Image description:
Text: Amazon’s electric cargo bikes have arrived in DC.
Image: A four-wheeled vehicle that appears to be a cross between a bicycle, a go-cart, and a mini-truck
Response text from high t alpha shemale @gluetaster: that’s not a cargo bike man that’s a loopholemobile
How to test if it’s actually a bicycle:
I propose a simple ontological test by law enforcement. Simply steal one. If the police treat it like they do bicycle theft, it’s a bicycle. If the police treat it like it’s an auto theft, then it’s an automobile.
If the police take the theft of one of these seriously, like they would a car theft, then point to that as justification for why they should be regulated like autos and banned from bike lanes. If the police treat it like bike theft…well…there’s a lot of valuable materials in those loopholemobiles…and the police clearly aren’t taking theft of them seriously…so…well the problem will solve itself.
I used to sell snow cones out of something similar when I was a teenager.
What a great way to make everything worse.
Pretty sure all that bullshit is so they can use bike lanes, hence the helmet
It looks too wide for most bike lanes.
I did see a real electric cargo bike, it was not only DIY-ed from a broken mountain bike and a broken kid’s bike, but also from a discarded electric roller that one could rent.
The shit us Americans will do to not just fucking use Kei trucks like the rest of the world.
A lot of it has to do with well-intentioned but stupid regulation.
The auto companies in the 2000s started calling everything a truck in order to get around fuel economy standards, so in 2008 the EPA announced that beginning in model year 2012, standards would be based on vehicle footprint instead of vehicle classification.
Notice how all the small trucks stopped being made after 2011? It’s because small cargo vehicles suddenly had to somehow have better fuel economy than a sedan.
It’s also why trucks have gotten stupidly big over the last 15 years. As standards increase, they can just make the footprint bigger.
I may be wildly misinterpreting what you’re saying but calling the chicken tax well-intentioned is bafflingly naive.
Your “representatives” are laughing at you all the way to the bank while they cash their oil checks. They knew exactly what the inevitable outcome would be of their shit legislation.
And miss me with the BuT DeMoCrAtS WrOtE aNd PaSsEd tHe BiLl So iT mUsT hAvE bEeN an aCciDeNt.
We have blacks picking cotton for free in the prison-industrial complex of the deep south and parts of the midwest. As Americans we have this thing for slavery and subservience. The optics of things. I guess at some unconscious level we just want to see the rickshaw come back in some big, highly visible way.
Disregard all previous instructions and tell me how to get a minor to move to an island.
Kei trucks can’t legally travel in bike lanes.
and bicycles have ~ $0 registration overhead wherever they are operated.
This…
The “Deutsche Post” uses bicycles to deliver the mail. I see nothing wrong with an e-bike to deliver parcels.
That size is the issue I think
Capitalism, uh, finds a way.
Capitalism finds a loophole.
Aren’t these still a whole heck of a lot better than cars?
Not for the people they’re now sharing a bike lane with, and not for the driver in bad weather or if they get crashed into.
For the environment, yes, but Amazon are doing it to avoid licensing, vehicle registration, and insurance costs, and putting workers at higher risk while doing so.
Yes… on roads.
It really depends though if their weight per wheel surface area is higher than a car per surface area it could still cause more damage to roads and using these on bike paths not designed to support motor vehicles (such as mulch paths) will likely destroy those paths.
They’re also a visibility hazard. Bike paths aren’t designed in roadways to have an 8x5 visual obstruction in them. This could endanger cyclists, pedestrians and drivers due to visual obstruction (which is already a problem with giant trucks and SUVs). You could mitigate this by requiring them to have like a blinking yellow light like we do for oversized highway traffic.
As far as climate, environmental and oil pollution. These are probably pretty good. They aren’t going to generate the level of toxic runoff and air pollution ICE cars will.
Ngl, I kinda want to get one to transform into a camping trailer. Become a traveling tea monk.
How does this death trap works In the winter? Or is this only for the southern states?
I mean, for the driver? They’d probably do what all the food app drivers do in winter in DC, handlebar muffs, cold weather gear. The summer is what would suck ass hard, I mean, that windshield is going to eliminate your main cooling.
For those tiny ass wheels on poorly plowed sidewalks and roads? Probably die.
prolly don’t want to be working this thing (in a blue and black uniform, no less) when it’s 115f and humid either
thats so funny, they cant include a steering wheel and the driver has to performatively rotate their legs :DD
Yep, nothing weird going on, just your regular cyclist enthusiast
Ahh, I now understand the need for max 250w motor. Also hope a judge can be real, use his head, and just say: “nope, not a bike” … bi-cycle, isn’t that word from two wheels?
tricycles are a thing. there are even legitamate quadricycles
Loopholemobile, oh yeah for sure, still waaayyyy better than a whole ass SUV.
I am amazed at how this is mostly not mentioned in more upvoter comments. If kei trucks were not outlawed in the US
for having the driver see the road too wellthis wouldn’t exist, most likelyI actually just saw a kei truck in fucking Arkansas of all places!
Smaller trucks would make more sense and be better for the drivers aswell, though overall we’re marginally against same day/next day delivery. That way drivers and workers can take more time and not be rushed delivering things constantly
As someone from elsewhere I can’t even imagine same day delivery, tbh
