I'm of the mind that it's up to every individual to decide how much risk they want to take, but I think an e-bike that can do 55 mph is significantly more dangerous than a motorcycle. Tiny amount of traction, no ability to maneuver or speed up further to get yourself out of a dangerous position. Crude/no suspension. No traction control, no turn signals, silent. Cars on the road see a pedal bike and expect you to behave like one. Rider unlikely to be wearing the correct safety gear. If you lay down a bike at 55 and you aren't wearing leathers you can literally bleed out right there on the pavement. The list goes on and on.

Again, not saying it should not be allowed, but man, at that point please just take care of yourself and get a little honda motorbike and a full face helmet/leathers.

People appear to be mixing units here, I believe the parent commenter was using kph, not mph.

55mph on an ebike would be insane :) even 55kph is really really fast if you're not on perfect asphalt - the slightest pebble hitting the front wheel and it's goodbye

To clarify, it's insane from a practical standpoint to allow e-bikes to go that fast, but from a technological standpoint many e-bikes are more than capable of going that fast, and much faster. I have seen e-bikes that advertise their top speed as 80 mph.

If you have suspension and the proper tires (which are a legal requirement in many places) you can take pretty big pebbles in the front wheel.

It's intentional to limit these to $regular_speed - 5km/h, same as with mopeds. I assume it's so you are converted to a real vehicle (car) by virtue of being assaulted on the roads by those driving them?

I certainly don't agree with 35km/h on bike paths. The current 25km/h is plenty and given their popularity with older ages, already producing outsized numbers of injuries and deaths.

What are the rules where you live? In France it's either a bike if the assist is limited to 25kmh (you could go above that on a nice flat road, but the gearing usually isn't designed for it) , or a "<50cc motorcycle" in which case it can go up to 50kmh (like all other <50cc vehicles). In the latter case, no bike lanes, you need a rear-view mirror and helmet, and for some bureaucratic reason the brakes have to be inversed

Same in Italy.

It means that a ciclyst on an ebike can outperform a group of friends with normal bikes on an slope but can't stay with them on the way back home and they'll have to wait. I experienced that and it's not nice. The two types of bikes mix well only in low intensity sightseeing rides.

well, only if the friends are keen cyclists with road bikes.

no commuter in shirt and trousers with saddlebags for the laptop etc is going to be running at more than 25kmh

Of course. We were slowly pedaling uphill with road bikes and our friend was speeding in front of us. But we had to wait on the way back home because we could do easily 30 km/h on the last 20 km (completely flat) and his engine cut off at 25.