As road deaths increase and cycle lanes overflow with e-bikes, the Netherlands is considering a cycling speed limit of 12mph (20km/h).
The government has started a two-week trial in Houten, near Utrecht, to gauge whether freedom-loving Dutch cyclists are willing to slow down – and whether they have any idea how fast they are going in the first place.
I can comfortably peddle faster than that on my non-ebike.
I was gonna say that seems quite low. 15 might be more reasonable maybe?
No it isn’t. The average speed of a pedal cyclist is 16 km/h.
My natural speed at which I comfortably cycle is around 25 km/h,
That is your maximum speed.
Max speed for the average (50th percentile) for the commuting population, sure, I believe that. Did you mean to actually question whether or not the other user can actually ride a bike above 25kmh maximum? I would imagine the 70th percentile of regular commuting cyclists could easily exceed that on flat ground if they needed to.
My average speed on commuting rides is around 30kmh, ~18mph. My maximum speed on rides I regularly do for commuting is ~55kmh. Downhill, of course. Not all of us live in flatland.
For whatever it’s worth, despite regularly riding at that speed I am 1000% in support of speed limits on dedicated mixed use lanes. 25kmh is a reasonable speed limit to put on bike lanes IMHO. I’m riding along a rural road when commuting because I have no other choice. If I was in a mixed use path I wouldn’t feel comfortable at all going that speed.
My average speed is somewhere around 12km/h sure, but that’s because half of the time I spend on traffic lights, limiting top speed to 20 would just make average closer to 10km/h
Also, I don’t think limit lower than 25km/h makes much sense, but that’s personal opinion that is not backed by statistics. And yeah, I drive a muscle powered bike, not an e-bike, maybe I would’ve thought differently in that case
I mean I’ve actually measured myself. My standard pace is about 14 mph. But I’m fairly athletic so that may be above the typical cyclist.
This is about the Netherlands. In NL they ride Omafietsen. You’re not going to push past 20 kmh on one of those without breaking a sweat.
The problem is that there used to be a flow. Everyone kinda rode at the same speed. Now there’s so many different vehicles, running at different speeds, it’s impossible to keep everything flowing without everyone being annoyed as fuck.
I think he meant 15 miles per hour which roughly translates to 25 km/h
Ahahaha you must be so out of shape. I commute maybe once every two weeks and hit 30kph average
I think it should a) be little higher and b) only be enforced for bikes with any kind of electric capability. Analog bikes have perfectly reasonable natural limits.
A colleague of mine sometimes does 60 on downhill parts of a road on a road bike without electricity. They are still alive and well, but sometimes natural limits are not enough 😅
I’ll copy my comment on this article from a different thread
As a Dutchman, I’m not a fan of this proposed speed limit.
My natural speed at which I comfortably cycle is around 25 km/h, which is perfectly safe if you pay attention and slow down when it is necessary in order not to hinder your fellow road users. The issue is people who cycle recklessly without keeping other cyclists in mind, in my opinion.
Enforcement is the key. And we already have reckless road usage laws.
I much prefer the Belgian method, where they set a recommended speed limit with signs of 25 km/h on the bikepath. You can cycle faster, but that’s at your own risk.
All this because the government can’t be assed to properly categorize, license, and enforce emotos, yea? Good grief, we manage to do that for every other class of vehicle… Guess the Dutch suddenly forgot they could just do that.
Wow, 20kmph is like easily achievable on a flat land. I usually did around 17-25kmph depend on where the wind blow, and i considered myself a slow cyclist.
I’ve heen casually riding at 16mph on single gear bikes since I was a teen.
Have the people deciding the speed limit ever riden a bike?
It’s the Netherlands, so there’s a good chance they have.
Wow, 20, good thing it’s so flat. Better hope you never get a tail wind. Fit children pass you on foot.
Feel like a speed limit for the motor rather than the human would make sense. I would not mind a legal obligation for the motor to disengage (not brake) at certain speeds to classify as an e-bike.
Modding the e-bike should be fine (I’m afraid of anti-right of repair shenanigans) but if you remove the limit yourself suddenly you have a new category of vehicle.
That is already how it is set up in Europe.
Regular e-bikes have to have their electric assist limited to 25 km/h, but you can still pedal faster than that on your own power.
If an e-bike is not limited to 25 km/h, then it falls in the category of speed pedelec, which requires a licence plate and insurance.However, it is trivially easy to illegally remove the limit on some models of e-bike, and many people (mostly teenagers) do remove that limit. They then recklessly cycle at excessive speeds down the bike path, without regard of other cyclists who may be cycling there.
The issue in the Netherlands (idk about other place in Europe?) is lack of enforcement of the existing rules against tuning e-bikes.
Edit: Also worth noting that this is by no means a new problem.
We used to have the exact same problem with people tuning their mopeds, back when blue-plated mopeds (which are also supposed to be limited to 25 km/h) did not yet have a helmet requirement. After helmets were made obligatory a few years ago, most of these people moved to e-bikes instead.
and many people (mostly teenagers) do remove that limit.
And again I see this claim and have to ask: Do they? My counter claim is that the average person, even if we limit it to average teenage e-bike cyclist, is surprisingly afraid to mess with electronics.
While a lot of bikes are seized by the police for driving faster than allowed, they rarely give any indication if the bikes were modified in any way - partially because there is no legal definition for tuning. In my opinion, it is far more likely that the bikes were already illegally fast when the people bough them.
The most I have seen is a police estimation that 5-10% of e-bikes on the roads are illegally tuned.
Even the low end of that estimate is staggeringly high. 1 in 20 is an absolute distaster and total failure of oversight. 1 in 2000 is closer to acceptable.
The average person […] is surprisingly afraid to mess with electronics
These e-bikes often don’t require you to mess with electronics to “tune” them. It is usually as simple as flicking a switch in an app. Manufacturers know what they are doing and make the process as convenient as possible.
The most I have seen is a police estimation that 5-10% of e-bikes on the roads are illegally tuned.
That is 1 in 20 e-bikes on the road. Given the total amount of e-bikes on the road, those are insane numbers.
My comment didn’t say “most people”, it says “many people”.I saw a couple just the other day. It’s not necessarily that they modify the bikes, it’s more often the case that they order a Chinese bike or a scooter from some dropshipper. Un-capped bikes aren’t hard to procure.
That is exactly my point.
I’d be up for a 30 km/h speed limit, maybe even 25 km/h. 20 km/h seems very low though.
For regular bicycles speed limits don’t make much sense in general. For streets that you don’t want people to go fast you have to change the street.
Ebikes are capped at 25, going faster only happens downhill.
The article doesn’t mention the limit applies only to e-bikes, I would assume it’s for everyone
Edit: or, if you meant that as an example of a sensible limit, yes that’s a sensible limit already
ebikes aren’t “capped” at 25, you can pedal them faster.
I do 60km to work on an ebike.
I do about 25kph average for a 100km ride I do on a stationary bike occasionally. It’s a sweaty 4 hours but if it was 20 min commute, I don’t think it would be difficult. I’m by no means a strong cyclist.
E-bikes and scooters are a menace though, without regulation. At the risk of sounding like John Forester - if they are moving at the speed of traffic perhaps they should move with traffic?
They made it harder forthe kids to have scooters so they moved to fatbikes.
Issue of their own creation.
Pfft, 12 mph? Here in the Great State of Queensland, Australia we don’t need trials of dangerous speeds like *checks conversion* 20 km/h. We just introduced World Leading™ road safety™ legislation restricting ebikes to 12 km/h on footpaths always, and on shared paths when overtaking pedestrians. No need for pinko rubbish like trials and “listening to public feedback”. Just straight to implementing.
We wanted to put and end to dangerous behaviour like ever overtaking runners, and we certainly weren’t going to let pesky technical details like there not being a legal distinction between footpaths and shared paths stop us.
Step up your game, Netherlands.
That’s just to advertise normal bikes that are not speed limited 🤣
I’m Dutch and I’m a proponent of bike lane speed limits, because I think it’s a step towards fixing this idiotic categorization of scooters, fatbikes/bikes, snorfiets, moped. They are all misclassified and mopeds in particular should be considered closer to bicycles than motercycles. With speed limits, they can choose to go slow with the bikes, or fast with the cars.
All of these types should primarily be categorized by speed. We need a slow class for kids/elderly and a fast class for adults. That’s it! Helmet, license, insurance for the fast class. In particular, close the loophole that if you have to pedal, it’s a bike, so children can ride it without insurance or a helmet, it’s insane. Needs more enforcement too
I’m on a colorful moped which draws attention (I’ll never make that mistake again) and police stop me because I drive slowly on the cycle path for safety, instead of risking my life between tailgating cars that cannot overtake me on a single lane, but desperately try. But then three kids fly me by at 60kmh on one fatbike, no helmets, no care for anyone
I’m also Dutch and I’m not against the idea of an advisory speed on the bike lanes (like they do in Belgium), but I think a hard speed limit at 20 km/h is too low and restrictive.
A lot of cyclists (including myself) naturally cycle at a speed faster than that, and are most comfortable cycling at that speed. This limit would also apply to them, not just the mopeds and e-bikes. That reduces cycling comfort, which I don’t think you should be doing if you want to encourage people to take the bike.
By all means tackle the problem of speeding mopeds and e-bikes. But don’t penalise the regular cyclist who cycles fast, but pays attention to their fellow cyclist and slows down when the situation calls for it.
20 is a bit too low, I agree. You could also let enforcement discretion cover the gap. Unless and until we have cyclist speed cameras, there’s probably no problem in practice
I don’t like the idea that we should be implementing sub-optimal laws with the assumption that they won’t be properly enforced anyway. Then it will be the same as all those other laws we already don’t sufficiently enforce, such as reckless road usage.
If we are going to implement a hard speed limit we should enforce that speed limit, and not just leave it at the discretion of the police officer to determine whether they feel like it is something that should be enforced or not.
Edit: That is why I argue in favour of an advisory speed, rather than a hard speed limit.
Average biking speed is between 15 and 20. Fast cyclists are the exception. There will always be people complaining the speed limit is too low, or that they were only slightly over. I think 25 should be fine
I hope it’s an electric moped, because having to breathe fumes from a 2 wheeler while biking is a fucking pain
It is. Battery sucks, though.
“Sir do you know why I pulled you over? Any idea how fast you were pedaling back there? How many white monsters have you had to drink today? Step outta the recumbent please sir. Imma have you walk in a straight line, if the line is too straight, you’re going to gaol.”
I hit 60kmh the other day, but I was going downhill. In retrospect, I was super unsafe about the whole thing.
Setting a universal speed limit seems like a fools errand: In good conditions it will be frustratingly slow. In demanding circumstances too many will keep going at that limit anyways, perhaps more than if they had to actually gauge responsible speeds throughout the ride.
15 seems more reasonable.
