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[–] 31 points 1 day ago (10 children)

The problem isn't the speed, there aren't speed restrictors on motorcycles or cars.

The problem is there's no safe lane for them to be ridden. There's no infrastructure accommodation for them. They can't be ridden on the sidewalk, and they're unsafe in regular traffic. Bicycle lanes aren't ubiquitous enough or designed well enough for bicycles, let alone these mixing with bicycles.

As usual, rather than raising taxes on the filthy rich to fund better infrastructure for the good of the people, they limit what we can do because it's cheaper and we have less power to resist, or at least, aren't organized well enough to exercise the power we have.

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  • [–] 3 points 22 hours ago

    If an ebike can go fast enough riding in regular car lanes shouldn't be too much of an issue. It wouldnt be any more dangerous than driving a motorcycle.

    The main reason bikes don't do well in car lanes is because they can't keep up with the flow of traffic typically and cause cars to pile up behind them and then people get impatient and aggressive.

    An ebike that can go 50-60kph would basically just be a motorcycle in traffic that could then slip into a bike lane when traffic gets bad.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

    Weird you missed another key distinction: testing, licensing, and associated age restrictions.

    At these speeds they're electric motorcycles. They should be treated accordingly (and I say that as an avid cyclist who's incredibly supportive of e-bikes).

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  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Why not just classify them as mopeds? Mopeds have been around for ages, started out as motorized bicycles, are limited to around 28mph, and have standard age, and license requirements. You have to get a license, and plates. I think there is an insurance requirement also.

    I feel like applying all the same guidelines to e-bikes would go a long way to resolve the chaos they have been causing.

    Obviously there would need to be some new parameters around what exactly qualifies and all that.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago

    Electric mopeds exist, depending on where you are on they're great. But we want there also to be slower ebikes that don't need all that licensing and which can be used in bike lanes.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    In some ways speed is an issue, for instance if you could go the same speed as the rest of the traffic you could avoid situations where you're biking on a tiny strip on the edge of the road and cars pass you very close, by staying in the middle of the road instead. Of course just adding adequate bike lanes would be the better solution since then you wouldn't have any safety downsides for going slower.

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  • [–] 3 points 22 hours ago (1 child)

    I don't think adding bike lanes would solve the speed issue. I think bike lanes should not have any bikes or devices in there that can go over 30-40kph because then you will have a mix of regular bikes and super fast ebikes which will eventually cause an accident with someone crashing into a regular bike.

    If you want to go over 30-40kph stick to the regular traffic lanes.

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  • [–] 3 points 19 hours ago

    My point is, in the absence of good bike lanes, being speed limited can be dangerous, there's more motivation to want something that can keep up with the flow of traffic. If there was accommodation for slower bike traffic, ebikes with lower max speed would be more desirable/functional.

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