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Old 08-26-22, 11:13 AM
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UniChris
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Originally Posted by Polaris OBark
Part of the problem is that the vehicles depicted in the Youtube video/newscast have more in common with motorcycles than they do bicycles:
Indeed, notice the rider on the left in the preview has both feet at the same level, indicating his feet are not on functional pedals. nevermind, turns out he's actually scootering with he left foot on the right pedal and right leg hanging free

But unlike true motorcycles, they don't require a license, and people (including the children featured in the clip) feel free to drive them through crosswalks, on sidewalks, etc.
Exactly

Originally Posted by Mtracer
There were no details on the accidents, but I suspect in many cases, the ebike riders where going too fast simply because the power allows them the ability to go too fast. Throw in the fact the bikes, at times, rightfully shouldn't be restricted to roads, and it seems like an accident ready to happen.
Yes, the combination of speed and inexperience can definitely be an issue.

My wife has a class I ebike and those require pedaling and only assist up to 20 MPH. It works out perfectly, you can't really go too fast, generally speaking, and you at least have to pedal to get the power assist.
20 mph is really far too fast for many traffic dense situations, on either roads or especially paths.


But that's kind of beside the point - there are plenty of specific situations where even 10 mph is unsafely fast for someone without a highly developed sense of where the dangers in interacting with traffic they need to watch and slow for actually are. And unfortunately, a lot of popular design formats for so-called "bike lanes" tend to create even more of these situations where the design of the bike infrastructure itself encourages or even requires inexperienced cyclists to naively engage in dangerous habits such as:
  • Passing stopped or slowing traffic at a speed no one expects when the big obvious vehicles blocking the view aren't moving
  • Entering intersections in an unexpected position for through traffic, eg from a lane, path or sidewalk on the wrong side of a turning lane.
  • Riding through intersections or past driveways while moving against traffic on sidewalk or worse a path or lane unwisely designed counterflow
  • Riding in the door zone, or even squeezing between a vehicle that's stopped to load/unload and the curb or parked cars
These are situations where even a child on a pedal bike can easily end up going too fast for the conditions. Given someone any sort of motor and it only becomes worse.

Unfortunately, we've decided against making any real effort to educate users on the sources of danger, what to watch for, and prudent choice of speeds, and gotten distracted instead into pretending that the only useful solution is to slowly construct routes that actually encourage many of these dangerously naive habits.

Really what we should be doing with the electric two wheeled vehicle technology is encouraging light duty, registered, insured electric motorcycles/mopeds as a direct replacement for conventional cars, using the same routes and infrastructure that cars do. Select bike bypass routes can make sense, and recreational bike routes can make sense. But there's no way we can retrofit into an already built an environment a complete alternate network that goes to so many of the places it needs to in a way that's safe to use even at average pedal bike speeds; the only thing we can plausibly offer that's safe at the sorts of 20+ mph speeds desired by someone who buys something with a motor to commute on, are the actual roads themselves.

Last edited by UniChris; 08-27-22 at 04:24 AM.
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