You're tempted to risk killing someone because they're doing something dangerous? I'm not sure that's a reasonable response.
So an ebike is typically a regular bike PLUS an electric motor. Not sure how that can be quieter than just the regular bike. You can definitely hear whirl of the electric motor as well.
>> Plenty of dogs, and people, are hit by ebikes
Last year only 9 of the total reported bicycle-pedestrian acidents in NYC were with e-bikes.
If you have a situation where dogs regularly interfere with bicycles and the other way around then I suspect that the problem is more with the dog owners (you?) than with the cyclists. I've been a dog owner for many years and my dogs have never been in a situation where cyclists would endanger it, though, I have to admit, one of my hounds once did endanger a cyclist by giving chase (pink spandex, not 100% the dogs fault, but then again they supposedly don't see color). I consider that wholly my fault, the dog pulled the leash right out of my hand and then refused to stop giving chase and that should have never happened.
It all sounds to me like you need something to be worked up about and you've decided that e-bikes are a menace to dogs when in fact the spaces where dogs are allowed to run free are not typically exclusive to dogs but are also shared by dogs with foot and cycle traffic. The responsibility for keeping the dogs and the other traffic safe lies squarely with the owner of the dog. A well mannered dog will stay with its owner and will not interfere with others on foot, bike or otherwise.
Finally, dogs are a much bigger danger to other pedestrians, and children in particular than your typical e-bike will ever be to a dog.
Bikes can stop faster, maneuver easier, and cause significantly less damage than a car when striking something. You rarely ever hear of bikes seriously harming pedestrians for a reason (but of course yes it does happen on occasion).
I'm not supporting dangerously biking through a school zone but this is a silly comparison to make, of course the fines would be lower for a bike.
Furthermore, in NYC, half of serious pedestrian injuries are caused by bikes, meaning a cyclist is about 200 times more likely to seriously injure a pedestrian than a driver.
I am all for bikes, but let’s not be delusional about the safety issues or basic physics of how poorly they brake.
I would be interested to see that citation.
I would also note that very very few people have ever been killed by a bicycle, which cannot be said for cars.
8 over the past 15 years, vs 2300 killed by cars: https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot-pedestria...
This absolutely false, but nice try.
2017 city wide stats:
Bicycles: 315 accidents involving pedestrians with 1 fatality. Motor Vehicles: 10,561 and 106 pedestrian fatalities. Not to mention 4,397 bicycle injuries and 24 fatalities.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/bicycle-crash-data...
I am not against bikes, cities need better infrastructures, I only needed to drive once on a busy city and I said that I never do it again.
A longer distance car drive may happen on a highway fully separated from pedestrians, while cyclists are almost always on bike lanes right next to sidewalks or trails/paths basically shared with pedestrians.
Car infrastructure in most places probably has had 1000x as much money pumped into it as bike infrastructure. If bikes had even 10% of that, you could have luxury, hyper-safe bike paths anywhere and everywhere.
Motorcycles can also generally brake at 1G, again limited by the presence of an ABS system, so it's not a physics question, it's that either you have bad brakes or you do not know how to brake on a bike. Even only using the rear wheel should allow you significantly more than .3G
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_dynam...
I measured my mountain bike, and the seat is 41” high, and 35” behind the front contact patch. This is terrible for braking, though not entirely out of line with some of the fancy road bikes in the bike room. I should probably get a different bike, as I am quite sure I go over the handle bars at about .3g rather than the more normal .5g.
At any rate, I am not sure how one learns limit braking on a bike. Modern cars the computer does it for you if you just stomp the pedal and some cars even do it preemptively with collision avoidance.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html#frontuse
It's really quite simple. And you learn it with cursory research about braking on bicycles. Really this ought to be taught in schools.
Indeed, it is actually possible to brake ever so slightly more efficiently without ABS than with ABS using very slight wheel slip, and smoother braking allows for weight pre-loading going into a turn.
https://www.nathanarose.com/blog/2017/10/4/braking-capabilit...
According to this study, braking using both wheels on modern motorcycles (And, by extension, modern bicycles as both have in the past decade standardized braking systems that operate at the limit of grip) achieved .75G +- .15G. This is without ABS, and the limit using perfect braking at higher speeds yielded deceleration rates greater than 1G.
If the average, skilled rider is able to achieve .7G on modern bikes, this is not at all worse than cars where the average driver is assumed to brake at .4G. According to https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/vehicle_stopping_distance_and_ti... , a moderately skilled driver is assumed to be able to brake at about .5-.6G. This compares favorably.
As for braking technique, it is about extracting as much braking force as possible from the rear tire, then attempting to lower one's center of gravity by leaning down and backwards. An absolutely crucial difference is that in a car, braking is very detrimental to turning, causing over-steer. This is not so on a bicycle or motorcycle, which contributes furthermore to safety, as most accidents are avoided via steering, then steering and braking, and then only braking.
According to this, braking forces of up to 0.83G are possible on a normal bicycle, without suspension nor special positioning: http://www.industrializedcyclist.com/braking-pitchover.pdf
So the argument is that it isn't bad when a small percentage of cyclists hit 25 - 30 mph, but when all of them are able to that is where the issue is.
My personal feeling, however, is that especially the models that are pedal assist (where you put some effort into it, and it multiples your effort) is a good way to get otherwise low-fitness people to bike ride more. The more cyclists, the more push for bicycle friendly infrastructure. And people still get exercise on them, more so than in a car.
But regardless of powered vs unpowered, anyone that rides a bicycle fast by pedestrians and dogs is doing it wrong. On an ebike, it should be no effort to slow down to 5 - 8 mph, then speed back up after passing someone.
I can’t wait for pedal assist ebikes to become more affordable. It opens up biking as an option for a lot more journeys, not just for lower-fitness people, but in regions where it’s hilly.
For where I live in Los Angeles, the places I bike to are a couple of miles away (or close enough that walking makes more sense), but uphill all the way. Having pedal assist would mean that I don’t arrive sweaty with tired legs. I don’t need to go 25mph, just 10mph with less effort.
Second type is torque sensing. This is quite a bit more expensive (an additional couple hundred, plus higher installation skills if you are converting yourself).
Another note is that most assists don't sense hills, so you will have to manually adjust the assist level when going up hill. So at that point, using a throttle-only setup, with a throttle lock (hold throttle in a position for 2 seconds and it keeps it at that setting) works really well. In that case it gives you the sensation of having a good wind at your back helping you out.
The primary cost can be the battery -- anywhere from 200 to 1000, depending on capacity and quality. Second is the motor, 200 - 500. Some come with kits that give you simple throttle control, or you may want to add an advanced ebike computer kit (like I mentioned in the previous comment).
All told, I'm about 1200 in my ebike, plus the bike itself.
Electric bikes allow people who don’t have fast riding skills to ride faster than they can control, which makes them a danger to other users of the footpath.
E-bike users usually have a better handle on the control part than the users of other motorized vehicles, if not they won't make it past the first turn. Besides that, all e-bikes sold legally have a motor that progressively down-tunes as it approaches it's legal limit speed (usually at or near 15 mph / 24 km/h). That's easily achievable on a regular bike so people can't ride faster than they could normally. They can however do so for longer and it takes them less effort to start up or go against the wind or up a hill.
Even worse are the high powered e-bikes (rated for 50kph, helmet required), because their users ride them as if they're either a bike or a scooter depending on the situation, zipping between bike lanes and the road whenever. And they're silent.
https://www.sparta.nl/alles-over-sparta/geschiedenis/spartam...
You won't see me near one, going fast on a racing bike is already dangerous enough, anything faster and I'll take four wheels over two any day.
Yes, but all other motorized vehicles need a licensed operator and to be driven on a road, which I think should be the case for e bikes as well
> That's easily achievable on a regular bike
That really depends on your definition of a regular bike.
The Japanese commuter bikes everyone rides to work or school might get up to 10km/h with some effort.
Giving someone who has only ever rode at about a pedestrian’s jogging or running pace a machine that can hit twice that is a recipe for injuries or death.
TL;DR: E bike riders should be licensed and not share footpaths with pedestrians
Requiring high school age kids to get a license for a bicycle would make absolutely no sense because there is nothing that such a license would give them that they didn't already have. Traffic lessons start pretty early at school here and by the time kids are 10-12 depending on how good they are at this they go to school on their bikes by themselves.
What really helps is that bike traffic here gets prioritized in many places over vehicles, that hitting a cyclist with a car is going to get you into a lot of trouble and that most vehicle drivers are also cyclists. Those things more than anything else helps to keep cyclists safe.
It makes sense that's why my opinion is that e Bikes are too fast to be used on footpaths and yours is different.
> What really helps is that bike traffic here gets prioritized in many places over vehicles, that hitting a cyclist with a car is going to get you into a lot of trouble and that most vehicle drivers are also cyclists. Those things more than anything else helps to keep cyclists safe.
This is exactly the same in Japan. A car hitting a bike is automatically judged to be at fault even if the bike was breaking traffic laws, so drivers are very cautious. In principal the same applies to cyclists vs pedestrians.
That of course, doesn't stop people from being terrible drivers or cyclists!
I don't think there should be a draconian licensing scheme, just the same rules that apply to the slowest grade of motorcycles (speed limit 30 km/h)
- Must pass a theory test. The moped test written test is quite easy but anyone who can pass it will know basic road rules and that pedestrians always have the right of way, and that if you hit someone you are in big, big trouble.
- age 16+
- must wear a helmet
For exemple:
* < 10 km.h^-1 & < 15 kilograms vehicle for pedestrian paths (Which would for exemple allow small kids to ride there).
* < 25 km.h^-1 < 30 kilograms for the bike lane equivalent.
* > 25 km.h^1 or > 30 kilograms on the road.
That's car speed. It isn't highway speed, but when an ebike passes me at the dog beach doing 25mph I'm tempted to put a stick through the front spokes. In a car, 30mph in a school zone would get you a massive ticket ($$$+). Any vehicle capable of such things should be limited to the roads, plated and licensed like every other electric motorcycle. (Don't bother with the helmets. Darwin can work that one out.)