cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/34367979
More barriers to cycling means more cars which means more dead cyclists. Help us defeat this terrible anti-safety bill.
There are about 3-5 pedestrian deaths directly caused by bikes per year in the USA. Licensing and registering bikes over that is performative pearl clutching. Add more bike lanes if you’re really worried.
If you’re worried about cyclist safety then properly classify ebikes and lower their top speeds. If a rider wants to go faster than they can handle that’s on them. Might as well be licensing all these Olympic sports, don’t want people sledding or skiing too fast.
We just battled HB1703 for mandatory bike registration for all bikes in New Hampshire. They wanted $50/yr PER BIKE with a $100 fine for not having a registration. It had something like 30 in support, 14,000 in opposition.
That would be a fucking disaster for me. I’m not even sure how many bikes I actually own (especially when you include incomplete projects), and even the low estimate would cost more per year than registration for my (also too many) cars!
I bought a license for my pre-tech old school bike. It got stolen and nobody gave a shit. Save your money on licenses and get a lock.
I dunno man.
A small vehicle, that can rip along streets at similar speeds to mopeds and motor bikes?
I’m very in favour of wider adoption. But carte blanche for any kid or fuckhead to lobotomise themselves or others needs a second look.
At least you started your comment by making it clear that you don’t know.
There are already clearly defined laws and definitions for ebike classes, which are distinct from mopeds and motorcycles.
Its not carte blanche or wild west or any other silly idiom.
The problem isn’t ebikes. The problem is unlicensed electric motorcycles.
Ebikes are a good thing. They blow cars out of the water with how much much more environmentally friendly and cost effective they are. Requiring license plates and possibly insurance is a huge disincentive. Also pointed out by another user in this thread is that it enables the tracking of your location by all of these horrible flock cameras.
If kids are ripping along the streets on illegal electric motorcycles, what we need is law enforcement, not new laws targeted at those who already are following the existing law.
I agree with the spirit of your post. Entirely.
Yes, enforcement is certainly an issue.
However, here in Ontario any moped that has pedals is an e-bike, legally speaking. I’ve seen one with the most limp-twisted effort to qualify as a bike and be therefore street legal. But it still has all the qualities that cause me concern.
What we need is better classifications. A small standing e-scooter that can’t break 15kph shouldn’t be treated the same as a moped with pedals that can get 60kph.
For content, here in California we do have ebike classifications that are a little more detailed than pedals means bicycle. There are three classes, and the fastest (class 3) are not legal for middle school ages. We even have a law on the books that makes it illegal to sell ebikes that can be software/app changes into a different class.
This really is a push to outlaw all ebikes, especially since the resp is from Orinda. They hate bikes there, even regular push bikes.
Agreed
I think those are all good points except the last one. You do not want cops running down kids on bikes on a hunch that they or their bike aren’t compliant with something that can’t be accurately assessed from a distance. Good transportation requires a combination of education, infrastructure, and enforcement. In the case of kids using electric motorcycles I think a lot of the first thing with a healthy helping of the second thing are where the focus should be. Teach kids responsible use in school, maybe lower the learner permit age for electric motorcycles use, and get better facilities for non-motorized vehicles so kids don’t require a motor or engine to safely travel longer distances.
The unfortunate reality is that there is no world where towns and cities are going to spend money enforcing bike laws with dedicated law enforcement. They are just going to ban or heavily regulate ebikes, and this was the incredibly obvious outcome once the fat bike motorcycles became the dominant form factor.
They probably had a similar attitude when cars first hit the streets. Hell my local cops have bicycles already, how hard would it be to put that unit on an e-bike or even a legit moped to catch up to offenders.
You can get fucked up on a bicycle or skateboard too: Should they be forced to get plates?
Because the weight and speed are so comparable…?
Yes
Are you trolling or being serious?
I’d take being hit by a kid on a skateboard over one on an e-bike any day… but you do you
Bike registration is already required in a lot of places.
No. I don’t think so.
You can get fucked up walking. You can get fucked up standing still. You can get fucked up while asleep in your bed.
The difference is the risk of getting fucked up, being fucked up by someone else and the amount of fucking up a given tier of activity presents.
I think its fine to have a difference for emoto vs ebike vs moped, but lumping electric bicycles in general with them is bullshit.
Yeah. I have to agree. The amount of e-bikes that decide what rules to follow at the drop of a hat is way to high. Oh, light is red, but walk lane says go? Jumps in cross walk and nearly runs over everyone. Oh theres a turn signal at a traffic light? Jumps from sidewalk to turn lane.
The solution to the world’s problems is less people not more people, if idiots want to lobotomize themselves by being a idiot on a scooter then that’s all the better for society
And they people they harm in the process?
Lotta people here who apparently aren’t familiar with e-bikes, talking about how e-bikes perform. My RadRunner 2 has only ever hit 27 mph (43 kph?) going downhill on a steep incline, meanwhile I’m getting passed by dudes on $5000 fancy-ass racing bicycles. Not really sure why I’m the one who needs the license.
(Also: I wish e-bikes were the biggest problem on bike paths here in Kentucky. I have encountered Actual Legit Gasoline-Powered Fucking Motorcycles many, many, MANY times on the Louisville Loop.)
There are different types of e-bikes, people throw them all in the same category and then complain about it. They just mean one specific type (throttle, no pedalling required, goes faster than what normal people can achieve while pedalling), but they confuse those with all other types of e-bikes.
F=ma so therefore your ebike is still going to hit harder at the same speed as that ultra light racing bicycle because the e bike is heavier. There is also a skill factor here. It takes practice and skill to get a standard bicycle going that fast whereas anyone can get on an ebike and get it going that fast.
I’m not certain lisencing alone is going to solve the problems but there are some important distinctions between bicycles and ebikes.
An average ebike only weighs ~25 lbs more than an average bike. That’s basically difference between an average woman and a man or within a standard deviation of the average man’s body weight. Should we only be requiring licenses for fat people?
Just set the max speed on the ebike to a safe limit and call it a day. Your speed matters way more than the bike weight anyway (KE=0.5*mv2)
It takes practice and skill to get a standard bicycle going that fast
It does not. As someone who does regularly do that on rides, I can vet that any able bodied kid can get a road bicycle to hit 40 on a long downhill, first try. The real difference is that they do not go seeking that experience, usually they’re just trying to get somewhere they need to be.
Personally I’m good with “If it has a throttle-driven motor, it’s a motor vehicle” and just doing motor vehicle licenses as we always have. Maybe just lower the permit age if teens need access to motor vehicles, or ask ourselves why we built a society where teens need access to motor vehicles.
I disagree motherfucker should have plates. Got assholes here in my town riding these things doing 40 mph in neighborhood. All of them all guys who lose their license due to DUI. They still drink and drive and just as dangerous. Also got one whose bike is gas powered.
Over 40 already requires a license. So it sounds like you want enforcement for the people already breaking the law, not a new law punishing people that were following the rules.
I’m a municipal worker and we just had a huge meeting about this. It’s a tough nut to Crack, because enforcement of the existing laws are almost impossible, and we’re trying to find a solution.
The issue police are having with ebike violations is probable cause. Police can’t and shouldn’t be allowed to arbitrarily stop someone.
Depending on the classification of ebike (which can’t be established visually) there’s different rules on whether it has age requirements, whether it’s allowed to be used with a throttle instead of pedals, and what the max assisted speed is. They also can’t visually verify the bike is under 750 watts or what age the rider is.
And even if they’re going over 28mph (max assisted speed on any ebike), that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not an ebike. Maybe they’re going that fast because they pedaled really hard unassisted or just got off a steep hill.
We have hundreds of kids of all ages in our community essentially riding electric motorcycles all over town and a lot of them are getting hurt, and unless the police see them running a stop sign, they can’t do shit. And even then they have a policy not to because chasing a teenager in a bike with a police car isn’t going to be safer than ignoring it.
Right now, we’re trying to convince the school district (school districts are entirely separate governmetal bodies from cities in our state) to require registration for ebikes kept at the school so they can inspect those bikes to at least verify they’re legal and age-check the kids on the class 3 bikes.
enforcement of the existing laws are almost impossible
Have you considered speedlimits on streets where no vehicle should be doing 40mph? 40 mph around a blind corner on a narrow sidewalk is dangerous whether it’s ridden by a 16 year old who bought an electric motorcycle off Aliexpress or Lance Armstrong.
I’m trying to figure out what the problem actually is here. Is it that kids have access to a motor vehicle that can go fast enough to hurt them? Is that the primary issue under discussion? Might be good to treat them how some northern states treat snowmobiles and require a safety certificate that kids can get by doing a drivers ed-type class. Cops don’t have to putz around harassing kids for enforcement, just require it be presented to purchase, to get school parking, submitted after a crash, etc. But that should be a state solution, not a municipal one. Schools should be educating kids about safe use, and cities/towns should consider providing safer infrastructure for micromobility. I think the best you can and should be doing is making it as safe as possible, not prohibiting. Real adaptation will require some investment at the state level just like any other class of vehicle. But municipal representatives can encourage acceleration of that process.
The problem is road-raging drivers looking for a scapegoat.
Okay - require kids to have a safety certificate. How do you enforce that? E-bikes aren’t big, motorized vehicles that have to be registered like snowmobiles. They look like any other bike for the most part.
Cops can’t just pull over everyone who looks like they might be a kid because they might be on an e-bike and that e-bike might be a class-3 that might be self-powering while pedaled over 28mph or have a motor over 700 watts and the possible teenage might not have taken a safety certificate.
I don’t think that your cops should be focused on proactively enforcing this kind of stuff at all, as you seem to agree it’s a fools errand that sort of begs for problematic interactions. The energy should be going toward making safety culture and education ubiquitous. If you look at crash and injury stats for your jurisdiction by vehicle type it should be readily obvious where any or all of your proactive enforcement efforts should be directed. State laws about electric bike / electric motorcycles are messy because they’re pushing through a car culture, on car infrastructure, against car lobbies and so I can understand why the kneejerk response is to frustratingly try and integrate all of these fiddly classifications into enforcement directives, but I think that’s a misdirection. If it looks like a bike, focus on education. Don’t be having your squad cars pull over bicycles, motor or otherwise, that’s just absurd. Maybe in the future some of these classification will just be considered motorcycles, and that will be much cleaner. But the mess in the meantime is mostly artificial.
In Oklahoma no such law exist.
https://thecyclistchoice.com/resources/oklahoma-ebike-laws/
Took me like 5 sec to google, over 28mph or larger than 750w motor is not an ebike and would need to be licensed and registered in OK.
In most US states, including California where this is being considered, if it goes 40mph it’s not even classified as a e-bike and already requires registration/plates.
Which is somewhat funny to me, because I break 40 on a downhill with normal effort on my regular, motorless, leg-powered bicycle that was built in the 90s. I do understand there is some difference there in that I have to work for it and remain focused to stay at speed, I’m not just twisting a throttle and getting distracted. But in terms of defining vehicle classes through legalese it does seem like the wrong sort of taxonomy to me, sometimes feels like we’re either legislating ourselves into a corner or aiming to solve the wrong problem.
To clarify in the US an e-bike just needs to stop supplying extra power at 20mph or 28mph depending on the class, you can still pedal faster. However I agree, the regulatory framework is way too complicated for just a random person.
Berm Peak had a persuasive video about how fucked up the situation with ebike registration is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_M3gMfK5B4
I love Seth’s videos! At the end of the video Seth mentions that perhaps Class 2 and Class 3 e-bikes are a bit excessive when compared to European bicycle laws, and that we should maybe reconsider what an e-bike should be classified as to reduce confusion. According to the link you posted, this regulation wouldn’t touch Class 1 and only regulates Class 2 and Class 3. So, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this bill.
Should we come up with stealth ebikes and make regular bikes look a bit like ebikes, they can’t tell the difference.
Do you mean an ebike that is as slow as a pedal bike, and you have to move your feet round and round whilst it goes?
It feels like there might be a way to do this and save some expensive parts, and a whole letter of the alphabet.
UK requires bikes to be pedal assist anyway, pedal at 1w and the motor does the effort. Yes I am training for the tour de France sprints, that is why I am going so fast.
They do have bike motors you can install on a standard bike. It’s not going to be as powerful as a moped or anything, and you risk having it stolen off your bike, but they exist.
Some can be pretty powerful. Not sure what you could get stealthily though. Backpack with the battery pack and run a cable down your leg to the motor?
Now I wonder how much thrust efficiency you get from a high powered electric turbine fan…
Battery in a frame bag or under pannier bags on the rack.
I have a license to operate a scooter from where I live, and I really believe that past a certain point - like ⅓HP and 15MPH of European standards, know-how of the roads is a must Having said that the problem is registering an E-Bike can add too much cost to the bike itself. Motors and control systems can be imported from China for pennies now compared to the registry. And I can see first hand that bigger e-bikes are non-existent in the market as an aspiring commuter wouldn’t know how crap ⅓HP motors can get on hilly roads, so they buy those unintentionally.
