much "feels" in this discussion. It's about time someone provided some actual data that bikes, and even e-bikes, have even slightly increased risks to pedestrians, when all the actual data suggests otherwise, and it's about time we recognize that at least in places like NYC, the "danger" caused by bikes/e-bikes, is literally because the city has made bikers a buffer to protect pedestrians from the actual dangers on the road, the 1-2 ton cars traveling at incredible speeds through dense urban areas.
- lolinder 1y ago
  I'm not buying this. Bikers in bike lanes are not where I've felt threatened by bikes in NYC: they're in a dedicated lane and it's easy for me to check, cross, and get out of their way. Where I feel threatened by bikes is on narrow city streets with no bike lanes. On narrow one-way roads with street parking, cars tend to go quite slowly and look out carefully for pedestrians coming out from between cars. At a stop sign you can check left and right, cross, and expect that cars will see you and stop even if they were for some reason planning on running the sign. It's even possible to safely jaywalk in most cases because the cars are going slowly enough that you can see them, judge their speeds, and cross before they reach you. E-bikes as a rule do not behave that way on narrow roads. They will drive much faster than is safe (presumably because the road feels less narrow to them relatively) and end up outrunning their visibility and yours. I've never come close to being hit by a car in Brooklyn, but there have been numerous close calls with bikes, and they've all been on narrow roads with street parking where I was attempting to cross at a stop sign which the bike ran.
- john-h-k 1y ago
  Important to note I absolutely do NOT notice the same dangers from bikes as e-bikes. Like yeah some bikes run reds and there are bad cyclists (just as with drivers, etc), but specifically e-bikes frequently cause issue. I have had to dodge n>2 e-bikes riding down the pavement in the last ~2 weeks, and ~0 bikes (for as long as I can really remember). It is very specifically e-bike usage, and they rate at which they move is just not comparable to normal cyclists. > There's way too much "feels" in this discussion I agree that hard numbers are useful, but dismissing feeling entirely isn't useful. Feeling safe is an important quality for a city.
  - tstrimple 1y ago
    Bicycles to e-bikes is similar to the change from longbows to crossbows. It dramatically lowers the skill and practice required to do previously exceptional things. This necessarily introduces a lot more people who have never had to develop the discipline learned through repeated practice. A cyclist who can sustain a 20mph cruise has worked up to that over years and has tons of experience interacting with vehicles and pedestrians. An e-bike user who cruises at 20mph could have purchased his very first bike that same day.
alecst 1y ago
Yea I partly agree I guess. I am a cyclist in NYC and there are definitely "e-bikes" that present more like motorcycles and people drive them over the Queensboro Bridge bike path which is like 3 feet wide. It's crazy. I'm surprised I don't see more streaks of blood on the concrete there to be honest. So I would like to see better e-bike laws that make it illegal to have a machine that's too heavy and/or fast, and to issue court summonses to people operating those machines in bike lanes. That seems fair. It's a clear hazard, it's a selfish use of resources, and if everyone did it they'd just close the bike path altogether because it'd become unusable. Having said that, that's not what the city is doing. They're fixated on cyclists running red lights and stop signs, not distinguishing between different kinds of bikes. Bikes, and e-bikes, are safer than cars for everyone around them. We want to encourage people to bike more and drive less because they're so much safer. (Remember a bike isn't like a car -- if a cyclist hits a pedestrian, they're gonna get hurt too!) For this reason, many states allow bikes to treat red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yield signs. So NYC's sudden shift in policy, to me, feels backwards. It sucks because if safety was really the major concern the mayor could have just built more and safer bike lines -- which was what he promised to do, made a plan to do, and then just didn't.
- lxgr 1y ago
  > it's a selfish use of resources Probably worth noting at this point that the ultimate beneficiaries are people ordering food on various delivery services. In my experience, these overpowered bikes are almost exclusively used by delivery drivers. I rarely order online (too much trash, too many hostile UX patterns of sneaking in fees disguised as "taxes" etc.), but when I do, I'd really prefer the delivery person would not risk their and others' lives running red lights all the way.
  - john-h-k 1y ago
    I wonder if Uber/Deliveroo/etc could implement a penalty for doing a delivery - when you are marked as an e-bike deliverer - "too fast". Obviously they have no incentive to do it, but it seems the easiest single action to slow them down
bombcar 1y ago
Trains are much more dangerous than cars (bigger, harder to stop, even trams) but I don’t worry about them as much, because they rarely leave the rails and they’re easy to predict. Cars are much more dangerous than bikes, but they rarely leave the lanes, travel in (mostly) known directions - though I’ve learned from experience to always look both ways even on one-way streets. Bikes aren’t that terribly dangerous (though a pedestrian hit by an e-bike at 28 mph can be killed), but they’re entirely unpredictable and seeming appear as if by magic from directions you wouldn’t think possible.
- tstrimple 1y ago
  > Trains are much more dangerous than cars (bigger, harder to stop, even trams) but I don’t worry about them as much, because they rarely leave the rails and they’re easy to predict. It feels like you're contradicting yourself here. The restricted tracks and predictability make them by definition more safe than cars. And that bears out in fatalities. I get what you're going for in that trains are more scary from a mass standpoint, but we don't measure safety by how dangerous things look. We look at actual metrics. And trains are safe.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    Trains are safe because they’re dangerous - nobody wins the fight with the train, and it can’t even try to avoid the fight, so everyone learns to give them a wide berth (and accidents that do happen are almost universally blamed on the non-train). Cars suffer from too much maneuverability - they do avoid most of the incidents and accidents.
cheschire 1y ago
And here's my problem. Lives saved/taken is not the only dichotomy present, yet that is the one focused on my proponents for ebikes. Injuries sustained is much more difficult to quantify yet it's the more interesting comparison. The article says the ratio is 120 to 1 of lives taken by cars vs ebikes. I think that is because a car accident is significantly more likely to kill the pedestrian rather than only injure them. I would be interested in reading how many pedestrians are injured at all by other people's ebikes vs other people's cars.
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
  My crystal ball isn't working, but I'm going out on a limb and doubting it's even 120x as many - which would be less total bike injuries than exclusively car deaths... It's also estimated that there's 10-50x as many car injuries as car-related deaths... Which means even to get to the injury rate of cars - you're looking for, potentially, as many 6000x as many serious bike accidents. It's possible, but it doesn't seem likely.
- AdamN 1y ago
  This is important but I've seen a car hit a pedestrian in NYC and no long term injury and no police. So any stats would need projected, science-backed 'real' numbers to drive policy, not just what's reported.
- giraffe_lady 1y ago
  My city doesn't track injuries by vehicle with this granularity yet but injuries involving cars here are deep into the tens of thousands per year. I would also be uh, interested, in seeing how bikes could possibly compare.
mpalmer 1y ago
Bikes are out of control in my city. Delivery drivers, kids on ebikes, seemingly none of them follow the rules. Fewer fatalities maybe, but speaking for myself I have a few enraging near misses with ebikes on the sidewalk every month.
jerf 1y ago
I'm not rabidly pro-bike like some HN posters, but I'm at least in favor of the concept. But I would exhort city bikers and e-bikers, I know it feels convenient to flip back and forth between being a "car" and a "pedestrian" at a whim, but please don't. You're generally supposed to be a "car", at least where I live. And the step where you were a pedestrian a moment ago and just come wandering into my lane because you're a "car" now is probably about the most dangerous thing you do on a daily basis. Pick a lane, literally and metaphorically. I'm aware of this issue so I'm watching you like a hawk if you're doing this, but I'd advise against betting that everyone else is watching that well. That ped->car transition is very rough on everyone around you. I'll also agree that cars need to be a lot more aware of bikes in general, but this particular issue is definitely on the bikers.
- matsemann 1y ago
  Make it non-convenient, then! I would love to be able to get to work without having to be forced up onto the sidewalks some places, then out onto the road with no cycle lanes, only to be honked at to then going back to cycle between pedestrians and annoy them as well. So build better cycling infrastructure!
- lesuorac 1y ago
  > I know it feels convenient to flip back and forth between being a "car" and a "pedestrian" at a whim, but please don't. Meh. I have no problem if a cyclists wants to flip back and forth between a "car" and a "pedestrian". It's just that a "pedestrian" uses their feet to move. So if you want to get off the bike to walk across an intersection with pedestrians; I really don't see a problem.
  - tstrimple 1y ago
    Yes but you know that's not what they meant. Cyclists on sidewalks or taking advantage of pedestrian crossings generally aren't walking their bikes.
- meagher 1y ago
  I bike in NYC and generally agree about the flipping. > You're generally supposed to be a "car", at least where I live. In NYC, cyclists can follow pedestrian walk signals even when traffic light is red. https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2564366&GUID=D4E7E09A-5B98-4C14-BAC8-A9D242408B26 https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2...
black_puppydog 1y ago
> The comparison around deaths is only useful if those figures are primarily car deaths caused by running red lights. I don't know about the UK or US, but here in France, the majority of pedestrians killed each year die on "protected" crossings. So whether those are traffic lights or "zebra" crossings, yes, that's a very major source of accidents. Addendum: Would love to see per-modality statistics on this for UK/US. Here in France, the preliminary stats for 2024 look like this: https://masto.bike/system/media_attachments/files/114/521/934/916/917/561/original/53f93afd6479ed05.png https://masto.bike/system/media_attachments/files/114/521/93... The table shows the deaths per modality (leftmost column, "tués") and in collision with which modality they were killed (and "sans tiers" for "no counterparty"). Needless to say, cars and trucks are dominating the "who kills the most people" contest, far outweighing their percentage in transport usage. Source: https://www.onisr.securite-routiere.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/2025-01/2025%2001%2030_ONISR_Accidentalit%C3%A9_Bilan_provisoire_2024_v8ter.pdf https://www.onisr.securite-routiere.gouv.fr/sites/default/fi...
- matsemann 1y ago
  The norwegian road authorities (SVV) has the same stats, most accidents happen on a pedestrian/zebra crossing. So they misuse that statistics to claim it's not safe to build... So kids being dropped off the school bus at a road with 50 km/h that needs to cross, where the parents are asking for a safe way to cross, are being told that "no, pedestrian crossings aren't actually more safe, they give a false sense of security", and thus rather have the kids run over the road at their own whim..
  - black_puppydog 1y ago
    couldn't be that 99.9% of pedestrians cross the road on "secured" crossings, huh? :D Yeah, stats are difficult.
    - BobaFloutist 1y ago
      I mean it's the counterargument to the claim that "pedestrians need to take more responsibility and stop jaywalking/crossing on red/wearing dark colors and running into moving traffic at night"
ftth_finland 1y ago
> I feel like the most sensible policy is requiring licenses for e-bikes above a certain power level (not easy!) and then bringing parity to the treatment of cars vs e-bikes after that Au contraire, it is fairly easy. Around here, e-vehicles are classified according to weight, power amd max speed. These parameters define where and how you can use them, what features are required, what protective gear is required and what licenses or insurance are required to operate them. https://www.traficom.fi/en/transport/road/electric-personal-transportation-devices https://www.traficom.fi/en/transport/road/electric-personal-...
tim333 1y ago
I ebike (and walk and drive) in London. I think there is something to be said for cracking down on behaviour that is dangerous but not minor breaking of the rules. A lot depends on how fast you are going. I'll do pedestrian type things but at pedestrian type speeds. It's largely the delivery guys on ebikes who are a little scary.
ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
> requiring licenses for e-bikes above a certain power level That's already the case in the UK. Only e-bikes with assist limited to IIRC 15.5mph (you can pedal quicker than that, though) are legal to use on public roads without the usual license, registration, number plate and insurance. Basically, unrestricted e-bikes (e.g. throttle activated ones that provide power without needing to be pedalled) are the same as e-motorbikes and covered by the same laws, though there's certainly lots of them around. I would guess that the e-motorbikes cause less problems than the typical distracted car driver does and so the police aren't prioritising them.
Hilift 1y ago
The context, stated in the article, is "crackdown on unsafe cyclists". This is in part an intervention. In Washington DC last year, people finally were fed up with all the psycho moped riders zipping around. When the police investigated, the said the city only had 150 registered mopeds, which were most likely not the offending vehicles. So they took trucks around the city and checked every moped, seized 500 on sight, and arrested 129 people. These were unregistered (a crime/misdemeanor), and they were all operated by unauthorized immigrants. The response from a DC "community organizer"? "It's an education issue". By the way, they never bothered enforcing electric bikes/scooters, and they don't need a license or helmets. https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/investigations/dc-police-continue-crackdown-on-illegal-mopeds-operation-ride-right/65-cb21a170-195e-4d50-89f3-13d5f80b6acd https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/investigations/dc-police-...
benhurmarcel 1y ago
> I feel like the most sensible policy is requiring licenses for e-bikes above a certain power level (not easy!) It’s already the case in the EU and the UK. An e-bike is limited to 250 W and 15.5 mph (25 km/h). Above that it’s a speedbike and require a license, helmet, insurance, licence plate, and cannot use cycle lanes. Also, actual e-bikes aren’t that much heavier than normal city bikes, maybe 5 kg extra.

wnolens 1y ago

> e-bikes above a certain power level This is already true in NYC. It just another law that there aren't enough resources to be enforced IMO

addicted 1y ago
It's largely enforced fine with e-bikes. However, you do have car lane legal scooters that also ride in the bike lanes when convenient which are a real problem. These aren't e-bikes, however, and are not supposed to be in the bike lane in the first place.

addicted 1y ago

> Anecdotally (London not NYC) I feel like I am "endangered" by e-bikes much more often than cars Speaking of NYC, not London, there are several reasons I see for this. 1. NYC has used bike lanes as pedestrian safety infrastructure, siting the bike lanes right against sidewalks, providing a buffer from cars. NYC DOT has done a lot of research every time a new bike lane has been added, and every time they did that pedestrian deaths and severe injuries dropped. However, the flip side is that you're gonna have e-bikes much closer to you than cars. 2. Street infrastructure, including red light timing, etc. is entirely based on cars and not bikes. The bike lights, for example, switch directly from green to red, providing no "yellow" period to stop. This actually makes sense because bikes are significantly safer, but it leads to different behavior than cars, which some pedestrians feel is "unfair". What would actually be fair would be to design the infrastructure suitable for bikers as well. 3. Pedestrians simply have different expectations of cars/ebikes. You will reliably see tourists not even look for bikes while crossing the bike path and stand in the middle of the bike path or walk in the bike path in a way they never would with a car lane. 4. Bikes are just given much poorer infrastructure. In NYC, you have narrow bike lanes, several of which are interrupted with slick and dangerous sewer gratings, and with no space to pass, with car parking right next to them leading to people constantly hopping through the bike lane from their cars to the sidewalk without looking, constantly creating a danger of opening their doors without looking causing bikes to be "doored", etc. There's way too much "feels" in this discussion. It's about time someone provided some actual data that bikes, and even e-bikes, have even slightly increased risks to pedestrians, when all the actual data suggests otherwise, and it's about time we recognize that at least in places like NYC, the "danger" caused by bikes/e-bikes, is literally because the city has made bikers a buffer to protect pedestrians from the actual dangers on the road, the 1-2 ton cars traveling at incredible speeds through dense urban areas.

lolinder 1y ago
I'm not buying this. Bikers in bike lanes are not where I've felt threatened by bikes in NYC: they're in a dedicated lane and it's easy for me to check, cross, and get out of their way. Where I feel threatened by bikes is on narrow city streets with no bike lanes. On narrow one-way roads with street parking, cars tend to go quite slowly and look out carefully for pedestrians coming out from between cars. At a stop sign you can check left and right, cross, and expect that cars will see you and stop even if they were for some reason planning on running the sign. It's even possible to safely jaywalk in most cases because the cars are going slowly enough that you can see them, judge their speeds, and cross before they reach you. E-bikes as a rule do not behave that way on narrow roads. They will drive much faster than is safe (presumably because the road feels less narrow to them relatively) and end up outrunning their visibility and yours. I've never come close to being hit by a car in Brooklyn, but there have been numerous close calls with bikes, and they've all been on narrow roads with street parking where I was attempting to cross at a stop sign which the bike ran.
john-h-k 1y ago
Important to note I absolutely do NOT notice the same dangers from bikes as e-bikes. Like yeah some bikes run reds and there are bad cyclists (just as with drivers, etc), but specifically e-bikes frequently cause issue. I have had to dodge n>2 e-bikes riding down the pavement in the last ~2 weeks, and ~0 bikes (for as long as I can really remember). It is very specifically e-bike usage, and they rate at which they move is just not comparable to normal cyclists. > There's way too much "feels" in this discussion I agree that hard numbers are useful, but dismissing feeling entirely isn't useful. Feeling safe is an important quality for a city.
- tstrimple 1y ago
  Bicycles to e-bikes is similar to the change from longbows to crossbows. It dramatically lowers the skill and practice required to do previously exceptional things. This necessarily introduces a lot more people who have never had to develop the discipline learned through repeated practice. A cyclist who can sustain a 20mph cruise has worked up to that over years and has tons of experience interacting with vehicles and pedestrians. An e-bike user who cruises at 20mph could have purchased his very first bike that same day.

alecst 1y ago

Yea I partly agree I guess. I am a cyclist in NYC and there are definitely "e-bikes" that present more like motorcycles and people drive them over the Queensboro Bridge bike path which is like 3 feet wide. It's crazy. I'm surprised I don't see more streaks of blood on the concrete there to be honest. So I would like to see better e-bike laws that make it illegal to have a machine that's too heavy and/or fast, and to issue court summonses to people operating those machines in bike lanes. That seems fair. It's a clear hazard, it's a selfish use of resources, and if everyone did it they'd just close the bike path altogether because it'd become unusable. Having said that, that's not what the city is doing. They're fixated on cyclists running red lights and stop signs, not distinguishing between different kinds of bikes. Bikes, and e-bikes, are safer than cars for everyone around them. We want to encourage people to bike more and drive less because they're so much safer. (Remember a bike isn't like a car -- if a cyclist hits a pedestrian, they're gonna get hurt too!) For this reason, many states allow bikes to treat red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yield signs. So NYC's sudden shift in policy, to me, feels backwards. It sucks because if safety was really the major concern the mayor could have just built more and safer bike lines -- which was what he promised to do, made a plan to do, and then just didn't.

lxgr 1y ago
> it's a selfish use of resources Probably worth noting at this point that the ultimate beneficiaries are people ordering food on various delivery services. In my experience, these overpowered bikes are almost exclusively used by delivery drivers. I rarely order online (too much trash, too many hostile UX patterns of sneaking in fees disguised as "taxes" etc.), but when I do, I'd really prefer the delivery person would not risk their and others' lives running red lights all the way.
- john-h-k 1y ago
  I wonder if Uber/Deliveroo/etc could implement a penalty for doing a delivery - when you are marked as an e-bike deliverer - "too fast". Obviously they have no incentive to do it, but it seems the easiest single action to slow them down

bombcar 1y ago

Trains are much more dangerous than cars (bigger, harder to stop, even trams) but I don’t worry about them as much, because they rarely leave the rails and they’re easy to predict. Cars are much more dangerous than bikes, but they rarely leave the lanes, travel in (mostly) known directions - though I’ve learned from experience to always look both ways even on one-way streets. Bikes aren’t that terribly dangerous (though a pedestrian hit by an e-bike at 28 mph can be killed), but they’re entirely unpredictable and seeming appear as if by magic from directions you wouldn’t think possible.

tstrimple 1y ago
> Trains are much more dangerous than cars (bigger, harder to stop, even trams) but I don’t worry about them as much, because they rarely leave the rails and they’re easy to predict. It feels like you're contradicting yourself here. The restricted tracks and predictability make them by definition more safe than cars. And that bears out in fatalities. I get what you're going for in that trains are more scary from a mass standpoint, but we don't measure safety by how dangerous things look. We look at actual metrics. And trains are safe.
- bombcar 1y ago
  Trains are safe because they’re dangerous - nobody wins the fight with the train, and it can’t even try to avoid the fight, so everyone learns to give them a wide berth (and accidents that do happen are almost universally blamed on the non-train). Cars suffer from too much maneuverability - they do avoid most of the incidents and accidents.

cheschire 1y ago

And here's my problem. Lives saved/taken is not the only dichotomy present, yet that is the one focused on my proponents for ebikes. Injuries sustained is much more difficult to quantify yet it's the more interesting comparison. The article says the ratio is 120 to 1 of lives taken by cars vs ebikes. I think that is because a car accident is significantly more likely to kill the pedestrian rather than only injure them. I would be interested in reading how many pedestrians are injured at all by other people's ebikes vs other people's cars.

onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
My crystal ball isn't working, but I'm going out on a limb and doubting it's even 120x as many - which would be less total bike injuries than exclusively car deaths... It's also estimated that there's 10-50x as many car injuries as car-related deaths... Which means even to get to the injury rate of cars - you're looking for, potentially, as many 6000x as many serious bike accidents. It's possible, but it doesn't seem likely.
AdamN 1y ago
This is important but I've seen a car hit a pedestrian in NYC and no long term injury and no police. So any stats would need projected, science-backed 'real' numbers to drive policy, not just what's reported.
giraffe_lady 1y ago
My city doesn't track injuries by vehicle with this granularity yet but injuries involving cars here are deep into the tens of thousands per year. I would also be uh, interested, in seeing how bikes could possibly compare.

mpalmer 1y ago

Bikes are out of control in my city. Delivery drivers, kids on ebikes, seemingly none of them follow the rules. Fewer fatalities maybe, but speaking for myself I have a few enraging near misses with ebikes on the sidewalk every month.

jerf 1y ago

I'm not rabidly pro-bike like some HN posters, but I'm at least in favor of the concept. But I would exhort city bikers and e-bikers, I know it feels convenient to flip back and forth between being a "car" and a "pedestrian" at a whim, but please don't. You're generally supposed to be a "car", at least where I live. And the step where you were a pedestrian a moment ago and just come wandering into my lane because you're a "car" now is probably about the most dangerous thing you do on a daily basis. Pick a lane, literally and metaphorically. I'm aware of this issue so I'm watching you like a hawk if you're doing this, but I'd advise against betting that everyone else is watching that well. That ped->car transition is very rough on everyone around you. I'll also agree that cars need to be a lot more aware of bikes in general, but this particular issue is definitely on the bikers.

matsemann 1y ago
Make it non-convenient, then! I would love to be able to get to work without having to be forced up onto the sidewalks some places, then out onto the road with no cycle lanes, only to be honked at to then going back to cycle between pedestrians and annoy them as well. So build better cycling infrastructure!
lesuorac 1y ago
> I know it feels convenient to flip back and forth between being a "car" and a "pedestrian" at a whim, but please don't. Meh. I have no problem if a cyclists wants to flip back and forth between a "car" and a "pedestrian". It's just that a "pedestrian" uses their feet to move. So if you want to get off the bike to walk across an intersection with pedestrians; I really don't see a problem.
- tstrimple 1y ago
  Yes but you know that's not what they meant. Cyclists on sidewalks or taking advantage of pedestrian crossings generally aren't walking their bikes.
meagher 1y ago
I bike in NYC and generally agree about the flipping. > You're generally supposed to be a "car", at least where I live. In NYC, cyclists can follow pedestrian walk signals even when traffic light is red. https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2564366&GUID=D4E7E09A-5B98-4C14-BAC8-A9D242408B26 https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2...

black_puppydog 1y ago

> The comparison around deaths is only useful if those figures are primarily car deaths caused by running red lights. I don't know about the UK or US, but here in France, the majority of pedestrians killed each year die on "protected" crossings. So whether those are traffic lights or "zebra" crossings, yes, that's a very major source of accidents. Addendum: Would love to see per-modality statistics on this for UK/US. Here in France, the preliminary stats for 2024 look like this: https://masto.bike/system/media_attachments/files/114/521/934/916/917/561/original/53f93afd6479ed05.png https://masto.bike/system/media_attachments/files/114/521/93... The table shows the deaths per modality (leftmost column, "tués") and in collision with which modality they were killed (and "sans tiers" for "no counterparty"). Needless to say, cars and trucks are dominating the "who kills the most people" contest, far outweighing their percentage in transport usage. Source: https://www.onisr.securite-routiere.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/2025-01/2025%2001%2030_ONISR_Accidentalit%C3%A9_Bilan_provisoire_2024_v8ter.pdf https://www.onisr.securite-routiere.gouv.fr/sites/default/fi...

matsemann 1y ago
The norwegian road authorities (SVV) has the same stats, most accidents happen on a pedestrian/zebra crossing. So they misuse that statistics to claim it's not safe to build... So kids being dropped off the school bus at a road with 50 km/h that needs to cross, where the parents are asking for a safe way to cross, are being told that "no, pedestrian crossings aren't actually more safe, they give a false sense of security", and thus rather have the kids run over the road at their own whim..
- black_puppydog 1y ago
  couldn't be that 99.9% of pedestrians cross the road on "secured" crossings, huh? :D Yeah, stats are difficult.
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    I mean it's the counterargument to the claim that "pedestrians need to take more responsibility and stop jaywalking/crossing on red/wearing dark colors and running into moving traffic at night"

ftth_finland 1y ago

> I feel like the most sensible policy is requiring licenses for e-bikes above a certain power level (not easy!) and then bringing parity to the treatment of cars vs e-bikes after that Au contraire, it is fairly easy. Around here, e-vehicles are classified according to weight, power amd max speed. These parameters define where and how you can use them, what features are required, what protective gear is required and what licenses or insurance are required to operate them. https://www.traficom.fi/en/transport/road/electric-personal-transportation-devices https://www.traficom.fi/en/transport/road/electric-personal-...

tim333 1y ago

I ebike (and walk and drive) in London. I think there is something to be said for cracking down on behaviour that is dangerous but not minor breaking of the rules. A lot depends on how fast you are going. I'll do pedestrian type things but at pedestrian type speeds. It's largely the delivery guys on ebikes who are a little scary.

ndsipa_pomu 1y ago

> requiring licenses for e-bikes above a certain power level That's already the case in the UK. Only e-bikes with assist limited to IIRC 15.5mph (you can pedal quicker than that, though) are legal to use on public roads without the usual license, registration, number plate and insurance. Basically, unrestricted e-bikes (e.g. throttle activated ones that provide power without needing to be pedalled) are the same as e-motorbikes and covered by the same laws, though there's certainly lots of them around. I would guess that the e-motorbikes cause less problems than the typical distracted car driver does and so the police aren't prioritising them.

Hilift 1y ago

The context, stated in the article, is "crackdown on unsafe cyclists". This is in part an intervention. In Washington DC last year, people finally were fed up with all the psycho moped riders zipping around. When the police investigated, the said the city only had 150 registered mopeds, which were most likely not the offending vehicles. So they took trucks around the city and checked every moped, seized 500 on sight, and arrested 129 people. These were unregistered (a crime/misdemeanor), and they were all operated by unauthorized immigrants. The response from a DC "community organizer"? "It's an education issue". By the way, they never bothered enforcing electric bikes/scooters, and they don't need a license or helmets. https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/investigations/dc-police-continue-crackdown-on-illegal-mopeds-operation-ride-right/65-cb21a170-195e-4d50-89f3-13d5f80b6acd https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/investigations/dc-police-...

benhurmarcel 1y ago

> I feel like the most sensible policy is requiring licenses for e-bikes above a certain power level (not easy!) It’s already the case in the EU and the UK. An e-bike is limited to 250 W and 15.5 mph (25 km/h). Above that it’s a speedbike and require a license, helmet, insurance, licence plate, and cannot use cycle lanes. Also, actual e-bikes aren’t that much heavier than normal city bikes, maybe 5 kg extra.