The only people I see on ebikes are those dang nabbit youths.
My biggest fear is they don’t know the rules of the road or have any practical experience in a car to have defensive driving/riding skills. They don’t know when they are in someone’s blind spot or what it is like to be a driver in a familiar area while agitated (such as local Walmart parking lot or that on ramp that always has idiots and confusing signs or the stoplight that always has congestion… etc)
They have no clue how dumb I can be or what I’ve witnessed. Stop at the stop signs at least and don’t drive so close to parked cars going 20mph
This is a very, very good point. Giving moderately high speed vehicles to youth, without bodily protection like at least a helmet, is very dangerous. It should at least be against the law not to have a helmet.
But yes, young people are very bad at assessing the situation at any given moment in traffic. This comes after a few years of spending time in traffic. Not even after you have your license. Way after that fact.
With all that said, building for people rather than cars is a good move any day, IMO.
Helmet laws are tricky. They discourage people (especially low income) from riding bikes at all, and disproportionately give that same group extra legal or financial trouble.
There was a study in Australia where they found helmet laws didn’t increase rider safety. What they found was visually appearing safer (I’ve experienced this personally with helmet and hivis vest) drivers would get closer to riders. Some kind of perceived safety margin effect.
The only good argument I saw against seat belt laws was this, that it gives cops more excuses to stop folks “driving while black” and blame it on something else.
The only people I see on ebikes are those dang nabbit youths.
My biggest fear is they don’t know the rules of the road or have any practical experience in a car to have defensive driving/riding skills. They don’t know when they are in someone’s blind spot or what it is like to be a driver in a familiar area while agitated (such as local Walmart parking lot or that on ramp that always has idiots and confusing signs or the stoplight that always has congestion… etc)
They have no clue how dumb I can be or what I’ve witnessed. Stop at the stop signs at least and don’t drive so close to parked cars going 20mph
This is a very, very good point. Giving moderately high speed vehicles to youth, without bodily protection like at least a helmet, is very dangerous. It should at least be against the law not to have a helmet.
But yes, young people are very bad at assessing the situation at any given moment in traffic. This comes after a few years of spending time in traffic. Not even after you have your license. Way after that fact.
With all that said, building for people rather than cars is a good move any day, IMO.
Helmet laws are tricky. They discourage people (especially low income) from riding bikes at all, and disproportionately give that same group extra legal or financial trouble.
There was a study in Australia where they found helmet laws didn’t increase rider safety. What they found was visually appearing safer (I’ve experienced this personally with helmet and hivis vest) drivers would get closer to riders. Some kind of perceived safety margin effect.
The only good argument I saw against seat belt laws was this, that it gives cops more excuses to stop folks “driving while black” and blame it on something else.
Thank you for coming to this grandpa‘s ted talk