I've had both failure modes (fried my motor somehow, rode pedal-only for a week before I could get to warranty service) also (busted my gearset somehow, got around on throttle-only til I scheduled maintenance.) I ride hard, usually pass everyone (with a wide berth, I'll hang back instead of passing rudely.)

If you are replacing your Prius then a few thousand dollars is easy to afford. The shop that built my bike: http://www.splendidcycles.com/

I don't think the roads where I live are safe enough to even consider that.

I'll ride a regular bike but I don't want to go anywhere near car speed without car protection (airbags etc.)

The UK has different regulations, but beware that in the EU "proper" if it has a power-on-demand it's legally a moped or a motorbike, only pedelecs (pedal-assist only, cut off above 25km/h, under 250W maximum continuous rated power) are legally bicycles. Also of note, "S-pedelecs" branding in some jurisdictions are a marketing lie, they are not legally bicycles (except in Norway, where they are allowed on bike paths if and only if the electrical systems are shut down)

Am I just paranoid or is this a real issue?

Why I always tell friends to end the lie of "I will ride my motorcycle to work and save money".. until its too cold too wet too windy too hot I had a bad day and suddenly you have a garage queen

If you're still worried buy a cheap Android phone off craigslist and attach it somewhere it'd be hard to remove. If someone steals it you can use GPS tracking to find it.

Btw, it's ridiculous that in 2015 we still haven't solved the problem of stolen bikes.

http://boostedboards.com

https://twitter.com/atxstolenbikes

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/crime-law/police-350-4000...

I see that as an advantage. Where I live, college kids flying around on their scooters/motorcycles in residential areas are dangerous. Electric ones are so silent, you won't even know what hit you.

I'd almost rather be hit by a modern car than by a bicycle. At least the car is designed to crumple and protect the pedestrian, bikes aren't designed to protect anyone, yet they go just as fast as other city traffic.

Here's an article from 2007 about designing cars to protect pedestrians: http://www.edmunds.com/car-safety/protecting-pedestrians-thr...

Volvo has pedestrian airbags in their newer cars, the car will detect collision with a person and pop the hood up on a cushion to keep the pedestrian safe: http://www.autoevolution.com/news/how-pedestrian-airbags-wor...

Would I get this many missing-the-point replies if I said "I would almost rather die than have my hand cut off"? Would I get a bunch of people saying "you've obviously never died, I've died plenty of times and anyone would rather have their hand cut off" or start quoting physics to me about how much inertia death has versus your hand?

Because I'm pretty sure I wrote the word "almost" in my comment, and I'm also pretty sure I didn't edit it in. Seriously, I'm about 95% certain that the word "almost" was included in my original comment when I hit "reply" for the first time. So literally anyone who read the comment would have had the chance to see that I used the word "almost".

It doesn't generally mean that though, in what I would think to be the popularly understood context of what you were saying, you were claiming they were very close, not that it was an unrealistic comparison of things far apart from one another.

If you said "I would almost rather die than have my hand cut off", and seemed completely sincere about it, most people would think you were an idiot.