Ebikes are a huge story here in LA. The amount of backlash against these bikes is insane, it’s being treated like the next opium addiction. The FUNNIEST thing is more pedestrians and kids are STILL killed by cars. However if you turned the news on it would seem that ebikes are killing kids and pedestrians in a record number.
Cheap personal transport that doesn’t need a licence and doesn’t burn gasoline? What sort of unamerican communism is this?
They might end up in the wrong neighborhood and see the effects of inequality first hand!
Another issue is unsupervised children than can actually explore their neighborhood! No! Kids don’t deserve freedom like that in the USA!!! IT’S TOO DANGEROUS STAY INDOORS AT ALL TIMES
Once they start using the DEI bike lanes, soon they’ll start thinking minorities deserve rights!
I’m not in favor of this, but they are right that middle school kids should not be operating vehicles which can easily go 20+mph.
I don’t know what a good solution would be. Have kids register their e-bikes with the school and give them passes to park in an access-controlled area, allowing only models that don’t go so fast? Just a first thought.
Regular non-motorized bikes can go 20+ MPH on flat ground. Also good to point out that there’s a difference between e-bikes and e-motos. An e-bike is just pedal-assist, won’t go without pedaling and is generally speed throttled pretty low. An e-moto is for all intents and purposes an electric moped / motorcycle (Some of them have do-nothing pedals to disguise this fact) and should probably be kept away from children in most contexts. But nothing is wrong with any of these vehicles so long the jurisdiction has sensible licensing rules and public outreach concerning the last category. The rest of the vehicular laws are already there. Ultimately the problem of e-motos is one of governments having to get off their ass and formally recognize them.
It is not at all just e-motorcycles. Many e-bikes and e-scooters go that fast with the push of a little lever. I know, I have one. It is disingenuous (or uninformed) to compare that to being able to pedal hard on a regular bike.
This is a problem that will need solving one way or another, and your solution does not address this particular part of the problem.
They banned them in my town recently. I’m conflicted. I like seeing kids outside and even more so using less gas, but they absolutely fly down the road and sidewalk. There’s a lot of nuance with e-bikes - max speeds, whether they are purely throttle assist, etc. The e-bikes around me really just seem like electric motorcycles.
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
I advocate treating them like motorcycles. Because they are. So, licensing, registration, training.
Though in my experience, that makes forum jockeys extremely angry. Like I’m in the pocket of Big DMV and getting a cut of their $10 fees or something.
Those that can go more than 25 kph should be classified as e-motorcycles. But those that are limited in speed are proper e-bikes and should remain accessible to children and have a low difficulty to buy and start using. In the Netherlands there is already a clear legal difference between the two and unlicensed e-motorbikes that can exceed 25kph are illegal, they need a license plate.
It’s so easy to hide a little switch to toggle “bike legal mode” on many models, in my experience that doesn’t really stop people, sadly.
It should be pretty easy to tell by the type of motor it has. An e-bike with a low-watt motor isn’t going to suddenly become a menace by flipping a fancy switch.
Likewise if a bike has a motor capable of pulling 35 mph or whatever, then it doesn’t matter if they can turn a governor on to keep it below 25 mph. It’s still got the more powerful motor and will be classified as such
Not really, a 250W (average, not peak!) motor can exceed 25km/h easily on flat ground, the only difference to a stronger motor would be the acceleration.
Disabling the electronic limit is the issue.
Well, not “easily”. I think we can agree that all else being equal pedestrian outcomes are better when motors are 250W than 600W, whether or not limited. I think it’s totally reasonable to restrict unlicensed riders to motors with power output within normal human capacity, like 100-200W.
afaik, those numbers just don’t tell you a whole lot about the actual power of the motor. A “250W motor” could produce peak power output of 1kW during short bursts, as long as the average power over a longer time is at or below 250W, they’re fully legal.
I just wanted to clarify somethings about e-bikes for people who may have not operated one. There is little to no difference between throttle vs pedal assist. Most pedal assist engage the motor with little to no effort, so you can “pretend” to ride a bike while using the full power of the motor.
Regulating the speed/power output is only way to control the speeds these bikes can go. That being said, 20 mph/32 kph seems like a good “max speed”. Regular bikers* achieve this speed.
People are generally still incredibly dumb, don’t operate any vehicles safely, and a lot of infrastructure doesn’t have space for human power vehicles, pedestrians, and motored vehicles.
I don’t understand why this school district is banning/restricting ebikes, it seems that is something that a larger governing body should be responsible for (also maybe parents). The only thing that this ban has done is create an e-bike parking problem in the surrounding neighborhood (which will probably result in more parking restrictions for those neighborhoods).
