4 ms·

I don't know the particulars, but if what's going on in WA is like what's going on in my California town, I don't think it's reasonable. I see teens going arou

I don't know the particulars, but if what's going on in WA is like what's going on in my California town, I don't think it's reasonable. I see teens going around on ebikes, and people freak out over them in ways that seem completely inappropriate to the kids scooting around. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing young people being young people, as far as I can tell. Same thing happens on NextDoor, a few kids hanging out and joking around makes people think there's a gang problem, I've seen it happen in my own neighborhood and it's ridiculous. It is true that violent death and maiming from SUVs and large trucks is a crisis, that society generally ignores. When I once called these hoods "gender affirming" a reply chastised me for being inflammatory and claiming that stating the plain obvious would get in the way of convincing others, but I think it's exactly the opposite: unless we start talking about the truth of these things nothing will happen.

seanmcdirmid 4mo ago
When the kids decide to take their E-bikes on I-5, you know something is wrong with their decision making skills: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1sjv7ua/teens_on_ebikes_on_i5_uw_to_international_district/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1sjv7ua/teens_on_e... Yes, people freak out when they see a kid on an e-bike on a crowded freeway.
- estearum 4mo ago
  Reasonable people freak out when they see that on a freeway There are also plenty of unreasonable people who freak out when they see that on a not-freeway
- epistasis 4mo ago
  Do they really need a new law to prevent bikes on freeways? I think that's already highly illegal.
  - mothballed 4mo ago
    It's legal in Oregon and Montana as long as you stay in the shoulder. You can walk there too. I can't remember the law in Washington. In western states with a lot of rural places only serviced by interstate they sometimes never passed blanket prohibition against non-motorized traffic on the interstate property.
    - wiredfool 4mo ago
      It is/was legal on rural interstates in Washington. I've cycled down I90 in roughly the North Bend area (in the late 90's).
    - ghaff 4mo ago
      Yes, sometimes the interstate is the only reasonable route through a pass in the western US.
    - seanmcdirmid 4mo ago
      You can bike at some places on I-90 in Washington state where better options aren't available. I don't think it applies to E-bikes though, or at least the ones that can go faster than 15 MPH.
    - toast0 4mo ago
      > I can't remember the law in Washington. I'd bet I-5 in Seattle is bicycles prohibited, but there's no blanket prohibition of bicycles on freeways. Like you said, there's a lot of parts of Washington where the freeway is the only reasonable road, so you can't prohibit bicycles or pedestrians. Bikes that have motors and don't fit the e-bike tiers are motorcycles ... and could potentially be legal to operate on a bicycle prohibited freeway, but they'd need to be registered and it looks like these don't have plates, and the operator would need a DOT motorcycle helmet which was not present, and I'd bet these are also missing out on the lights and stuff you need too.
  - seanmcdirmid 4mo ago
    You know, the law banning kids from driving vehicles that can go over a certain speed is also already on the books. The new law is just a clarification that no, you can't be an 11 year old going 40 MPH with an unlicensed E-bike. The big problem is just Seattle being incredibly underpoliced and really no laws under homicide are really enforced or punished.
- redsocksfan45 4mo ago
  [dead]
- brendoelfrendo 4mo ago
  Ok, but riding an ebike on the interstate is already illegal. If the problem you're trying to solve is kids taking ebikes onto the interstate, then you don't need any new laws
- brailsafe 4mo ago
  Surely this isn't as stupid as an SUV trying to take light rail though right? https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/how-did-an-suv-get-onto-and-off-the-mount-baker-light-rail-platform/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/how... Maybe Seattle is the problem ;)
  - PaulHoule 4mo ago
    I remember hearing about that kind of problem in Europe all the time 20 years ago.
    - expedition32 4mo ago
      I'll never forget that time my mom accidentally drove straight into a tram tunnel. One of the "we can laugh about it now" stories.
wat10000 4mo ago
People freak out about non-car transportation in general. Someone on my Nextdoor has been freaking out over temporary bus lanes, because nobody takes the bus but it's going to cause horrible traffic. They posted about rush hour gridlock on that street the other day caused by this grave injustice. The bus lanes haven't been put in yet.... There's constant vitriol about bike lanes, as if it's some huge sacrifice for drivers. And of course heaven forbid you roll a stop sign on a bike. Never mind that drivers do this constantly and are a far greater threat. A lot of people fear anything that's not what they're used to, and they'll come up with any reason they can find to justify that fear.
- fullstop 4mo ago
  There's a few traffic circles / roundabouts near me now. I love them -- they are safer and greatly reduce traffic if I'm headed out that way. The number of people who blame them for serious accidents is nuts, even if the accident is several miles away from the circle.
infecto 4mo ago
My anecdote only but the contraptions being sold as “e-bikes” are actually motorcycles. Like all things a few bad apples ruin it for everyone but in what I have seen it’s more than just a few bad apples. From maintained mountain bike trails, to riding at speed on walking paths. They are far more than just some kids being kids. It is ultimately a lack of parenting these days but I don’t believe the new laws coming into place are out of line. A vehicle that can hit 30mph within a few seconds is a lot different than a kid peddling at 20mph sustained.
- epistasis 4mo ago
  Your description is not accurate for my state, California, there are clear tiers of ebikes with regulations on when and where they can go, with very clear explanation at purchase, and no weird marketing like you're talking about. I've tried to go buy them, I have experienced the lectures! Perhaps we can let the few bad apples killing lots of people with their massive hood height lead to better regulation of such hood heights? We have literal deaths on one hand, and on the other, fears that are already heavily covered by regulation. I don't know Washington, but the laws around the speed regulators, etc., for e-bikes are extensive. People still demand "laws" because they overreact and get fearful. I just wish people would be more fearful of killing others with their cars. It's the biggest cause of death of children, yet there's no action. Yet here we are, discussing ebikes rather than the real causes of child deaths.
  - paddy_m 4mo ago
    I'm as anti-car and pro-bike as they come. Cars and trucks are a much bigger danger than e-bikes... But California's clear tiers of ebike regulations are meaningless without enforcement. Over the past half decade blue states have become unwilling to enforce almost any laws. when they do enforce the laws it is sporadically. This matters for ebikes, it matters more for cars. Running a stop sign is absolutely not enforced any more.
  - WarmWash 4mo ago
    In NJ there was a string of teen ebike deaths, all of which were cars hitting teens riding on the side of the road. The solution the state came up with was regulating the living hell out of ebikes.
cucumber3732842 4mo ago
>I see teens going around on ebikes, and people freak out over them in ways that seem completely inappropriate to the kids scooting around. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing young people being young people, as far as I can tell. It's kind of a hilarious yardstick for societal decline if you think about it. 70yr ago the boomers were drunk crashing sports cars so frequently that laws got passed. Now late teenagers can barely afford an e-bike and mostly aren't causing problem, but laws still get passed, by the literal same cohort who were drunk crashing muscle cars back in the day.
- vondur 4mo ago
  In my area kids are doing street takeovers and assaulting people in cars and pedestrians. Laws have been passed to deal with it but there is very little on the enforcement side. Plus kids are riding around in effectively what are electric motorcycles that can hit highway speeds which would normally require licensing and registration like any other motor vehicle. Recently I know of a 15 year old who crashed on one of these bikes and died. Having said that, 15 year old me would have absolutely loved having one of these kick ass ebikes.
lowbloodsugar 4mo ago
Stepped out of a coffee shop, got text from wife, grabbed my phone and got missed by inches by a kid on a scooter easily doing 25mph on the sidewalk. The text possibly saved my ability to walk in future by having me to pause just for a moment.
- macintux 4mo ago
  I was 3-4 feet from a building corner when someone raced around it on a scooter. Amazing to me the complete lack of both self-preservation and respect for others. On the other hand, kids have always been stupid. We've just given them new, more powerful ways to abuse that lack of awareness.
  - dualvariable 4mo ago
    Okay, now do the times when some reckless driver nearly got you killed...
    - macintux 4mo ago
      I don't disagree cars are more dangerous. But I can manage to be concerned about two things simultaneously.
      - dualvariable 4mo ago
        I'm way more concerned about getting run over or T-boned by a distracted driver in a huge pickup, and literally nothing is getting done about that.
      - throw4847285 4mo ago
        But this post is about SUVs and somehow the biggest thread is about the danger of ebikes and scooters. It sure does make you think...
    - ambicapter 4mo ago
      on the sidewalk? Never.
fullstop 4mo ago
There's kids who go around on ebikes in my neighborhood, and it's only a matter of time until one of them is hit. I don't mind kids on bikes, and encourage it. I do, however, encourage them to stop at stop signs and to actually look for traffic at intersections, and that's something that these kids are not doing. To be fair, most cars go too fast in residential areas. I drive like a grandma in them and there's a good chance that someone is up my ass and annoyed that I'm not exceeding the speed limit.
- hombre_fatal 4mo ago
  > there's a good chance that someone is up my ass and annoyed that I'm not exceeding the speed limit. Same with not going right on red when it's impossible to see if anybody is coming without pulling way past the crosswalk. Sometimes the car behind me honks to show their support.
- eigenman 4mo ago
  Cars do go too fast through neighborhoods: one ran into a house and killed someone inside. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1-person-killed-tesla-autopilot-crashes-texas-home-rcna350982 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1-person-killed-tesla-a...
- ghaff 4mo ago
  There's a restaurant in a city near fairly near where I live where I often eat at the sidewalk city in the summer. And the (protected) bike lane is this somewhat horrifying combination of bikes, e-bikes, escooters and things like motorcyles together with pedestrians crossing. And, because many people are on bikes, a lot just blow through red lights at the nearby intersection because it's a bike lane.
simplyluke 4mo ago
There's some of that, a lot of it though is e-dirtbikes that can pretty easily do 35+mph stock and 50+ with light modifications. A friend of mine has one and I've ridden it. It's a motorcycle with mountain bike brakes. I don't think they're bad vehicles, but I do think they should be treated as motorcycles as opposed to bicycles, and 13 year olds shouldn't be riding them on public roads.
TulliusCicero 4mo ago
To be clear, the "e-bikes" in question aren't what you usually think of as e-bikes. Not only do they look different, they're faster and typically don't even require pedaling (and may not have pedals at all). Hence why I said they were kinda like mopeds.
Aurornis 4mo ago
> I see teens going around on ebikes, and people freak out over them in ways that seem completely inappropriate to the kids scooting around. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing young people being young people, as far as I can tell. I thought it was all fun at first, but they've since invaded the bike paths and parks near my house. It seems like more common they become, the more emboldened the riders are to drive 40mph down the bike path and weave around people. It's so bad now that I have to be on high alert on the mixed-use path to grab my kids and pull them in when I hear the unmistakable sound of a Sur-Ron coming at us from behind at high speed. Usually a group of several kids. They've also taken to riding through the parks and fields we go to, treating the little hills as jumps. The grass is getting destroyed. Parks have to put up temporary fences and gates to keep the electric motorcycles from destroying the fields. It's not just kids, either. I've had several close calls this year while I'm riding my (pedal) bike and middle-aged people riding modified e-bikes (not pedaling, just zooming along at high speed) have zoomed around corners and almost hit me. They jump from the road to the sidewalk to the bike path as convenient and everyone else has to avoid them. It's bad. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not a problem. I spend a lot of time outside with my kids and the problem is getting worse by the year.
- ghaff 4mo ago
  I'm tempted to say nothing some baseball bats won't help. But the real problem is that you have bicycles increasingly morphing into things that look more like motorcycles and, if they can't be legally sold that way, someone will sell them or they can be modded.
not_a_bot_4sho 4mo ago
> I don't know the particulars, but if what's going on in WA is like what's going on in my California town, I don't think it's reasonable I was driving on a WA highway going ~47 mph (I made note of it for reasons soon to be clear!) when a group of 3 tweens on ebikes, none wearing helmets, passed me up in the bike lane going at least 10mph faster, and I watched them run through a red light up ahead. They got lucky. I don't have a problem with kids being kids but this is over the top dangerous. To be clear, it's a few small groups of kids. There have been crashes, and they sent a Bellevue woman to the hospital in a hit and run, but as far as I know there's been no fatalities yet. We don't need to drop the hammer on kids. We just need some common sense.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
bloqs 4mo ago
I had never heard of NextDoor until I read this post. UK based. I just spent 20 minutes reading Wikipedia and associated articles. They are really old too... Wow
pjc50 4mo ago
Like a lot of these things, it's all fun and games until someone gets injured. This happened the other week in Edinburgh: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/woman-knocked-over-two-e-37305175 https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/woman-knock... Previously, there had been a lot of complaints about intentional antisocial riding on pavements etc. Close passes as a form of harassment. If that's tolerated, it's a matter of time before someone gets hit. As an extra punchline, while the injured woman was surrounded by police and medics, two other idiots on Voi rental bikes ran through the cordon and got arrested.
srustagi 4mo ago
I mean are you in the hood or not? Easy for you to say this if you're from Happysville, CA, USA, but if you're near Oakland or SF you know these kids DO form "gang"-like groups and block traffic, the bridge, swerve through traffic. It's chill if the kids near you are respectful but the reason Gen Z as a whole ride these bikes is because they actively want to ride fast like motorcycles without license or registration.
forshaper 4mo ago
As a teenager in 00s suburban Texas, all you had to do is gather in a playground or stripmall parking lot for someone to call the cops.

seanmcdirmid 4mo ago

When the kids decide to take their E-bikes on I-5, you know something is wrong with their decision making skills: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1sjv7ua/teens_on_ebikes_on_i5_uw_to_international_district/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1sjv7ua/teens_on_e... Yes, people freak out when they see a kid on an e-bike on a crowded freeway.

estearum 4mo ago
Reasonable people freak out when they see that on a freeway There are also plenty of unreasonable people who freak out when they see that on a not-freeway
epistasis 4mo ago
Do they really need a new law to prevent bikes on freeways? I think that's already highly illegal.
- mothballed 4mo ago
  It's legal in Oregon and Montana as long as you stay in the shoulder. You can walk there too. I can't remember the law in Washington. In western states with a lot of rural places only serviced by interstate they sometimes never passed blanket prohibition against non-motorized traffic on the interstate property.
  - wiredfool 4mo ago
    It is/was legal on rural interstates in Washington. I've cycled down I90 in roughly the North Bend area (in the late 90's).
  - ghaff 4mo ago
    Yes, sometimes the interstate is the only reasonable route through a pass in the western US.
  - seanmcdirmid 4mo ago
    You can bike at some places on I-90 in Washington state where better options aren't available. I don't think it applies to E-bikes though, or at least the ones that can go faster than 15 MPH.
  - toast0 4mo ago
    > I can't remember the law in Washington. I'd bet I-5 in Seattle is bicycles prohibited, but there's no blanket prohibition of bicycles on freeways. Like you said, there's a lot of parts of Washington where the freeway is the only reasonable road, so you can't prohibit bicycles or pedestrians. Bikes that have motors and don't fit the e-bike tiers are motorcycles ... and could potentially be legal to operate on a bicycle prohibited freeway, but they'd need to be registered and it looks like these don't have plates, and the operator would need a DOT motorcycle helmet which was not present, and I'd bet these are also missing out on the lights and stuff you need too.
- seanmcdirmid 4mo ago
  You know, the law banning kids from driving vehicles that can go over a certain speed is also already on the books. The new law is just a clarification that no, you can't be an 11 year old going 40 MPH with an unlicensed E-bike. The big problem is just Seattle being incredibly underpoliced and really no laws under homicide are really enforced or punished.
redsocksfan45 4mo ago
[dead]
brendoelfrendo 4mo ago
Ok, but riding an ebike on the interstate is already illegal. If the problem you're trying to solve is kids taking ebikes onto the interstate, then you don't need any new laws
brailsafe 4mo ago
Surely this isn't as stupid as an SUV trying to take light rail though right? https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/how-did-an-suv-get-onto-and-off-the-mount-baker-light-rail-platform/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/how... Maybe Seattle is the problem ;)
- PaulHoule 4mo ago
  I remember hearing about that kind of problem in Europe all the time 20 years ago.
  - expedition32 4mo ago
    I'll never forget that time my mom accidentally drove straight into a tram tunnel. One of the "we can laugh about it now" stories.

wat10000 4mo ago

People freak out about non-car transportation in general. Someone on my Nextdoor has been freaking out over temporary bus lanes, because nobody takes the bus but it's going to cause horrible traffic. They posted about rush hour gridlock on that street the other day caused by this grave injustice. The bus lanes haven't been put in yet.... There's constant vitriol about bike lanes, as if it's some huge sacrifice for drivers. And of course heaven forbid you roll a stop sign on a bike. Never mind that drivers do this constantly and are a far greater threat. A lot of people fear anything that's not what they're used to, and they'll come up with any reason they can find to justify that fear.

fullstop 4mo ago
There's a few traffic circles / roundabouts near me now. I love them -- they are safer and greatly reduce traffic if I'm headed out that way. The number of people who blame them for serious accidents is nuts, even if the accident is several miles away from the circle.

infecto 4mo ago

My anecdote only but the contraptions being sold as “e-bikes” are actually motorcycles. Like all things a few bad apples ruin it for everyone but in what I have seen it’s more than just a few bad apples. From maintained mountain bike trails, to riding at speed on walking paths. They are far more than just some kids being kids. It is ultimately a lack of parenting these days but I don’t believe the new laws coming into place are out of line. A vehicle that can hit 30mph within a few seconds is a lot different than a kid peddling at 20mph sustained.

epistasis 4mo ago
Your description is not accurate for my state, California, there are clear tiers of ebikes with regulations on when and where they can go, with very clear explanation at purchase, and no weird marketing like you're talking about. I've tried to go buy them, I have experienced the lectures! Perhaps we can let the few bad apples killing lots of people with their massive hood height lead to better regulation of such hood heights? We have literal deaths on one hand, and on the other, fears that are already heavily covered by regulation. I don't know Washington, but the laws around the speed regulators, etc., for e-bikes are extensive. People still demand "laws" because they overreact and get fearful. I just wish people would be more fearful of killing others with their cars. It's the biggest cause of death of children, yet there's no action. Yet here we are, discussing ebikes rather than the real causes of child deaths.
- paddy_m 4mo ago
  I'm as anti-car and pro-bike as they come. Cars and trucks are a much bigger danger than e-bikes... But California's clear tiers of ebike regulations are meaningless without enforcement. Over the past half decade blue states have become unwilling to enforce almost any laws. when they do enforce the laws it is sporadically. This matters for ebikes, it matters more for cars. Running a stop sign is absolutely not enforced any more.
- WarmWash 4mo ago
  In NJ there was a string of teen ebike deaths, all of which were cars hitting teens riding on the side of the road. The solution the state came up with was regulating the living hell out of ebikes.

cucumber3732842 4mo ago

>I see teens going around on ebikes, and people freak out over them in ways that seem completely inappropriate to the kids scooting around. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing young people being young people, as far as I can tell. It's kind of a hilarious yardstick for societal decline if you think about it. 70yr ago the boomers were drunk crashing sports cars so frequently that laws got passed. Now late teenagers can barely afford an e-bike and mostly aren't causing problem, but laws still get passed, by the literal same cohort who were drunk crashing muscle cars back in the day.

vondur 4mo ago
In my area kids are doing street takeovers and assaulting people in cars and pedestrians. Laws have been passed to deal with it but there is very little on the enforcement side. Plus kids are riding around in effectively what are electric motorcycles that can hit highway speeds which would normally require licensing and registration like any other motor vehicle. Recently I know of a 15 year old who crashed on one of these bikes and died. Having said that, 15 year old me would have absolutely loved having one of these kick ass ebikes.

lowbloodsugar 4mo ago

Stepped out of a coffee shop, got text from wife, grabbed my phone and got missed by inches by a kid on a scooter easily doing 25mph on the sidewalk. The text possibly saved my ability to walk in future by having me to pause just for a moment.

macintux 4mo ago
I was 3-4 feet from a building corner when someone raced around it on a scooter. Amazing to me the complete lack of both self-preservation and respect for others. On the other hand, kids have always been stupid. We've just given them new, more powerful ways to abuse that lack of awareness.
- dualvariable 4mo ago
  Okay, now do the times when some reckless driver nearly got you killed...
  - macintux 4mo ago
    I don't disagree cars are more dangerous. But I can manage to be concerned about two things simultaneously.
    - dualvariable 4mo ago
      I'm way more concerned about getting run over or T-boned by a distracted driver in a huge pickup, and literally nothing is getting done about that.
    - throw4847285 4mo ago
      But this post is about SUVs and somehow the biggest thread is about the danger of ebikes and scooters. It sure does make you think...
  - ambicapter 4mo ago
    on the sidewalk? Never.

fullstop 4mo ago

There's kids who go around on ebikes in my neighborhood, and it's only a matter of time until one of them is hit. I don't mind kids on bikes, and encourage it. I do, however, encourage them to stop at stop signs and to actually look for traffic at intersections, and that's something that these kids are not doing. To be fair, most cars go too fast in residential areas. I drive like a grandma in them and there's a good chance that someone is up my ass and annoyed that I'm not exceeding the speed limit.

hombre_fatal 4mo ago
> there's a good chance that someone is up my ass and annoyed that I'm not exceeding the speed limit. Same with not going right on red when it's impossible to see if anybody is coming without pulling way past the crosswalk. Sometimes the car behind me honks to show their support.
eigenman 4mo ago
Cars do go too fast through neighborhoods: one ran into a house and killed someone inside. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1-person-killed-tesla-autopilot-crashes-texas-home-rcna350982 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1-person-killed-tesla-a...
ghaff 4mo ago
There's a restaurant in a city near fairly near where I live where I often eat at the sidewalk city in the summer. And the (protected) bike lane is this somewhat horrifying combination of bikes, e-bikes, escooters and things like motorcyles together with pedestrians crossing. And, because many people are on bikes, a lot just blow through red lights at the nearby intersection because it's a bike lane.

simplyluke 4mo ago

There's some of that, a lot of it though is e-dirtbikes that can pretty easily do 35+mph stock and 50+ with light modifications. A friend of mine has one and I've ridden it. It's a motorcycle with mountain bike brakes. I don't think they're bad vehicles, but I do think they should be treated as motorcycles as opposed to bicycles, and 13 year olds shouldn't be riding them on public roads.

TulliusCicero 4mo ago

To be clear, the "e-bikes" in question aren't what you usually think of as e-bikes. Not only do they look different, they're faster and typically don't even require pedaling (and may not have pedals at all). Hence why I said they were kinda like mopeds.

Aurornis 4mo ago

> I see teens going around on ebikes, and people freak out over them in ways that seem completely inappropriate to the kids scooting around. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing young people being young people, as far as I can tell. I thought it was all fun at first, but they've since invaded the bike paths and parks near my house. It seems like more common they become, the more emboldened the riders are to drive 40mph down the bike path and weave around people. It's so bad now that I have to be on high alert on the mixed-use path to grab my kids and pull them in when I hear the unmistakable sound of a Sur-Ron coming at us from behind at high speed. Usually a group of several kids. They've also taken to riding through the parks and fields we go to, treating the little hills as jumps. The grass is getting destroyed. Parks have to put up temporary fences and gates to keep the electric motorcycles from destroying the fields. It's not just kids, either. I've had several close calls this year while I'm riding my (pedal) bike and middle-aged people riding modified e-bikes (not pedaling, just zooming along at high speed) have zoomed around corners and almost hit me. They jump from the road to the sidewalk to the bike path as convenient and everyone else has to avoid them. It's bad. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not a problem. I spend a lot of time outside with my kids and the problem is getting worse by the year.

ghaff 4mo ago
I'm tempted to say nothing some baseball bats won't help. But the real problem is that you have bicycles increasingly morphing into things that look more like motorcycles and, if they can't be legally sold that way, someone will sell them or they can be modded.

not_a_bot_4sho 4mo ago

> I don't know the particulars, but if what's going on in WA is like what's going on in my California town, I don't think it's reasonable I was driving on a WA highway going ~47 mph (I made note of it for reasons soon to be clear!) when a group of 3 tweens on ebikes, none wearing helmets, passed me up in the bike lane going at least 10mph faster, and I watched them run through a red light up ahead. They got lucky. I don't have a problem with kids being kids but this is over the top dangerous. To be clear, it's a few small groups of kids. There have been crashes, and they sent a Bellevue woman to the hospital in a hit and run, but as far as I know there's been no fatalities yet. We don't need to drop the hammer on kids. We just need some common sense.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

bloqs 4mo ago

I had never heard of NextDoor until I read this post. UK based. I just spent 20 minutes reading Wikipedia and associated articles. They are really old too... Wow

pjc50 4mo ago

Like a lot of these things, it's all fun and games until someone gets injured. This happened the other week in Edinburgh: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/woman-knocked-over-two-e-37305175 https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/woman-knock... Previously, there had been a lot of complaints about intentional antisocial riding on pavements etc. Close passes as a form of harassment. If that's tolerated, it's a matter of time before someone gets hit. As an extra punchline, while the injured woman was surrounded by police and medics, two other idiots on Voi rental bikes ran through the cordon and got arrested.

srustagi 4mo ago

I mean are you in the hood or not? Easy for you to say this if you're from Happysville, CA, USA, but if you're near Oakland or SF you know these kids DO form "gang"-like groups and block traffic, the bridge, swerve through traffic. It's chill if the kids near you are respectful but the reason Gen Z as a whole ride these bikes is because they actively want to ride fast like motorcycles without license or registration.

forshaper 4mo ago

As a teenager in 00s suburban Texas, all you had to do is gather in a playground or stripmall parking lot for someone to call the cops.