View Single Post
Old 09-26-19, 08:46 PM
  #23  
sumgy
Senior Member
 
sumgy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 740
Mentioned: 4 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 359 Post(s)
Liked 85 Times in 58 Posts
Originally Posted by Loose Chain
Well, me too, but that said, they both have a motor, an electric motor. They just brought those rental things to my town. The laws do not allow them on sidewalks and I think they are not allowed on the MUPs but I think they are allowed to clog up the bicycle lanes. The problem with allowing a motor powered vehicle is drawing a line in terms of speed, power, weight, appropriate braking power for the weight and potential speed capability. It is pretty easy to take a scooter with one motor in it and put another motor in it that has twice the power. Why not this, my Honda Monkey 125cc:

If the scooter is allowed, why not a Monkey? When I got it there was about 9.5 horsepower on tap, now with a cam, air box mod, an ECU flash and I am pulling about 12 now. It will only go like 60 or 70 MPH, is that a problem on a MUP? If you think people will not soup those things up, well, they will and you will have a 40 MPH scooter zinging by, electric or not. The fellow with the thread about the hands-off cyclists, wait until he gets passed by a Zip scooter, hands-off at 40 MPH. Well, there is an easy line to draw, you either are 100% human powered or you are not. If it has a motor or an engine, it belongs on the road, not mixing it up with human powered traffic, bicycles, pedestrians and the like.
Where I live e-bikes and e-scooters (like the 1st one) have their motorised speeds limited to 25kmh.
Strong cyclists can obviously go at much higher speeds than that via pedal power, but probably shouldn't (although Strava often shows differently).
But yes, people are "souping them up".
sumgy is offline