Originally Posted by
Daniel4
A lot of this discussion is specifically about ebike and their riders.
My question would be have these people ever ridden bicycles before? If so, were they as oblivious to road safety before or is it someting that gives them more power that makes them careless just as ir does to motorists.
Or did they hop from driving directly to ebikes skipping the experience of being a vulnerable road user and maintaining their bad driving habits to ebiking?
It is hard to say. People get frustrated to be pedaling along sweating up a storm and then have a person blow by on an E-Bike without pedaling a bit.
But there may be some real differences between the groups of cyclists.
Most bikes in the garages either just stay in the garages, or perhaps are taken out for a mile or two around neighborhoods or around parks.
Those that are doing 5+, or perhaps 10+ mile each way commutes on public roads are few and far between. And the riders get a lot of experience on the road.
Put E-Bikes in the mix, and the bikes are moving faster than the more experienced pedal cyclists. And, suddenly they feel they have the ability to go anywhere. I.E. further distances and around more cars.
Potentially opening up longer distances to younger cyclists.
Then, there are also higher speed bicycle/pedestrian interactions.
So, yes, it is possible that E-Bikes could be a problem. But, really it is also something that needs statistical analysis.
I bet one could get some kind of radio magnetic signal from E-Bikes, and get a pretty accurate count of them on different paths. Then look at actual crash data for different groups of cyclists.