E-Scooters and E-Bikes can and should be treated like their petrol powered equivalents.
Stay below a maximum power output. In Europe that max is 200w. They should be no more than assisted bicycles.
If you want to go a bit faster then you’re looking at a pedal assisted motorcycle. A MOPED (MOtor + PEDals). Those are limited to 45-50kmh.
If you want to go faster than even that, it’s a motorcycle. Just an electric one. Even with motorcycles you have a bunch of categories. In Europe the A1, A2 and fully open category.
We can open up new paths for A1 which are commonly used by deliver riders to encourage people to get away from car culture.
That would solve the whole issue of people people being idiots on them and the state can make a bit if income through licensing. I’d rather see that than an outright ban as we want smart regulation and innovation.
There are power limits on ebikes & PMDs, but the primary restriction that gets publicised about them is speed limits. By law they are required to be speed-limited to 25 km/h. On ebikes, this is their limit under pedal assist. When coasting downhill, or if the cyclist’s legs are strong enough, they can go over that, but zero motor assistance is allowed at that point. They must be entirely pedal assist, not throttle based (with the exception that you can have power without pedalling up to 6 km/h to help you get started). The power limit is 250 W, the same as the standard in Europe.
PMDs are limited to 25 km/h. Full stop. Under no circumstances can they exceed that. I can’t find any rules around maximum power for these. I don’t think there is one. There’s a 200 W limit on “wheeled recreational services”, but these are a separate category from personal mobility devices under the law, meant more as toys than serious modes of transport.
Well, and there are a lot of them on the road that are illegal because their power and speed exceed the legal limit.
IMHO that doesn’t need to be the case. Just as it is with moat drugs like Cannabis. I’m advocating for legalisation of faster E-Scooters amd E-Bikes with the right legislation.
Oh I see! Yeah I think that’s completely reasonable.
I would actually start out by increasing the speed for ebikes up to 30 or 32 km/h. This would not be without precedent, since Americans use 20 mph the same way we use 25 km/h now, but 20 mph is closer to 32 km/h.
But allowing scooters or ebikes at even higher speeds than that to be treated similarly to light motorbikes is a pretty good idea too. I think we’d need better infrastructure to support that though.
Was in New Zealand for a short holiday last year and I hired one of those e-scooters for about an hour. Very convenient and fun. Most of the users there were quite well behaved too. I think discouraging anti-social behavior in users here will go a long way in making ebikes and escooters accepted by the community and councils.
An audit of presentations to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital in 2021 showed about 1.5 patients arriving with e-scooter-related injuries every day. Twenty-five per cent involved alcohol, 71 per cent were male and 10 per cent were not wearing a helmet.
Personally, I would hate to see e-scooters banned on the back of the minority that use them irresponsibly. I think they’re fun, practical and a good way to get around the city.
But I do think we could make them safer for users and pedestrians. Brisbane could follow France and Germany’s lead and lower the overall speed limit to 20 km/h. First-time users should have to watch a demonstration video and complete safety modules before riding.
Maybe they should be banned in pedestrian-heavy areas of the CBD or fitted with technology to prevent illegal riding and ensure helmets are actually being worn.
Personally, I’d like to see a bigger emphasis on the ebike hires than escooters. They’re just as fun, potentially much faster (equal uphill, faster downhill, and potentially faster on the flat if you’ve got good legs), and most importantly: much, much safer for their riders.
Would they? Riding bikes is taught quite early on in most kids lives, and the bigger wheels and more room for suspension makes me inclined to believe that there’s less chance of being thrown off an ebike because of a shitty footpath or bad turn, at least for a basic commuter type bike. You’ve also got to be putting some effort in to get over 20km/h, ebike throttles are supposed to be limited to walking speed. I dont have firsthand experience with escooters, though, so theres a chance I may be missing something here.
You’ve also got to be putting some effort in to get over 20km/h
i ride regular bikes and an ebike and while getting to the 25km/h cutoff on the ebike is easy thanks to the assist, going much faster is very much harder as the bike itself is incredibly heavy (compared to a normal bike), so cruising along at 20-25km is both comfortable and easy, plus safe. as cool as it would be to be able to go faster with motor assist, idiots would ruin it
Regular rider here too. I forgot about the cadence sensor ebikes that you can basically ghost pedal to the engine cut-off. I’d still argue that it’s more effort than twisting a throttle, but that’s just me being pedantic. My ebike rides don’t even trip the auto workout function on my watch.
I’d love the 32 km/h limit from NZ, you definitely feel the weight when you hit 26 km/h on a heavy bike with fairly wide gear spacing. Still, all it’ll take is one accident taken out of context for the pitchforks to come out
Ebikes can’t have throttles, pedal assist only, in Qld.
The pedal assist can be in effect up to 25 km/h, the same as the escooter speed limit.
Over 20 km/h on a push bike is very easy. In fact I’d call 20 the hard minimum, and on a downhill especially it’s actually quite awkward to go slower than that. On the flat with no wind I’d be calling about 24 km/h a comfortable standard speed for a slow rider. More like 30 as a basic comfortable cruising speed for a strong rider.
What you say about wheels and escooter safety is basically correct though, to my knowledge.
You’re allowed to go up to 6km/h using the motor but without pedal assistance, according to the Qld Transport website, which I assume means you can use a throttle here…
I’m a regular cyclist, both electric and non-electric, so I know exactly what you mean about the ease of cruising at those speeds. I’ve got a torque sensor ebike where you have to use your legs a bit, and forgot about how little effort is required on a cadence sensor ebike like I think the rental ebikes here use. I’ve been wanting to do a ride with my non-cycling partner, her on the ebike. That may educational, since she seems to be more the target audience for rental escooters and might have a different perspective, whereas we seem to be more experienced on 2 wheels
The big difference is in stability. Scooters are insanely unstable compared to bikes, for complicated reasons I don’t fully understand, but I think have something to do with where the centre of gravity is, and how the geometry of the forks help force them into self-righting.
The danger scooters provide to their own riders is much higher than bikes. And because of this, I suspect riders are forced to spend a lot more attention on that, which means they have less attention to spare and are more likely to endanger others.
There are two main reason scooters are unstable compared to bicycles.
Wheel size. Bigger wheels means more stability over bumps.
Steering angle.
Scooters have a zero degree steering angle (the forks are vertical) which means the smallest turn of the bars leads to a big change in direction and makes them very unstable.
Bikes have forks that are angled away from the vertical. This is much more stable and means that a larger movement is needed to change direction.
Yeah that much, I understand. What I don’t really understand is how that physics actually plays out. Why exactly is a bike’s steering angle able to have that effect?
I guess it’s the difference between knowing and understanding. I know bikes are more stable because of the angle of the forks. But I don’t understand how that works.
To go beyond "The sharper the steering angle the more unstable a bike/scooter becomes" text descriptions you are diving into some pretty heavy theory.
Wikkipedia is a good place to start.
bike dynamics (great article with a lot of details.)
And specifically Trail.
Trail is the term used for steering angle and how it affects stability.
There is a thing called the centering force that is affected by trail. The centering force is the tendency of the wheel to push back to strait when the bars are turned.
Do what with them? There’s honestly not much I’d like to do to them in terms of actual regulation.
Though enforcement of existing regulations could certainly be better. And road design & urban planning could be a lot better to encourage the use of alternative means of transportation.
Add comment