At least they'll be quieter than the mopeds, I couldn't open my window in Paris due to the noise of hundreds of those things.

Here's a tip: Inevitably you'll sit outside in a restaurant, 3m from the street -- if you're lucky. Many streets in the Paris city center are one way, and many are on an incline. Pick one where the street slopes down. Most scooters will coast down relatively quietly. Conversely, avoid slopes going up. The locals don't seem to notice it.

Don’t slopes go both directions depending on what side you’re coming from? (Update: One ways, clearly. I blame brain fog, it’s very early)

One-way, so pick a slope where the one-way is downhill.

Do mopeds usually respect those laws, or are they more like bicycles?

They have a license plate (at least in Italy) so they respect the law much more than bicycles.

"_Many streets in the Paris city center are one way_ "

Right? I cannot stand the sound of these loud buzzing things speeding past nonstop. Very grating and honestly stressful to listen to constantly :(

There are electric scooters (not push-bikes) in Prague, it's absolutely quiet. A better future awaits you!

I converted an old 1978 Puch Maxi moped that wasn't running to fully electric. Was a great way to learn how EVs work, and build a quiet around-town cruiser. https://photos.app.goo.gl/jgL4VmpmSWA5csba8

I love my electric moped, it is indeed quiet and smooth .. first few days of riding, I almost killed about 7 pedestrians, because people just do not look if they don't hear first, it seems, and I had to adjust my riding stance to be sure I was visible ..

#1 best way to get around any European city. I cannot fathom circumstances where I would go back to petrol-based transportation, also. From here on out its electric, or walk.

I almost got run over by one of those quiet electric scooters. Using sound as a cue isn’t gonna be very useful and it’ll take a while to get used to these things

Seems to me that you are not looking both ways before crossing the street.

Sounds to me like you never make a mistake. And of course i did look, thats why I didnt get run over! But we learn cues from patterns and the silent fast moving scooter is a new pattern. If this happened to you you’d understand instead of being snarky. And you probably dimly think I am against silent electric vehicles which I am not.

The other day this almost happened to me on a sidewalk in NYC. Delivery people on silent scooters do drive on sidewalks.

Sounds like the drivers aren't.

Your safety, especially avoiding being hit, effectively rests on mostly your own shoulders. That's why drivers learn defensive driving which teaches them they can get railed even when they have the right of way.

"I only look up from my phone when I hear an engine, so they should be stopping for me!" and the fact that the driver shares some of the blame isn't much of a consolation once you're laying in a hospital bed.

I also think it's a terrible justification for noise pollution.

That said, I'd be totally down for a city center that was just silent scooters, and where accidents got your scooter license revoked for 6mos no questions asked. ;)

It's so easy to forget! If only a scooter nearly ran me down, I had Tesla drivers rightfully shouting at me more than one time

I'm an avid electric moped rider in Vienna, a moderately sized European city, and in my first few weeks of ridership, it was very clear that people just do not look if they don't first have an audio cue .. and indeed, I almost hit a number of people because they didn't hear me. Electric mopeds are smooth and near-silent - especially in the rush of a big city.

I've had days where all I can think of, is how to add sound to my moped in cool ways. #1 idea is to put a kind of buzzer/whistle on my helmet .. thought of the whole 'speed-based synthesiser app' that makes the "drrroooooot" sound (its a nonsense idea), but in the end, a plain old bell seems to be the most effective measure yet, in the effort to continue to enjoy the electric ride ..

I could imagine an industry standard 'speed synthesiser', though, but the jingle-bell is cute too, and cheaper ...

Not sure about other countries, but in Germany at least an AVAS (acoustic vehicle alerting system) must be installed in new electric cars and hybrids. My Zoe sounds like a spaceship while under 30 kph, the sound becoming quieter the faster you go, as from about 20 kph the sound of the tires would be louder than an engine anyway. Could be used for mopeds too.

I think that is a good idea. It doesn't even need to be as loud as an engine and shouldn't be permanently on. Not sure what the sound could be without becoming a nuisance but im sure someone will come up with a good solution for this.

License movement noises from the Flinstones or Jetsons.

Same here. However, I am thinking about the "loud pipes save lifes" nonsense. Loud pipes should simply be banned, and thats it. The argument always seems to be the same, for kids as well as for grown up bikers: "But they're just kids, they just wanna play!"

Disagree. Banning things is rarely effective, can't be enforced and tends to make people install loud exhaust systems. I've seen far more confederate flags in California recently probably because of all the cancel culture efforts to ban them as an example. Also loud pipes actually do save biker lives, and I think as EV's start to break out of their niche market the manufacturers should have to build in some sort of pedestrian/cyclist/other motor vehicle awareness audio. Electric racing vehicles have to sound like wooping ice cream vans to compete so they don't kill marshals on track...link to VW hill climb EV(the perfect use of electric power - short run, altitude change acceleration) https://youtu.be/kAJaGAMWjHM

"loud pipe save lives" has always struck me as such an egotistical, anti-social argument. Do you know what would save much more biker lives than loud pipes do? Limiting speed for 2-wheeled vehicles to 30mph, by construction. Somehow, I've seen exactly zero bikers that advocate that.

That's because it's a idiotic idea. A huge problem for bikers is getting out of the way of barely there car, suv and truck drivers looking at phones and drinking hot beverages. Accelerating away from these dangerous idiots is a major problem for cyclists too, who don't have the acceleration abilities of a m/c to get out of the way.. I used to always worry about red BMW drivers as being the most aggressive and worse drivers but these days a red prius is always a major red flag warning based on my experiences with them. Maybe attention wandering sensors and alerts should be put in silent hybrids and ev's to get the driver to be more considerate of those around them

Look at the numbers: 857 bicycle deaths[1] vs 4985 bikers[2]. You can look at the unit sales to see how those translate to percentages - but I hope it's easy to agree that there are more cyclists, in fact.

Your theory that motorcycle max speed saves lives is simply unsupported by any data; if you can't see it, it's just cognitive dissonance - you've made up your mind that you like loud speedy bikes and are just looking for justifications.

(don't get me wrong - I fully understand that a slow motorcycle is no fun. But it _is_ a dangerous vehicle - own that, don't use loud noises and other means that inconvenience people around in order to feel slightly safer, that's just inconsiderate. )

[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/road-safety/bicycle-safety

[2] https://www.nhtsa.gov/road-safety/motorcycle-safety

A slow motor cycle is called a moped

Exactly my point. If you're still doubtful about impact of max speed on fatality rate, check out the EU stats per 100k vehicles, bikes vs mopeds in different countries:

https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowle...

So I guess it's q.e.d that limiting max speed saves lives - but no biker will passionately advocate for this solution?

This is an impassioned argument that I hear frequently from those with loud engines. It’s not supported by data: http://www.maids-study.eu/pdf/MAIDS2.pdf. Because of the Doppler effect, the volume of your engine is not playing a significant role in detection by a driver in the vast majority of serious accidents due the fact that most of them are frontal.

On a personal level, the world you’re describing sounds like hell to me. There’s already way too much noise pollution. I ride motorcycles, I agree car drivers are inattentive to non-cars. Slowing down is the answer for noise and safety, save speed for track days.

Slowing down is the answer for noise and safety, save speed for track days < totally agree with that, and we also need more race tracks again. People who race and do track days often drive like old grannies because they understand the dangers (especially from head on traffic) far better than the average street driver. I think it inevitable that hybrids and EVs have some sort of noise projection at manufacture by law soon. Audio senses are 360 degree, vision isn't.

this is probably bad but I find driving extremely boring and I don’t hear or pay attention to any noise outside the car when I drive. I can remember only two drives in the last 10 years when I was not distracting myself with an audiobook or podcast. If an ambulance has their siren on I will notice it, thats it.

Your comment reminded me of the piss-take someone made of moped noise. Once the exhaust system has been modified it’s awful. https://youtu.be/0UotZ_ZLB5A

Your comment reminded me that whistle tips go woo [1]

[1] https://youtu.be/zUXow3d3-b0

That’s just for decoration.

anyone bothered by these early in the morning should already be up making breakfast

Not everyone works 9-5. Some people work odd hours so you can, for example, go to the hospital at 0200.

There’s another video kind of like this one that I saw once, but instead of an actually motorized bike they are riding on a conventional bicycle and playing a trumpet to make it sound like a motorcycle.

I can’t find the video now but I think it was filmed in Brazil and the guys on the bicycle we’re like teenagers or something.

Note that that's actually a trombone and not a trumpet, contrary to what the video title says.

First world problems :-) How about moving to a quieter city?

I personally hate "unnecessary" noise, like a neighbour drilling on Sunday morning, but I don't mind big cities buzz.

The third world still has to deal with the noise and pollution of cars.

This "tiny cube" weighs 500kg. For comparison, the first car I owned, a Fiat Punto, also had 500kg.

In hindsight, I'm happy that I wasn't allowed to drive it at age 14 without a license; I'm pretty sure that I would have killed somebody...

Yeah this thing is quite luxurious I’m not sure the authors realized this. Either that or this sponsored content. I know you’re not supposed to say that here, but it really felt like that. Seemed to be totally lacking any critical perspective. Couldn’t figure it out.

I also don’t get how these are supposed to be safe for 14 year olds and pedestrians.

It's really not luxurious. 6000 euros brand new.

That's a lot of euros...

...not to mention they focus on 14 year olds (like they're marketing to parents?). The idea that children should be driving around in vehicles that are the result of millions of man-hours of engineering and thousands of man-hours of labor (adults and likely other children in other countries in the supply chain)... well, that's intensely luxurious. End-of-days luxurious, in my opinion.

It is quite common to spend $5k-$10k on various summer enrichments for a 14 year old.

Just 4 years later, that child will likely go to university that costs on average $30K in the US.

Wow. I'm a very grown adult, and I've never been on a vacation that cost $5k.

I've owned several cars, but the most expensive, shiny, sexy one cost $2.4k.

The idea of being a child having $10k spent on me just for summer fun is mind-blowing.

That feels luxurious to me.

I am under the impression that most parents who send their children to university in the US have to scrimp and save to pay for it. Like it's a really big deal. Sometimes only one child of two can go, because there isn't enough to pay for both. So it's not likely there's a lot of cash readily available for summer fun for each child in the years leading up to it.

>I've owned several cars, but the most expensive, shiny, sexy one cost $2.4k.

It didn't cost $2.4K new, did it?

Now your car likely wasn't a luxury car, and likely cost way more than $6K new.

Round that up to 10k€ and you can get a real car like a Hyundai i10. Meanwhile the Ami is filled with compromises everywhere. Strange windows and doors. Only two seats. Limited max speed.

According to Wikipedia, the lightest Punto of any generation was 830 kg.

Healthy lifestyle and good nutrition can easily bring one to -200kg.

In fairness, it had to be said that in Italy (fiat Punto, I guess you're Italian?) in the time where no license was required to drive 50cc and no helmet was mandatory it was pretty much a anarchy on streets.

I had to get a license at 16 to drive a 125cc (both theoretical and actual driving test) and many of my peers had taken a smaller test (theoretical only) at 14 to drive their 50cc.

I am satisfied that such exams are now mandatory and helmets are mandatory too.

No. A Fiat Punto is a ton.

Well you're right, I misremembered. Also I just looked it up and I think it was actually a Panda and not a Punto (only owned it for a short time around 2009 and it was already close to worthless when I bought it). Still, I think it doesn't change the point much: at 500kg you're closer to a small car than to the lightweight moped for which these exceptions were made...

In the same way, a Panda is a ton. Generally speaking, the lightest you're every going to find in cars is 800kg. I drove a Clio 1 Phase 1, that was 820kg. And let's be honest, it wasn't much more than an engine, seats, and a body. Even a Twizy, which is absolutely nothing is in the 475kg range. Engines are heavy.

But yes, you are closer to a car. if it's truly 500kg.

Daewoo Tico is 680kg and I have seen few of these on the streets (not so common anymore).

Polski Fiat 126p ~600kg

The official maximum weight for a "light quadricycle" is 350 kg- but that doesn't include the batteries in the case of an electric vehicle.

If these are like most electric cars, the batteries are in a flat compartment at the bottom of the chassis in a box design, giving incredible torsional rigidity and a very low centre of mass, so great cornering. They could be pretty safe for the occupants, even fanging it down a narrow European street. However, not so safe for pedestrians. I'm guessing these won't come with ABS or mm wave collision detection emergency brakes; it's one of those items that is cheap to manufacture and install, but the IP and testing is expensive.

> This "tiny cube" weighs 500kg. For comparison, the first car I owned, a Fiat Punto, also had 500kg.

It's electric, the weight is likely due to the battery.

The tiny cube is still tiny - way easier to control (and avoid) on narrow streets.

Well you do need to pass a theoretical and practical exam to get the Age 14 moped license. And since automatic mopeds are around 200kg it's much less dangerous.

All mopeds and all the mopeds of my friends were changed to 75cc. Some also changed the escape, and it used to be extremely noisy, but made the little engine faster. A friend of mine had a horrible unstable moped (Califfone), but it was tweaked to the level that it became dangerous to drive. That was in Naples in the 90s.

How exactly does one increase the engine displacement on a moped?

I’ve heard this claim many times, but more often than not it was just a random mechanic who charged a few hundred euros to put a different speedometer with inflated readings.

I modded some of my own motorbikes to improve air intake, changing the exhaust, and other minor things but I consider those to be in the realm of “cosmetics” (audible cosmetics?) rather than real major performance changing.

I just don’t see how you could bore out an extra 50% of displacement on engines made so cheaply.

It depends on the model of the engine, in some cases the bore can be bored larger (and an increased size piston to match is used) in some the whole cylinder (and piston) is replaced with a similar one but with a larger bore.

But in many cases there was no actual need to increase the size of the engine bore, as more often than not the original engine has much more power and it is limited by external devices (once - think of the '70's/*80's it was common to have the same engine 50 cc with 5-7 HP reduced to 1.5 HP by using an undersized carburetor, a smaller exhaust and even - in some cases a simple washer with a smaller hole in the intake).

I remember how (again this is the '70's) most "legal" mopeds in Italy had a carburetor (a Dell'Orto 14/12, meaning 14 mm diameter engine side, 12 mm air filter side) that was often drilled to 14/14 or replaced by a 18/18 or a 19/19. That was enough, without any other change to go from 1.5 HP (the "legal limit" at the time) to 3-4 HP, then changing addtionally the exhaust it went to 5-6 HP, then lightly enlarging the intake opening and "transfers" in the cylinder (remember these were two stroke engines) and adding 2-3 "transfers" was what made them reach 7-9 HP.

The best (in the sense of funniest) performance kit[1] was one for the Ciao (and similar Piaggio light mopeds that originally mounted an even smaller 12/10) that added a second carburetor (not particularly uncospicuous), example: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCenA3H9siBLrpRUWCiLlWHw

[1] intended for circuit racing only ...

Yeah, grew up in France and I was the only one of my friend who had not modified my scooter. It would litteraly stop accelerating past 50 km/h.

I am not an expert, but in Denmark I believe they literally "drilled" the combustion chamber bigger and replaced the pistons (among other modifications).

Back in the early 90s when this was something my friends were into, several of them had Yamaha 4 gears capable to going over 100kph (60mph) while the legal limit was 30kph (~19mph).

Actual 2 stroke mechanic here with a old tomos. How? It's a literal lawnmower engine. You order up different pistons and head and bada bing put it together you have 75ccs. Kits are around 200usd. Check out treatland a large mopey seller on the west coast

I still recall my first mod on a small motocross 50cc 2 stroke motorcycle I had when I was like 15. The thing had 6 gears, but due to my weight paired by the heavily underpowered engine, I barely could use it up the 5th gear, therefore something had to be done. That was in the early 80s, and the engine was probably a mid 70s design with cast iron cylinder. Some then friends of mine who were into modding for fun told me they could do the work if I bought the mod, so I did and a few days later we were in their garage. The mod consisted in the complete head, cylinder and piston (still 50cc but racing grade chromed aluminium cylinder etc.), plus a new carburetor (from 14/9 to 22 iirc). After the mod was done it took a while to turn it on for the first time, but then after some tuning it became reliable and I could get back home. I spent a couple days driving it, then the engine seized. Having done anything wrong, I called those friends to ask explanations, but as predicted they weren't collaborative, so I bought a second mod (reforming the chromed aluminium cylinder would cost more back then) and this time mounted it by myself. Turns out the old one broke because one of the G-clips on the piston was not properly secured and fell out of its receptacle destroying the cylinder chamber. The new mod, although performed by a complete novice, lasted some good years until the day some bastard stole my motorcycle.

In the end, it cost me all the money I had saved, but was a fun and instructional experience nonetheless, also for teaching me that some friends when things go wrong often stop being such.

So called "big bore" kits are common for 50cc scooters. You replace part of the engine block and sometimes the cylinder head. 50cc is pretty small when you thing about it so you don't need a massive change to get a performance boost.

Here's one online with a photo https://www.amazon.com/Glixal-ATMT1-011-Scooter-Cylinder-Reb...

Most of the time all you need to replace is the cylinder and piston. For two-strokes, this is often a very simple task. It might be as easy as removing four bolts and a circlip.

I wonder if 14-year-olds would drive these micro cars differently than mopeds because they're more enclosed. Does the inherent sense of danger with a moped limit you in some ways?

As a former italian 14-years-old, I can say that I did not perceive any inherent sense of danger driving a moped. If anything, I would say that a minicar would have prevented me from constantly zig-zaging between cars in the city traffic.

OTOH, a couple of moped accidents have quickly taught me to pay a lot of attention to other vehicles and to somehow anticipate their behavior. It's a risky but effective school.

As a parent of a current 14yo, I notice that her and her friends show almost no interest in mopeds or any form of autonomous transportation, while for us it was a must have - either you parents gave you one, or you kept relentlessly for fighting for it. I don't know what to make of it.

> I notice that her and her friends show almost no interest in mopeds or any form of autonomous transportation

Is this a broader thing? Are kids just not as interested in getting out of the house as they used to be? Less interested in being independent? Or maybe I'm reading too much into it and they're just more interested in being on TikTok.

> Are kids just not as interested in getting out of the house as they used to be? Less interested in being independent?

That's a thought that often crosses my mind, but I try not to say it out loud because it makes me feel like an old fart.

The more likely explanation is that your teenagers have some public transportation available, so they can go somewhere if they want to.

Public transportation was non existent for the parent 30 years ago. If you look at cities all around the world, most tubes and overground lines were constructed in the past few decades.

The quality of public transportation in my city has not changed in a relevant way in the past 20 years. My teenager spends way more time at home than I used to (there's the old fart!). The internet is definitely a more relevant change.

They don’t need a moped to “get out of the house”, meet their friends, or “see somewhere new”. They now have the internet for that.

I live near a university, so I would have to say no. Scooters tend to be ridden full throttle, limited only by the governor (which is often defeated) and the weight of the rider.

If anything, the enclosed body might make it more boring, and thus more likely to be driven slowly.

Modifications were extremely common with 2-strokes engines. Now (since about 10 years ago) mopeds must have 4-strokes engines and even with modifications they aren’t very fast or sprinting. Maybe for this reason I have seen many more electric mopeds in the last few years.

In Italy, particularly in Bologna, I've seen a bunch of small three-wheeled cars, I think single-seaters, that look like miniature race cars, but seem to be electic urban mobility vehicles, easy to park etc. What are those, if you know what I'm talking about?

Edit: Ah, never mind. I just had a look around myself. I think what I've seen are Renault Twizzys, judging from the pictures I found online. There seem to be quite a few of them in Bologna, for some reason.

The Twizy is 4 wheels, though.

JFYI:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20506703

True. I might be misremembering the number of wheels.

Unfortunately Covid-19 kept me from going to Bologna this year, bloody thing, so it's been a year since I last saw the vehicle I'm talking about.

When I moved to Ireland I thought about one. Still kind of expensive for what it is when you add doors.

exactly I love the twizzy but how expensive it is with doors, and it didn't even have glass windows it was too much.

Basically the twizzy was 18k usd for an electric two setter. wheread I bought a Dodge Attitude 3 pistons, extremely fuel efficient 4 setter. for 9k usd.

I couldn't justify to my wife to buy half the car in twice the money... I tried

The two things going for it are the futuristic look and the fact it's an EV.

Piaggio Ape I guess [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape]. So a Vespa with storage space.

I know that kind of vehicle all too well (I'm Greek and we have them here also :). It's not that.

Isn't it location specific you are thinking about? EU norm is 30km/h for mopeds and bikelane only, and car drivers-license for 45km/h on the road. 45km/h on a moped would cause a fine if the police sees you. Unless it is in a country not following the EU norm of course.

Maybe the regulation you refer to is new? When I drove a moped 20 years ago, the regulation was the one that grandparent shared, 50cc+45km/h.

I haven’t lived in Europe since 2010, maybe things changed in the meantime.

I live in Bergamo and can confirm that at least in the 90’s it was common habit to have a modified scooter :)

It was so easy, you only had to modify the variator (the automatic transmisión of the scooter) because the limitation was just a low gear that didn’t let you go faster (think of driving always on first gear). You removed a stop on the variator that let you use the full range and the limit was gone.

Anyway, 2 stroke motors were also easily tunable, and people used to change the escape, carburetor, even sometimes the cilinder was changed to have more power on those little machines.

Norwegian here: When I grew up (I was born in 1980) there was a thriving market for performance parts for "moped"s small motorcycles (max 2,5hp, 50ccm).

You could get replacement cylinders and everything. According to what I heard if you upgraded everything you could get about 16hp out what used to be one of these underpowered machines.

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[1] I don't have official statistics but anecdotally I can say that as a teenager, almost everyone I knew had modified their moped or scooter.

Anecdotally neither me, nor anyone I knew, had their mopeds modded to exceed the limiter

50cc moped and scooter hacking and ricing is no longer fashionable.

I see a lot more of suits-on-a-tmax and deliveroo-like drivers these days. Oh, and quite a few of those loud-right-out-of-the-box cars and motorcycles.

I haven't lived in Italy for 10 years, so I'm a bit out of the loop! Here in Australia I see a lot of the delivery guys, but very few maxi-scooters (I think one reason for that is the way cities/roads are built, which makes it more convenient to choose public transport or car over scooters).

Please don't say 'Europe' when you mean 'Italy'.

I think this is good advice in most any thread on HN. I have lost count of the number of "In Europe it is this way" posts that have immediate replies saying "umm, not in all of Europe" from some other European.

There is a fair amount of difference even between various states in the US, and I imagine that the difference between European states is much more significant. Difficult to generalize.

But I didn't mean Italy.

"Seven countries require children to be 14 years (Estonia, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland and Portugal)"

and this is only EU members, other non-members such as Switzerland also have 14yo minimum age for mopeds.

In addition,

"Ten Member States allow children aged 15 years to acquire a driving license for a moped (Austria, Czechia, Germany, Spain, Finland, Croatia, Lithuania, Sweden, Slovenia and Slovakia)."

which is just one year older, so I would say it's a very similar situation.

Source: https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2017/mapping-minimum-ag...

Adding on to this, it shouldn't be very shocking even for Americans. Half the US states consider scooters to just be electric bikes, and have no restrictions beyond speed limits, and helmet laws.

It's a shame scooters are illegal in NYC, it seems like it would be a great place for it.

Edit: looks like NYC legalized in July 2020

I'll never understand what drove the decision to make the limit for these 45km/h. The speed limit on town frequently is 50km/h which puts these things maximum speed just an infuriatingly small amount below that. I think everyone would be safer if the maximum for the vehicles was 55km/h since it would reduce inventive for risky overtaking. Even doing the opposite and reducing it to 40km/h would be safer since it would make it easier to overtake therm

It might have to do with the fact that more speed causes exponentially more damage and lethality. I don’t know the exact figures but something like hitting a pedestrian at 40kmh they’d have 90% chance of survival and that goes down to 25% at 50kmh (I don’t know the exact numbers but that’s the idea)

Maybe 45kmh was the best trade off between lethality and speed?

16 years of age in NL.

16 in Portugal also. However the majority of users are old people without driving license. These mini-cars are funnily called "papa reformas" that translates as "retirement eater".

In the same vein, motorcyclists are sometimes referred to as tree huggers in NL.

Crunches here in RU. And squids are those who don't wear protection.

reminds me of corpus sanum sine mente sana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgdP5U28jHc&t=125

I don't think you're right about Portugal. It's 14 for 50cc, 16 for 125cc.

And you need license (which you can get by taking an written exam, no actual driving skills required)

18 in the UK and in some us states CA I believe you need a full Bike licence for a 50cc.

Here in Arkansas, a “Class MD” license - motorcycles up to 250cc - can be had at 14.

A 50cc moped is 16 in the UK.

Probably safer for the 14 year old but not for the pedestrians

Right, this is a counter argument I heard a few times, I forgot to mention it in my comment.

Is there any evidence of high mortality around ebikes?

I think they have a higher mortality in countries where regular bikes are more common because the elderly use them to get back on the streets again.

In the Netherlands the introduction of ebikes (limited to 25kph) has caused a spike in bike traffic deaths because many elderly people are brittle and don't have the response times they used to have, causing dangerous situations even at relatively low speeds.

Those mortality rates only really affect the drivers of the electric bikes though. AFAIK there's no increase in deaths because of drivers hitting others. After all, an electric bike, even going at high speed, is just a silent motor bike that any driver using their mirrors should be able to detect anyway.

I think increased dead rate for the elderly largely is because they remain mobile for longer.

https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2020/07/28/road-fatalitie...:

“The number of people over the age of 70 was 1.5 million in 1999 while there were 2.3 million early 2019, an increase of 56%! Partially helped by e-bikes (which are not more dangerous than ordinary bicycles) this much larger group of elderly people cycles more often and further, which is unfortunately reflected in the fatality rate.”

Technological improvements that have helped increase safety of e-bicycles for the elderly are weight decrease because of battery improvements and lower centers of gravity (mid-drive electric bicycles are becoming more common). Both help decrease the number of deadly accidents not involving other traffic.

It's a lot harder to seriously injure someone with an e-bike as apposed to a car or motorcycle. Simply physics since the weight is a lot lower

> immigrants from cultures that DGAF about human life

Just out of pure curiosity, what `cultures' are these?

Some (maybe only slightly related or relevant) background:

In Germany, there is a pretty serious problem with dangerous driving and street racing: In the last ten or so years, there has been long string of downtown races that have killed numerous innocent bystanders in all major German cities.

This went so far that recently the German law has been changed and killing somebody while participating in a street race is now treated as "first degree murder". This year, the first conviction under this law was upheld by the German "supreme court". Still, street racing is on the rise.

Now, the uncomfortable truth is that the demographics of the offenders skew towards young German men that do not consider themselves to be culturally German or even European.

I am not trying to enter a debate on the how much value different cultures place on life.

What I am trying to do is to point out that when you consider how the human mind works, it is almost inevitable that these issues are starting to appear to be interlinked. What you have here is a very hot debate on road safety, which is already a topic that is very emotionally charged for a lot of people. Considering that there does actually seem to be a cultural correlation, it is somewhat predictable, if sad, that the public debate around here is now slowly starting to turn into an cultural/ethnic argument.

My personal opinion is that we need a massive crackdown on street racing and dangerous driving to prevent this topic from turning into yet another ethnic fault line in Germany.

I'm with you... Once in Thailand I was shocked that nobody on mopeds wears a helmet. My conclusion was that the people doesn't value their lives high enough. Sadly, I don't know how to put it differently. I don't know if this is culture, education, or what.

The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenape might say an initial wave of dutch culture, rapidly supplanted, after the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Dutch_Wars, by english culture.

(I am guessing adjectival phrases such as dutch uncle, dutch oven, dutch treat, etc. gained currency during that period.)

Are you literally quoting a 18th century event as a reason for bad driving practices in 2020?

I thought it was a fairly obvious joke, pointing out that there's no such thing as an immigration wave killing people in NYC through electric bikes.

I'm suggesting that people in what is now NYC have probably been kvetching about all the (dangerous!) newcomers since at least the seventeenth.

Bonus track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH1fERC_504 (have you heard the one about the chinese waiter? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms-9qOXKAkE )

    We're drawing the line,
    So keep your noses hidden!
    We're hanging a sign
    Says "Visitors Forbidden,"
    And we aren't kidding!

In my experience bikers from Germany, Netherlands and Belgium DGAF about human life.

it's a set that defines itself, the title is descriptive.

Instead of minicars or scooters, the absolutely safest option would be to use regular small cars that are re-registered with a speed limiter.

Used small cars are cheap and they come with all the safety features that have been around and mandated for decades. They are infinitely more safe than these plastic boxes. Just tack a safety triangle in the back of the car to warn others of the slow speed. When the young person turns 18 they could just have the speed limiter removed and continue driving the same car.

Sweden has a local exception that allows turning old cars into tractors that 16-year-olds can drive. There are other limitations and those are really slow, and building tractors out of old Volvos doesn't sound too unsafe.

As your parent pointed out, many places have a deeply entrenched culture of owners and mechanics illegally tuning vehicles. A speed limiter would not last long.

That's a problem for law enforcement and MOT inspections. Young people notoriously tune scooters and minicars already, there's absolutely no news there.

Penalties will take care of most of the tuners. For exampple, if you get caught with a disabled speed limiter you will have your license suspended for two years and your real full-power driver's license postponed by two years. Also insurance companies will impose hefty penalties if you're driving something else (more powerful) than what you've insured. If you crash, the insurance company will be charging you for the damages.

Here's a light-weight minicar after collision: https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/1920/2965ca321c7a47758ca5a81... -- I'd rather have my kids take that hit in a passenger car, even a small one.

Then add a monitor? Inspect them (deliver them to registry office regularly) to see that they've been running at safe speeds only.

In my country at least, the regular vehicle inspections mandated by law are not performed by some theoretical incorruptible government office, but rather by the same mechanics who are willing to perform the illegal modifications. You can imagine how well that works in practice. (Which is not to say that I don't agree with you in theory, but people don't work that way.)

Make it digital then. Upload the device to a website using your cell phone. Nobody between you and the verification that way.

And if you don't upload, the car won't start and you get a call from a friendly community officer to find out what went wrong.

Agreed. In addition to making the world worse by having more cars on the road, we can also make it even worse by establishing a dystopian surveillance scheme.

...for 14yo drivers...

> For context, in many European countries (including Italy where I grew up) 14 year olds

Isn't this 16 in most countries?

> have post-market modifications installed, either at home or by unscrupulous mechanics, in order to go much faster.

Which is ridiculously stupid, as it voids any insurance you have (obligatory at least in Germany) and may prevent you from ever getting a driving licence if caught by police.

The 45km/h are pretty stupid. Of it was 60, there would be less pressure to mod.

With 45km/h you are seen as an obstacle by cars and they overtake you in dangerous ways.

In EU by the law, limit inside towns and cities is 50km/h - so it is a spot on speed.

By the way in cities average speed is very low. For instance in London the average speed within a mile of the city center dropped 1.22mph from an average of 6.35mph in 2016 to just 5.13mph in 2017.

https://fleetworld.co.uk/average-driving-speeds-plummet-in-u....

The issue stems from the fact that in Italy if you actually drive at merely 50 km/h in average roads you're perceived as an antisocial menace.

It's simply not true for the cities, people largely drive around 50 km/h if that's the limit. On the highways however going 30+ over the limit is a norm.

Seems same in Bosnia, I traveled there and ppl said I should follow the speed limit at all times due to likelihood of police punishing with big fines. Uhh.. that didn't last long. I was getting tailgated and passed angrily by basically every single person on the road, and even when I did get pulled over by the police (wasn't speeding or violating any driving rule there -- I read up on them), they just sent me on my way once I acted totally oblivious and also they could barely understand my English... heh! Too much hassle to try to get a bribe out of me I guess?

A car I was in was stopped three times in 10 minutes the moment it crossed into the "other" part of Sarajevo. Just before, the driver suggested I watch his speed, which was 5km/h below the limit the whole time. The police were simply taking money from the other ethnic group.

Someone downvoted this, so I'll provide this quote from the UK FCO:

> Taxi drivers from the Republika Srpska might be unwilling to drive to a destination in the Federation, and vice versa.

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/bosnia-and-herzegov...

Or Wikipedia

> police conduct around the Inter-Entity Boundary Line separating the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, had been the "greatest obstacle to freedom of movement", including intimidation and arbitrary fines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of...

There are plenty of anecdotes similar to mine on TripAdvisor etc.

> The issue stems from the fact that in Italy if you actually drive at merely 50 km/h in average roads you're perceived as an antisocial menace.

Where did you get that?

The reality is that if you are scared to drive or unfocused in a city like Rome or Milan, you are a menace even at very low speed.

At 10 km/h a car kills a pedestrian.

At 15 km/h without safety bells if you hit a wall you're thrown out from the windshield.

I used to live in Florence, I'm familiar. Yes, cars are dangerous even at low speeds, but I find it annoying that if I drive at 50 km/h in a low-vis, twisty and narrow hill road the car before me will almost invariably ignore the safety distance to signal displeasure towards my slowness.

> but I find it annoying that if I drive at 50 km/h in a low-vis, twisty and narrow hill road the car before me will almost invariably ignore the safety distance to signal displeasure towards my slowness.

I guess you meant the car behind you.

It is called tailgating.

It is very annoying, I agree, but if I can offer en explanation, in those conditions to overtake you wanna cover the less possible distance, being closer to the car in front of you is a way to make it possible.

Having said that: compared to the population the most dangerous cities in Italy are, in order, Genoa, Florence and Milan.

That could explain it too.

To deal with a taligater, according to the experts, you should

> Brake slowly before stopping. Avoid tailgaters when possible by changing lanes. If you cannot change lanes, slow down enough to encourage the tailgater to go around you. If this does not work, pull off the road when safe and let the tailgater pass.

Yes, tailgating, exactly. I'm mostly talking about narrow roads where you need to slow down and maybe go a bit outside of the paved area to let another car pass in the opposite direction; these are common in the hills of Tuscany and overtaking is impossible. My approach if I'm not in a hurry and there is just one car behind me is to slow down to 10 km/h until the tailgater gets the message.

50km/h would be spot on for speed. 45km/h will just hold up the traffic behind you and lead to dangerous behaviour from frustrated drivers. I don't think this would be very safe to drive in NZ, but if it went 50km/h it would be fine (our traffic really does go 50km/h, and those averages must include waiting at lights, etc.).

Frustrated drivers need to learn to calm down instead of engaging in dangerous behavior. That's really the root of the safety problem that is big powerful cars.

True, but antagonising them isn't going to make that happen, and making this go just 5km/h faster is an easy way to avoid the problem entirely. Maybe "dangerous" isn't quite the right word, but certainly more aggressive, and it's not fun being on the receiving end, even if you're physically safe.

Someone who can't handle going 5 km/h under the speed limit (aka maximum) shouldn't be trusted to operate a motor vehicle.

Sadly, that describes all too many drivers. Enforcement and normalization of slower speeds through a critical mass of slower vehicles could change things.

Ultimately, people have shown that the need to be "tamed" while driving cars.

> Someone who can't handle going 5 km/h under the speed limit shouldn't be trusted to operate a motor vehicle

Neither should someone who can't handle going at 5km/h faster than the speed limit.

It will happen one day that they'll need to and maybe that day it will rain and that will be the day they cause an accident, possibly involving others.

Limits are not there because that's the maximum speed you should be _able_ to drive, they are there for pedestrian safety and to reduce the noise.

> . Enforcement and normalization of slower speeds through a critical mass of slower vehicles could change things.

On the contrary, I hope there will be way faster vehicles, underground, only for those trained to drive them or machine operated.

Everyone else should just ride a bike or walk or catch a bus or a (slow) cab.

The need for speed won't go back, we need to move faster and faster, the more our lives go faster.

p.s. before someone says it, I live in a very expensive neighborhood just to be at walking distance from my office. Even though I love driving and are a semi professional trained pilot, I usually don't drive in the city, unless I have to.

But I can understand why people forced to use a car want to drive them as fast as the limit permits.

The truth is that 50km/h is already way to fast in a city. A good driver who actually takes into account everything that can happen in a city would never drive at 50 km/h as it is already way to fast to keep pedestrian safe, at least in most European cities. Nobody needs to drive at higher speed than the limits. If you can't wait behind a slow vehicle, unless you have a dying person on your side, maybe you should not drive in the first place...

> The truth is that 50km/h is already way to fast in a city.

The average speed in Rome is 8.3 km/h

So yeah, speeding is almost never the problem.

But people doing something else while driving is.

> If you can't wait behind a slow vehicle, unless you have a dying person on your side, maybe you should not drive in the first place...

If you are driving a car to go really slowly, driving in the middle of the streets, because you are too scared to drive too close to the side of the streets, why are you even driving in the first place?

It's like driving a motorbike with the training wheels because you have no equilibrium.

Would you find that acceptable?

And why not?

People can have many reasons to speed, they are not your concern, if you feel to drive slowly, just get out of the way, as experts of road safety suggest to do (that's exactly what I do on highways all the time)

> If someone behind you clearly wants to go faster, remember that it’s not your job to prevent them from doing so. Staying in front of a driver like this when you have space to move over could lead to even more aggressive driving, so it’s best to steer aside and let them drive the speed they’re going to drive (it’s their problem if they get pulled over, not yours!). If you’re genuinely concerned for the safety of yourself or others on the roadway, pull over and call local authorities to report an erratic or unsafe driver.

EDIT:

Some stats regarding Rome (the city where I was born and live)

- Rome has the highest number of accidents per capita, but the lowest mortality per capita in the whole Lazio region

- 75% of the accidents in the region happen in the cities, 25% outside them

- 52% of the accidents on urban roads and 62% of those on extra-urban roads happen on the straights

- most of them caused by distraction

- 45% of the accidents of the year in Rome happen between June and September due to the higher mobility of holiday season

- the two age groups where mortality is raising are 15-19 and over 70. Younger people number one cause of death is speeding (sometimes under the influence), due to inexperience (and the eventual alteration) they can't handle it. For older people is misjudgement: slower reaction times and impaired senses (vision, hearing) lead to deadly crashes.

- 80% of the accidents happen between 8-20, but most of the deadly one happen between 2 and 7 o'clock. Again, most probable causes are: distractions, sleepiness, driver fatigue, DUI.

Driving is a very complex operation, that requires skills and focus, and engage all the body, especially when using manual gears, it is very similar to playing drums.

If people don't give full attention on what they are doing it is very easy to make mistakes that could lead to very bad consequences or even death.

Hoping that other drivers will compensate for my own lack of focus, it's not the safest of the bets.

So, in my opinion, being a driver concerned of the safety yourself and others, means focusing on what you are doing and preventing potentially dangerous situations.

Blaming other drivers will not help you if you don't look twice before crossing a large street late at night or if you speed up to catch the yellow at the traffic-light.

Road safety statistics goes totally against your statement. There's a clear corelation between speed and accidents. You can claim that the person who are dangerous are the one driving slowly to stay in control, but the reality is that the real dangers is people thinking they are pilots and not understanding that a road is a shared infrastructure, not a private race track.

I started driving when it was the same really bad mentality of people having to make place to the one who wants to go fast. And it wasn't great at all, safety records show it.

When i started to understand that the best thing to do when I had such a "pilot" behind me was to slow down until the situation could be less dangerous, I just found myself in way less dangerous situations.

So no, you can be the best driver of the world, 50 km/h in a city is already way too dangerous for pedestrian, with a high death rate in case of accident. The unconfortable slow driver you hate ? Maybe not as dangerous as you are... Actually maybe making road safer.

You want to drive "fast"? Think about the safety of other people it involves.

> Road safety statistics goes totally against your statement. There's a clear corelation between speed and accident

There is not.

There is a clear correlation between speed and deadly accidents.

But most of the accidents happen in the cities and most of them happen at low speed.

The most probable cause is disrespect of priority, due to distractions (watching the phone is very common nowadays)

I posted some stats for the city of Rome, taken straight from the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT)

> I started driving when it was the same really bad mentality of people having to make place to the one who wants to go fa

Those bad mentality people are experts in road safety.

If you are one of them I'd like to know where you work.

My fiancé worked here https://www.fia.com/road-safety

> So no, you can be the best driver of the world, 50 km/h in a city is already way too dangerous for pedestrian

Nobody has ever said the contrary...

> The unconfortable slow driver you hate ? Maybe not as dangerous as you are

Maybe is a no until you prove it.

Meanwhile I can show you that the categories that suffer more deaths per capita are really young and inexperienced people and older people with slow reaction times and impaired vision (the traffic light was red but they didn't see it).

> You want to drive "fast"? Think about the safety of other people it involves.

I never said that.

I've said that if you can't handle to drive fast (fast as in slightly above the speed limits), you are dangerous even at low speed.

If you can't swim in a swimming pool, will you be a better swimmer in the Ocean?

As an example: my dad never liked driving, he never learned to be a good driver and as a result now that he is older his driving skill have lowered so much that he is a danger to himself.

He could drive meh at 50kmh when he was 40, barely when he was 50, now that he is 75 at 30kmh everything looks too fast for his reflexes. He breaks in the middle of the straight because he sees shadows, wait too long at crosses but then he passes in the wrong moment because he gets frustrated that other cars behind him are forming a long line because of him.

He never had to challenge his mediocre driving skills, because they were almost good enough and now he can't drive safely anymore.

Driving is like a muscle, if you don't exercise it and stimulate it, it will atrophy.

Cities like Rome, with the highest number of cars per capita in the West (73 cars every 100 people) need to either remove cars from the streets entirely or deploy large programs of safe driving because the population is getting older and their driving skills are not getting better.

Forcing everyone to go by bike or at 10kmh is not a solution.

At 20kmh a delay in reaction times of just one second means 6 meters.

It is a lot!

And I repeat it to be clear: I don't even drive anymore in Rome, I simply walk, because it's too frustrating as an experience.

True but driving slowly because you don't feel confident enough to drive faster is equally dangerous.

Slow drivers need to learn how to drive safely without pretending that their insecurities become everyoneś problem.

Especially in large cities where there are a pletora of alternative ways to move around.

> That's really the root of the safety problem that is big powerful cars.

It is not.

In Rome, where there are around 27 thousands car crashes every year, the number one cause of accidents is distraction.

Most of them happen at low speed.

The second is driving under the influence.

The third is road conditions.

Last comes speeding.

Driving under pressure because you don't feel confident behind the wheel is like DUI, you make mistakes and cause crashes.

Too many people obtain the driving license without having the necessary skills to handle the traffic flow of a large city.

What they need to learn is one thing, what actually happens right now is another. In many countries if you drive below 50km/h you will get a lot of rage and dangerous maneuvers directed at you. It sucks but it is the state of things now and you don't want to be on a fragile vehicle in the middle of it.

Curious as to the downvotes. 50km/h is the usual city speed limit in NZ, and going slower than that in the car lane will cause real problems (occasionally I have to briefly on my e-bike, so I know from experience). Our roads are mostly wide enough that bicycles and e-bikes are generally off to the side so cars going 50km/h can easily pass, but this vehicle wouldn't fit.

I agree with what you’re saying, but average (assuming it’s a mean) speed is not really a useful figure to determine if someone would be holding up traffic, because traffic doesn’t go a constant speed, especially in a city. Something like an 80 percentile speed might be better.

The limit is 50km/h but everyone is driving at ~60km/h.

well... it depends... try to do it in my old town with small streets and devious curves...

> By the way in cities average speed is very low.

Most people don't respect the strict speed limits in Europe. As long as there's no radar and no heavy traffic around I can guarantee cars will go faster than 50km/h.

The thing is why should we need radar, cameras or ever people to behave like saints to obey speed limits?

Every major vehicle manufacturers is working on self-driving. So just how difficult would it be for them to make cars now as an intermediate step that actually obeyed the speed laws?

In the UK, The National Police Chiefs Council stated that speeding is believed to be a significant factor in 17 fatalities and 126 serious injuries on the country's roads each month. Globally ...

I don't know how many people the vehicle makers should be allowed to kill and maim because of a speeding problem that is entirely technically preventable. But at the moment it feels like they are getting away with something that is uncomfortably close to murder.

Firstly, it'll be ineffective. Going 60 in a 50 zone, which many people do, isn't going to result in many more fatalities, most speeding fatalities probably come from drivers who were going stupidly fast. That kind of driver is just going to go for used cars if new cars won't let you drive as you wish.

Secondly, there's a more fundamental issue. Most people are not going to be ok with the lawmaker exerting that level of control over their cars, because it's 1984-y.

Just because something kills people doesn't mean it always has to be completely stopped and eradicated. People die from eating too much junk food, should we forbid it? People die to stairs, are you going to legally force constructions to pad any staircases with cushions? People ruin their lives due to alcohol. People drown in pools. Kids get injured on playgrounds - think of the children.

There's a line where you need to leave things up to individuals, even if some of them are going to fuck up, because otherwise you end up creating a draconian state, which is way worse than any possible outcome created by people misusing their agency. Trying to enforce speed limits this hard is way over that line.

Sales of alcohol have gradually been lowered in the Nordic countries through punitive taxation and a requirement that only a state monopoly can sell liquor. Yes, there are still people who drink destructively, but figures are way down compared to some decades ago before these restrictions. Moreover, the majority of the public is in favor of maintaining these restrictions instead of loosening them, so there hasn’t been that backlash against a "draconian state" that you speak of. It is definitely possible for a large enough group of citizens to be so concerned about the harmful effects of something that they do not believe it should be left to the individual.

Junk food, too, is the target of similar restrictions in several countries now. Also, playgrounds have been scaled down in the last couple of decades for safety reasons, and in the USA that wasn’t due to draconian laws, it was due to fear of lawsuits.

Taxing is not the same as forbidding. If you forbid alcohol, there is going to be a backlash, see prohibition. In the same way you can "tax" speeders with speeding cameras but I don't think people are going to be okay with literally getting forced to not do it.

> It is definitely possible for a large enough group of citizens to be so concerned about the harmful effects of something that they do not believe it should be left to the individual.

True. Everyone is fine with heroin being illegal. That's why I said that there is a line and not that you should leave everything to the individual.

> in the USA that wasn’t due to draconian laws, it was due to fear of lawsuits.

Is that not the same? Just that the US already has draconian laws?

Everyone is not fine with heroin being illegal. Heroin being illegal is wildly irresponsible and immoral because while heroin is a dangerous drug, far more danger is created by an unclean and unpredictable supply and by pushing addicts into crime to finance it.

The big difference is that speeding puts others lives at risk. Someones heroin addiction for the most part will themselves at risk (except where keeping it illegal pushes people into crime to finance their addiction, which is another reason to provide legal access)

Even in countries where heroin possession and use has been decriminalized (for the compassionate reasons you mention), heroin is still illegal in that there are still prohibitions against its production and sale. It would be a fringe position indeed to say that all laws relating to hard drugs be taken off the books.

It would be fringe position, yes, but decriminalisation is not enough - it does not fix the issues with heroin use, for example, which are tied to a mix of cost and unreliable supply.

Hence it's important to get people to stop seeing opposition to legalisation of these drugs as "obvious", because opposing legalisation of these drugs is extremely irrational.

Current laws on this are immoral and deeply harmful. The vast majority of drugs should be fully legalised and regulated, not decriminalised. The only reasonable exceptions are possibly things like fentanyl and "synthetic cannabis" variants that few people use because they want just those drugs but because of poor availability of safer drugs.

Any evidence-based drugs policy would involve full legalisation of most drugs - there's simply nothing that suggests the current laws achieve their claimed intent, and plenty that demonstrate they are causing massive harm both to addicts and to victims of related crime.

> there's simply nothing that suggests the current laws achieve their claimed intent

Decriminalizing heroin possession and use, while keeping production and sale illegal, has already resulted in absolutely massive reduction of heroin use in several places. Sometimes to the point that there’s only a few elderly addicts hanging on but virtually no younger users are taking up the drug. I’d say that the policies achieved their claimed intent. What more do you want?

> Going 60 in a 50 zone, which many people do, isn't going to result in many more fatalities,

If it is technically preventable without impeding the lawful usage, why is it assumed that the killing or maiming of even one extra person is okay?

> That kind of driver is just going to go for used cars if new cars won't let you drive as you wish

Perhaps, but isn't being surrounded by vehicles driving at the legal speed going to slow them down? And if that doesn't slow them down, then aren't the police likely to have more resources to deal with them?

(each death on UK roads is estimated to cost over £2 million pounds https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/ras60-av... , I'd imagine the figures are similar for most Western countries - that's a lot of resources freed)

> the lawmaker exerting that level of control over their cars, because it's 1984-y.

And having our roads festooned with cameras and number plate readers while still suffering the deaths and injuries is not a worse vision of dystopia?

> because otherwise you end up creating a draconian state, which is way worse than any possible outcome created by people misusing their agency. Trying to enforce speed limits this hard is way over that line.

I know what Top Gear and the rest of the industry with the largest advertising budget on the planet might like us to think. But speeding is not a human right. It's not much like freedom of speech; is it? So just how would preventing law-abiding citizens from being killed or maimed by illegal driving bring about a "draconian state"?

When science and technology make it preventable, why should it be acceptable to allow our loved ones to continue to be killed and maimed just so that some people can continue to break the law and drive dangerously?

It's not about being able to speed, it's about the government forcibly taking your control of your personal property away. In that way, it's an infringement of your basic human rights, and it's done basically because you're thought to be too incompetent to follow the rules, too stupid to be able to differentiate good from bad. And while that's merely insulting, what's actually dangerous about is that it's taking people's agency away at the same time that it's empowering the government to arbitrarily justify any further measures because "people die".

You mentioned free speech, so here's an analogy: Even with free speech, there are certain things you're not allowed to say, and most people agree that's reasonable. Imagine someone is bullied into suicide by hate speech, and we have the technology to implant people with chips that make it impossible for them to say these things.

Would you argue in the same way that "if it is technically preventable without impeding the lawful usage, why is it assumed that the killing or maiming of even one extra person is okay?"

In any case it should be clear that that would be a rather extremist position.

> It's not about being able to speed, it's about the government forcibly taking your > control of your personal property away.

Is not every bought or sold item or service subject to some form of "government" regulation? Looking at Lead for instance; isn't it materially beneficial to a society that it is no longer a routine constituent of our gasoline or drinking water pipes? Is our health not better? Isn't stopping companies selling vehicles that can break speeding laws the same?

> re: mind-control chips. Would you argue in the same way that > "if it is technically preventable without impeding the lawful usage, > why is it assumed that the killing or maiming of even one extra > person is okay?"

When, or if mind-control chips come into being, then it'll be up to the societies of which we are all parts to decide how, or if they want to use them. It'll be one heck of a debate; freedom of internal thought vs stopping rapists and serial killers.

Now, if they screw up, and "bad" mind-control comes to pass, will anyone seriously be saying? "you know what; it was because they stopped speeding cars on public roads". Would that be likely? Or are neural links, miniaturization, better batteries, etc and a sh*tty society misusing them more likely to be orders of magnitude more culpable?

So when science and technology make it (where "it" is speeding) preventable - who wouldn't want to use it to prevent theirs and other's loved ones from being killed and maimed?

> Isn't stopping companies selling vehicles that can break speeding laws the same?

No, because you can just not speed, whereas you can't just not drink the lead in your tap water. Your proposal is a different, far more extreme form of regulation.

> So when science and technology make it (where "it" is speeding) preventable - who wouldn't want to use it to prevent theirs and other's loved ones from being killed and maimed?

You keep repeating this thing about saving your loved ones, but it's not as simple as that. You have tunnel vision on the death toll and don't consider what other consequences you're creating. Reasoning that "if technology allows it and it can save a life, it's automatically worth doing" can justify a lot of hamfisted measures.

> It'll be one heck of a debate; freedom of internal thought vs stopping rapists and serial killers.

Here you even acknowledge that there is something to be lost in exchange for stopping bad things. That's my entire point. The speeding issue is exactly the same, just with smaller stakes.

Take away people's agency piece by piece to prevent speeding, murder and rape, and you end up with a society where everyone can live to 100 but no one is even human anymore.

It feels like doing 60mph in a 50mph zone is about the same thus people assume it’s equivalent even if it’s much more dangerous. The issue is most clearly demonstrated by stopping distance going up by ~40% even though it’s only 20% faster.

However that’s understating the difference. It’s common to be breaking just before impact at higher speeds you have less time to react and thus break less. If you go from 50MPH to 30 MPH that’s likely a completely survivable collision. Breaking from 60MPH to 50 MPH is less so as your dealing with V^2 = ~2.8x the energy. Similarly, many accidents are simply avoided...

That's a good point, is there any actual data?

I found one thing which is a bit counter to this, but not directly relevant to cities. Germany manages to have no speed limit on the majority of the Autobahn without a higher rate of accidents compared to surrounding countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

It’s rather hard to directly collect such accident data, but plenty of studies have looked into the effect.

Anyway, overall safety of a given road is a separate factor. Germany has approximately 650,000 km of roads and only 12,996 kilometres (2016) where part of the Autobahn. So while per mile the Autobahn is safer than the older parts of the German road network, speed is hardly the only factor involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Germany#Roads

They have very high standards for what constitutes a no speed limit zone and such roads are safe enough to offset the added dangers of such speeds.

Many people stick to the standard speed of 130km/h.

In my experience, I'd say about a third, while the left lane is usually >=160km/h when there's no limit.

Some of the replies to you are focused on “nanny state” objections. So, how about a private sector solution here? Offer people a significant reduction in insurance for installing a speed governor that limits speeds to legal limits?

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to try and reduce speeds. Speed kills, and that’s a fact. A lot of the killing is externalized as well.

I’ve said it before, but people who drive public streets like a track should either get themselves to a track, or internalize their risk-taking by buying a motorcycle. As a motorcyclist, I’m very aware of safety trade-offs I’m making. Oddly enough, not being inside a steel cage is a pretty good reminder to keep safety very high on the list of things I think about while riding.

No, they will not go that fast. The infrastructure simply makes it impossible.

Most European city centers do not have four lane straight-as-a-line roads with only a sign "restricting" the speed. On tight, winding roads with near-zero visibility at junctions, it's rare to even hit the speed limit. Driving faster doesn't happen because it feels (and is!) dangerous.

That's the kind of road this vehicle is designed for.

I've driven in a fair number of European cities, and it's true that in the very center you're just not going to hit the speed limit, if you can drive there at all. But that's confined to a tiny area, outside of which you will easily and safely hit the speed limit on many streets. And practically no one is going to be driving in the center only, because then it doesn't even make sense to own a car.

and in this places, roads are either near empty (so overtaking is safe on a double-lane, otherwise, chances are high, you have a crossing every 100m and so can not drive more than 30km/h either), or there are endless traffic jams. Both cases, this thing works great.

You're right of course when it comes to many European countries. I really can't understand why comments along yours are downvoted on this thread. It's enough to watch how German drivers behave in Poland for example. Once the threat of a heavy fine and speed traps at many places in the city is gone they speed recklessly the same way as locals. If you respect a speed limit in Polish cities you will get a lot of rage directed at you. That's the case in many European countries I drove through as well. Not all countries mind you but most of them.

I have a theory that this is due to pressure from the car industry. All non-car alternatives are nerfed: The 45km/h for these things, the 25km/h limit for electric bicycles, the 20km/h limit for e-scooters. All are 5-10km/h too slow to drive on the road without impeding traffic, making them significantly less attractive.

Or you know....it's a smart move by the legislators. Want to drive at car-like speeds? Get a car licence with everything that it involves then.

With bicycles it makes even more sense - since the reality is that despite what the law says, many people ride them on pavements - so the speed should be limited to what is safe for pedestrians.

It is of course a smart move by the legislators, since the car industry in critically important for the economy and "proper" cars have a much larger profit margin.

That's ridiculous. The legislators don't have any reason (except being bribed by car industry) to encourage people to use cars instead of more human-friendly modes of transport.

Also, if people are riding bikes on the pavement, it's a clear signal that they don't have a safe alternative.

>>The legislators don't have any reason (except being bribed by car industry) to encourage people to use cars instead of more human-friendly modes of transport.

Wait, I'm confused now, are you arguing for or against this thing then? You do realize that the Ami is made by Citroen, which is a car company, right? So....which way is this alleged bribe supposed to flow, exactly?

And really, like you can't see any reason at all? Just off the top of my head - legislators say, for the sake of safety, that if a vehicle of any type can reach 50km/h or higher, it's a car. That's a car speed, therefore it should require a car licence. Because of that, manufacturers artificially limit the speed to 45km/h, so you don't need a licence to drive one of these. I'm not sure how would the car manufacturers bribe here - for? Or against this law? Because honestly, I can make an argument for either.

>>Also, if people are riding bikes on the pavement, it's a clear signal that they don't have a safe alternative.

You're stating the obvious here. Equally obvious is that the councils "should just build more bike paths". But in reality there is no money to do this. Local councils have barely enough money to clean the streets and patch the worst potholes, and building new bike lanes is a far higher expenditure than this. The problem might be solved with time, or it might not. The law should reflect reality(and it does), not some made up utopia that doesn't exist.

I don't think, building bike lanes in dense cities is hard. A bit of Jersey wall, some signs, single lane traffic for cars. You save a lot of pothole repairs soon!

> A bit of Jersey wall, some signs, single lane traffic for cars

How much do you imagine that costs?

A lot less than infrastructure for cars. For example, upgrading the A8 autobahn in Germany costs 71000€ per meter.

Which may be appropriate for an exceptional piece of infrastructure capable of hosting heavy vehicles as well as cars.

If you are going to compare "infrastructure" then you have to compare everything, including how many people benefit - everyone who shops at a supermarket benefits from the road system even if they own no vehicle.

In which way should the law reflect reality? Allowing bikes on pavement if there’s no money to build bike lanes? Good idea; I agree. Telling bikes to screw off and you have to walk your bike along the sidewalk because there’s no money for bike lanes here and we only allow cars on pavement? Not getting my support.

You are correct. They also build cars that can do double the speed limit and sell this as a feature. I sometimes wonder Does the theory extend to the idea that the world would collapse if petroleum taxation vanished overnight?

> With 45km/h you are seen as an obstacle by cars and they overtake you in dangerous ways.

speed limits is usually 50km/h and there are 30km/h zones.

These cars are not allowed on high speed roads, such as highways.

In my country the law explicitly says that you have to drive such small mopeds/scooters in a such way, keeping close to the right side, that cars can easily overtake you. They are treated exactly the same as bikes, can drive on bike lanes, etc.

That is very dangerous forcing bicycle and scooters/bikes to drive in the gutter.

When I used to ride a MB in London I did not hug the gutter that's asking to hit a grate or debris - I rode in the lane 1-2 feet from the kerb just like your supposed to.

oh and I didn't not undertake other vehicles that's just asking to be killed (90%) of bile deaths are undertaking related in London

In Sweden the new standard is 40 or 30. So 45 is above the limits in most cities and towns.

You can still use old mopeds like the Simson S50/S51 that were allowed to go 60km/h and got grandfathered in. That’s why they are still very popular to this day.

Barcelona is reducing the limit to 30 km/h in a lot of streets.