The New York Times published a pair of articles this weekend highlighting the rising number of deaths of cyclists riding electric bikes. However, in one of the most impressive feats of victim-blaming I’ve seen from the publication in some time, the NYT lays the onus on e-bikes instead of on the things killing their law abiding riders: cars.
When I’m driving, and a cyclist is “in my way”, I don’t blame the cyclist. I blame the shitty infrastructure. I’d love to ride a bike more often, but the roads and laws are just too hostile.
If you lived in NYC you’d understand the danger these things present. They’re silent, they zip left and right around traffic, go the wrong way down one way streets and run red lights. They need to ban the fuck outta them if they can’t reel them in, in terms of safety enforcement
@ME5SENGER_24@bumble these behaviours in themselves don't cause injuries...are you sure you're not thinking about some other thing that is dangerous? Perhaps something that causes so much carnage that one way streets and red lights had to be invented?
Not going to read the article so in response to the comment, electric bicycles put people in a strange place in terms of safety. You’ve got the speeds of a motorcycle without the ability to flow with traffic. In the presence of high density traffic I’d say an e-bike is more dangerous than a motorcycle.
I’ve been a motorcyclist most of my life and I can say you have to be super vigilant about situational awareness and ready to evade at all times. People driving in cars are not programmed to notice motorcycles. They’re always looking for cars and sometimes don’t register other hazards. It shouldn’t be that way, but nothing is going to change that as long as human beings are driving.
My recommendation to anyone who wants to use an e-bike for regular transportation is just go to a motorcycle, it’s going to be much safer in traffic. There’s some really nice electric motorcycles now. For e-bike users you have to be extra careful. Drivers don’t see bicyclists anyway and you’re going a lot faster most of the time. A head injury at 10 mph can be fatal.
Just getting a motorcycle doesn’t work in NYC. There’s no place to keep that many motorcycles.
Getting a motorcycle license, or taking a rider safety course might help, but changing the e-bike and traffic laws to make room for them (and reduce room for cars) is what’s going to save most lives.
For context I bicycle commuted in Boston for 18 years, motorcycled in the country for a bit, and restore classic cars for a semi-living now. I watched smartphones make it riskier and riskier to ride in traffic, then saw the pandemic magnify the issue, and largely avoid doing it at this point.
Yes, it’s cars, and yes, it’s infrastructure. However…
E-bikes have been causing a spike in cyclist crashes, even in places that is considered the safest place to cycle: The Netherlands.
The problem with e-bikes is that they are more like motorcycles and less like bikes, so you get a huge number of people under 25 and people over 55 crashing these things left and right.
80 yo or 14 yo on ebikes are menaces. One because they don’t have the reaction time and coordination to handle the speed. One because they don’t have a shred of situational awareness or respect for the rules of the road.
It’s honestly scary to share a bike path with both.
The problem isn’t 14 or 80 year olds. The problem is pretending motorbikes are bicycles because they have accessory pedals.
A bicycle as a class of vehicle moves at about 25km/h on average, doesn’t accelerate very fast and is a bit slower after hills or corners. An ebike is a bicycle that you pedal a bit less, not a vehicle that moves at at least 32km/h any time it is moving.
250W 25km/h limits are about the highest you want for the default vehicle type. And a real 250W max, not the corrupted testing process currently used for euro standards designed to test a lower bound.
Not a vehicle that moves at at least 32km/h any time it is moving.
Why 32km/h at least? E-Bikes are limited to 25km/h in europe. E-Bikes above 25km/h are only allowed on the streets and not on bike-paths, in villages and cities. In the netherlands, they are allowed on bike-paths outside of villages and cities, but those bike-paths are wide and allow those faster e-bikes.
Additionally, the aforementioned 14 and 80 year olds are usually not on those e-bikes faster than 25km/h. You need a registration and a drivers license which you only get at the minimum age of 16 for S-Pedelecs (E-Bikes faster than 25km/h are called S-Pedelecs here), 80 y/os dont buy S-Pedelecs but buy normal e-bikes which are limited to 25km/h.
E-bikes in the US (the subject) do 32 (or more on downhill stretches where the motor finally tops out and the rider is fresh). S-pedelecs are the ones with much higher fatalities for the elderly in the metherlands and do 45. Nornal pedelecs in europe also produce much more than 250W
I dont get what you want to achieve with a general 250W limit. There are 3 different motors which provide a completely different amount of power with 250W. You would need different limits per kind of motor
Edit: also the root-comment is about the netherlands, so thats why I assumed this discussion is about the netherlands. My bad
(or more on downhill stretches where the motor finally tops out and the rider is fresh)
Downhill is the situation in which ebikes are least likely to exceed the speed of regular bikes. Since the motor is designed to cut out at 20 mph anyway then it won’t help you go faster downhill, but it will continue to have increased rolling resistance. And if it’s no worse than a regular bike, it isn’t a problem.
Actually, I was thinking of personal experience riding with my wife, with me on an ebike and her on an acoustic bike. I was surprised at how I actually needed to put in a little effort to keep up with her downhill.
I was surprised at how I actually needed to put in a little effort to keep up with her downhill.
^ precisely my point though. A little effort exceeds the motor speed limiter. Effort that is much more readily available because you didn’t spend it going up the hill.
I’m not going to go all in and blame cars either. The problem is infrastructure. Change will come when enough people riding bikes vote. It’s like how smoking bans were a referendum on whether you smoke. Bike infrastructure is a referendum on whether you ride a bike.
The headline is a bit sensational but the main point of the article is it’s absurd to blame the bike/biker and that the main issue is the infrastructure. The last section is all about how safe infrastructure is better for everyone, drivers included.
I’d say it’s not just bikers who need to vote. We should all want better infrastructure that saves lives.
@cantstopthesignal@bumble does that work for people walking? If enough people walk in New York then they'll get walking infrastructure? Or does it only work for car drivers?
A city is considered to have banned cars if there are any areas anywhere that pedestrians can walk without having to be hyper-vigilant against them, or if cars have less than 90% of public space dedicated to them.
Well, they come to the neoliberal answer at any rate. NYT still asserts that privacy and encryption should be sacrificed so the nice law enforcement can take care of us.
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