California Wants to Put License Plates on E-Bikes and Slow Them Down. Cyclists Are Not Happy About It
1d 18h ago by lemmy.world/u/LuminousLuddite in news from guessingheadlights.com
Two bills moving through the California legislature this year could change how e-bikes are bought, ridden, and regulated across the state. One would require
Just license them in accordance with their capabilities. All the bad press about ebikes lately is running cover for government negligence over lack of normalizing them into existing licensing frameworks, on behalf of the automotive lobby that knows if these vehicles aren't given an appropriate legal niche they will instead end up being seen by society as dangerous scofflaws and ultimately banned or legistalted out of practicality.
Use your brains. Ask why the discussion doesn't revolve around appropriate licensure and infrastructure, and instead revolves around how to get rid of them.
IL has a L license for motorcycles under 150cc, no reason not to have a kwH rating for it.
A 110cc motorbike can do 60 mph, theres a fundamental difference between that and a souped up ebike doing 30.
Yes but the souped up e-bikes doing 30 need regulation as well. Maybe not by placing them into an existing category where they don’t fit but some of these rigs out here are freaking ridiculous and ruining it for everyone.
Souped up e-bikes are approaching 60+ now too.
This kid who killed a pedestrian was caught going 56mph in the weeks preceding the accident.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-01/o-c-teens-mom-charged-in-e-bike-crash-that-killed-81-year-old
Do states not? PA is 750W, but bikes might be governed to 20 or 28mph.
State laws around low power two wheel vehicles are all over the place, and mostly leftover from the two stroke moped era of the 70s and early 80s. So none of it really makes sense anymore.
The laws are varied, but from what I can tell only three states don’t have definitions for e-bikes: AL, AK, GA. Most adhere to federal guidelines of 750W and Class 1+2 while others also permit Class 3. Several allow up to 1000W. The tl;dr is a <=750W Class 1 is allowed pretty much anywhere whereas a Class 3 may have additional requirements or be unpermitted.
That’s what I thought as well yet I see what are essentially electrically powered off-road motorcycles everywhere. There’s no enforcing the sales end of it, which I guess means it’s up to local law enforcement?
It’s similar in the U.K…I think you can have up to 125cc for so long, then you can have up to a 250 for so long, and so on…
I think it makes sense for those bikes that can do 30mph+ and aren’t even meant to be ridden as bicycles despite having pedals. They usually look like a motorcycle and can accommodate two riders. Having bicycle pedals shouldn’t be a loophole for bypassing drivers licensing requirements and traffic laws. These things are usually ridden by 10-15 year olds who don’t yet have formal training. I saw a kid cause an accident buzzing through a 4-way stop. I’ve also heard of them colliding with pedestrians at high speeds on sidewalks. E-bikes are a good thing overall, but it’s the Wild West right now and some e-bikes can go way too fast for something that isn’t regulated.
I've got a skateboard and unicycle myself, I think all these things are great, but you've highlighted the big problems that exist today. It's the kids that have no sense, whip by people walking, being ignorant to traffic rules, etc.
I watched 2 kids on a gravel path whip by on escooters past a 5 year old swaying back and forth on a pedal bike as he was obviously trying to learn. That could have gotten bad.
I agree with all of your points. However, in California, ebikes are already regulated:
https://riding5.com/blogs/news/california-ebike-laws-class-1-2-3
The only "wild west" thing happening is that some people are riding illegal, (they're already illegal. We don't need new laws) unregistered electric motorcycles. The 30+ mph "ebikes" you refer to: those are motorcycles.
What makes it the Wild West is there is no good way to enforce anything at the moment, so any existing regulations are ineffective to the point where the current environment is de facto unregulated
Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, the East Bay legislator behind the license plate bill, says law enforcement in her district has been raising concerns for some time. Officers told her they are seeing dangerous speeds from electric bikes but have no practical way to issue citations without putting themselves or others at risk. A license plate changes that equation.
She also pointed out that the rise of e-bikes among younger riders has made it harder to know at a glance whether a child is legally riding an age-appropriate e-bike, operating an illegally modified one, or cruising around on an electric moped that is not supposed to be on public roads at all.
How do you know which one is illegal? It's the one that's going too fast.
Ebikes are an excellent, relatively inexpensive solution to several problems. They're going to try to regulate them until they become impractical.
It’s really a shame. Ebikes are amazing and have the potential to really bring bicycling to the masses. But these jackasses riding motocross rock hoppers down the sidewalk are going to ruin it for everybody.
I've put 4000 miles on my e-bike in the past 2 years. Even though I follow traffic laws, I've seen far too much fuckery by other e-bike riders. I'm seeing children riding e-bikes and scooters, without helmets, doing crazy shit in the middle of the road almost cause accidents. I have narrowly avoided hitting such children on 3 separate occasions. I see plenty of adults on these things also not following traffic laws and riding these things on busy sidewalks.
I really do not want e-bikes to be regulated like cars. Being forced to register and carry insurance makes an inexpensive thing expensive. That being said, there are tons of dumb assholes out there that will ruin it for the rest of us.
Registering is fine, a lot of people voluntarily register their expensive bikes with local police that have those programs anyway.
Insurance is weirder. Cars require as much insurance as they do because they weigh multiple tons and can kill people and destroy infrastructure. A powered bike can do a lot of damage, especially if it rams someone, but it has an order of magnitude less destructive potential than a car. Especially for a limited powered bike insurance "should" be significantly cheaper.
The difference is honestly closer to two orders of magnitude.
E = 1/2mv^2
1/2 * 1000kg * 50 km/h * 50 km/h * 0.2778 mh/skm * 0.2778 mh/skm = 96 kJ
1/2 * 100kg * 25 km/h * 25 km/h * 0.2778 mh/skm * 0.2778 mh/skm = 2 kJ
As a cyclist, I’m all for e-bikes requiring a license.
Most e-bikes in my area are ridden by people who can’t get a driver’s license. This includes people underage, people with their license revoked, and people who have restrictions on their licenses.
And people regularly remove the regulators on those bikes, making them unsafe on the roads.
Meanwhile, they’re also tearing up the mountain bike trails I normally ride on my pedal bike. Many of the people riding these have zero traffic safety training, zero trail etiquette, and zero interest in cooperating with others.
Last week at dusk I had what looked like a 13 year old riding his bike behind me in city traffic, doing a wheelie. Eventually he swerved around me to cross oncoming traffic and hop up onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street so he could avoid an intersection.
Sure, there’s probably plenty of well behaved e-bike riders out there, but the volume of unsafe ones I’ve seen over the past month is insane.
As a cyclist, I’m all for e-bikes requiring a license.
As a cyclist, I disagree. For traffic, we only need licensing on e-bikes that support people to go faster than +-20 km/h whithout pedalling to such speed by their own body strength. Basically: treat e-bike like the motorcycles they are. But +- 20km/h is a speed a normal healthy person on a normal non-electric bicycle can also easily achieve. It's a generally safe speed in most situations. If it isn't, it's a mental health or sociopath behavior of the driver / very poor street infrastructure problem, but the light e-bike shouldn't have to take the blame.
On mountainbike trails (and on hiking trails!!!) i'm more in favor of something getting close a complete ban for anything motorised.
I agree with you in principle, but those rental e-scooters reach 25 km/h far faster than the average commuter could with pedals. In cities, cyclists usually don't hit that kind of speed very often (you have intersections and stuff after all) and those who do, clearly have had plenty of practice.
I do still support them being license free up to about that speed though. Just saying they're actually slightly more dangerous than pedal operated bicycles.
I think I agree! Are we talking about the same? I was talking about e-bicycles (regular looking bicycle with battery and motor, which doesn't help you anymore above that cut-off speedlimit), not e-scooters (the one with tiny wheels, stand-up while riding, no pedalling at all). The e-scooters can just all have licenses and license plates imo, it's a normal motorised vehicle, has nothing at all in common with a bicycle)
Where I come from, e-scooters and e-bikes are both classed as "light motorized vehicles" so the same regulations apply. And e-bicycles on high assist require close to no input so IMO they're not actually very different from e-scooters in terms of how dangerous they are to pedestrians (bicycle will have better stability, but the scooter will be able to swerve quicker so it evens out). Which I'm not saying the ones limited to 25 km/h should require a license and a license plate, but I'm saying that at that speed they start getting more dangerous than regular cyclists at the same speed (who have to work to hit that speed), so it makes sense that e-bikes that can go faster (even if they're still "assisted") require licensing.
One of the issues you'd run into there is enforcement by definitions. For something comparable, see the scene in Breaking Bad where Hank pins down the RV, but can't go inside without a warrant because it's a "domicile", not a vehicle.
If an ebike user with pedals is pulled over, in some cases it can be hard to factually prove the electric motor is working, since they could still theoretically get up to speed with it (I've brought mine home on a 100% dead battery before. Slightly tougher, but still traffic safe)
Perhaps you live in a car dependent area and e bikes are the first viable non car mode of transport in your area and so you are seeing those growing pains of introducing a new mode of transportation for the first time in its history.
Ebikes should not need a license, the bikes themselves need regulation so they are safe without one.
Ebikes should not need a license, the bikes themselves need regulation so they are safe without one.
Agreed. What in my country are class I and II bikes should not need a license. The regulation you speak of should "regulate" class III bikes as something other than an "e-bike", and require license/registration/insurance. We already do this with hypothetical class IV bikes; a motorcycles.
Meanwhile, they’re also tearing up the mountain bike trails I normally ride on my pedal bike. Many of the people riding these have zero traffic safety training, zero trail etiquette, and zero interest in cooperating with others.
More money than brains.
You're proposing more restrictions to what end? All licensing will do is hurt people that are unable to obtain a license like you listed in your post. That doesn't automatically mean that roads will be safer or rider law enforcement will be better.
Sure the ones that aren't following safe practices are egregious, but that's the same with cars too. I literally saw someone in a van swerve around a line of cars to blindly cut across a highway through a red light. No amount of regulation or licensing is going to prevent that.
The best method to fixing traffic issues is planning better infrastructure first and then adding enforcement in problematic sections.
Reading what the law actually says, these seem to be sensible changes, bringing the rules in line with European standards.
Yeah, works pretty well over here.
It's about expected speed and who you're sharing a path with.
If I'm a cyclist, I don't want to share a cycle lane with some idiot doing 40mph on a Temu deathtrap. By all means have those as an alternative to cars and petrol motorbikes (because cheap transport is still transport), but you'll need regulations, registration plates, and mandatory safety equipment, and they need to share the road with other vehicles.
Then I would say it doesn't matter because they're not riding like a bell-end. The system will have done it's job.
Does it matter if the coo knows or not? If they do something stupid and get stopped, the cop will realize and fine them for not being registered.
You can also drive around in a car without a license and a cop would never know unless you drove stupidly and they pulled you over.
It's more about liability, if someone is riding around on an unregistered ebike and cause some sort of incident then they (or they're parents, since IMO it's a lot of kids who are ripping around on these) are the liable party
You’re not really a “cyclist” if a motor is doing a bunch of the work. That’s the equivalent of those mopeds we had in the ‘70s that you could pedal, too. Probably went 35-40 mph. Nobody in their right mind would call them bicycles or call the riders cyclists. It’s a motorized bike.
Depends, if it’s pedal assist it’s most definitely cyclists. If it’s just a throttle then I agree
have you tried "cycling" on stronger electric bikes with the support mode set to "sport" or "highest"? Moving the pedals is pretty damn symbolic on these vehicles, less than 10% of the actual energy needed to move is provided by the legs, it's almost all motor. It's like they moved the throttle control to the pedals.
I’m in eu so I don’t think so. It’s not allowed
It’s a motorized bike.
But not to be confused with a motorcycle, which is something different.
Semantics.
Just common usage has made a “motorized bicycle” of yesteryear into its own vehicle class today. It’s exactly the same thing with e-bikes hitting 30+ mph speeds, just electric motors instead of an ICE.
Now limit car speed next? They seem to be the biggest menace on the roads in California. E-motos are not e-bikes and e-bikes shouldn’t be lumped into legislation.
Yes.
But even if they didn't limit cars. That's no excuse for not limiting e-bikes.
You don't need to prove that you know the traffic laws to ride an ebike. You do to ride a car.
You do not need a license that can be revoked to ride an ebike. So if you speed in a car you could just get your license removed, not the case for ebikes.
The thing is, cops can still cite bikers for breaking traffic laws they don’t know. So why aren’t the cops enforcing existing traffic laws on e-bikes? In my town I see kids without helmets drive past cop cars and the cops don’t even take a second look.
I really wish California revoked licenses for stuff like that. On paper they do but really speeding is rampant and not enforced. We should be stepping up patrols to enforce laws we have on the books before making more.
Aren't car speeds already limited everywhere?
e-bikes and e-scooters where I come from are limited to 25 km/h because you don't really need a license for those. Vehicles that require a license (and thus plenty of training) are allowed to go faster. If your e-bike is limited to 25, you're still allowed to cycle faster than that on your own. In fact, cycling speed isn't limited at all, other than near pedestrians or in designated walkable areas. E-motos have the same speed limits as cars and motorcycles, because they require a motorcycle license and are generally classified as motorcycles.
The idea is that kids with no formal traffic training and potentially not much experience shouldn't be able to shoot up to 50 km/h in 2 seconds using an electric motor. Achieving speed with your own muscles takes more time and effort, requires a straight enough road, etc.
They are not limiting car speed on the car itself. Which is what they are proposing, a governor on the e-bike that prevents you from going faster.
Yes, on vehicles that require no training or license and have no license plate and usually go pretty fast on pedestrian walkways. The faster ones will get license plates (but no training or license requirement).
I'm a bicyclist and I think this is not a bad idea. Class 3 e-bikes have engines which can accelerate to a top speed of nearly 50 km/h which makes them practically slow motorcycles at that point. A collision between a pedestrian and an e-bike accelerated to top speed will send at least one person to the hospital. And the risk of cyclists who blatantly flaunt traffic laws is also present, even though most people in my city tend to follow the law. There's a bike path in my city which is used as both a commuter route and a recreational route, and some people ride their e-bikes at crazy speeds just centimetres away from children riding their tricycles.
What I wouldn't support is the extra paperwork burden. Opponents of this law are right when they say that it should be made easier to switch from driving to using an e-bike, not harder. But minimal registration formalities are probably fine, as long as they are made relatively easy. Maybe something like a registration plate which is affixed at the factory and which you have to register using the DMV website or an app. This would also make tracking down stolen bikes easier.
I'm a cyclist and I'm against this. If they're effectively electric motorcycles then just license them as motorcycles, end of story. People are getting brain fog over the fact that they're cheap and popular with kids. We don't speed cap any other vehicles, we just license them appropriately. Let's just continue doing that. It's wacky to me that this isn't obvious to most people.
Seriously, if they don't require pedals to move it's a motorcycle or moped. I use an e-bike to commute but it doesn't work without the pedals. It's still a bike. If you want to tax me for it then give me my own damn lane
If your bike has a motor and pedals how is it not a moped?
Mopeds have pedals but mostly function by a throttle. I never knew a single person that used the pedals unless they were out of gas. My bike (class 2, mid-engine) does not work without pedals and makes commuting feasible in areas with a lot of hills. I always pedal past the 28mph max and it's 0 engine assist in those moments. You going to regulate that then you need to regulate all the spandex guys on the weekends too.
They're not the same as motorcycles though. They're comparable to motorcycles, but they are not quite the same. There's no reason to have a binary system. There is a class of bikes which are more than recreational e-bikes but less than full-on motorcycles. There needs to be a class of regulation in between bicycles and slow e-bikes (which should require no registration at all) and motorcycles (which require a special driving licence to operate).
The fact that we don't "speed cap" any other vehicles isn't a good argument for not limiting the speed of e-bikes. All arguments for why ordinary personal vehicles shouldn't have speed governors limiting them to, say, 160 km/h, basically boil down to "It makes me feel bad" or "I think it's fun to drive fast".
They already have limits to 28mph/45kmh for ebicycles. If they go above that then they should require a license. Illinois's Senate agreed on a bill that now needs considering in the house for ebikes that exceed that, requires registration, and additionally puts age limits on them. That seems reasonable.
Changing the existing laws to be more restrictive beyond that is unnecessary. We don't need more fragmentation of rules between state(in US) and probably countries where applicable.
45 km/h is still freakishly fast for all but professional cyclists. I do not agree that more restrictions are unnecessary. A simple, paperwork-minimal registration scheme would allow proper accountability for reckless bicycle-riding (which is uncommon but still happens) and would deter theft, especially since e-bikes cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, pounds, or euros. The problem with fast e-bikes (especially those which can accelerate without pedalling) is that they let anyone's grandmother reach the speeds of professionals without actually being an experienced cyclist. Ideally, there should be three levels:
- Bicycles and low-speed e-bikes, where registration is not required
- Moderate-speed e-bikes which can accelerate without the use of the pedals, where minimal registration formalities are required (namely, affixing a registration plate that comes with the bike along with registering an owner online). The registration process should be free of charge, one-off, and should not take more than 5 minutes to complete. I am against requiring anything which resembles a driving licence for these e-bikes.
- High-speed e-bikes and motorcycles, where ordinary vehicle registration, motorcycle licences, and inspections are required.
In the United States, we have a tool to deal with fragmentation in state laws: uniform acts.
An adult in half decent physical shape can hit 45 km/h on level ground for a short time on a 9 year old midrange racing bike. Source: I own a 9 year old midrange racing bike.
A professional can sustain that speed.
FYI 45 kph on a non-motorized bicycle is not really "freakishly fast", that's a normal downhill speed on your average middle age guy's weekend workout. And I think this concern is already addressed by signed speed limits.
That's also not a speed you hit on a pedestrian walkway between intersections with crossings where you have to look out for cars or pedestrians stepping in front of you.
I think the most I've ever clocked on a bicycle was 56 km/h (as I didn't usually ride with a speedometer and me being in good enough shape to do that without having to go downhill was before I had a phone with a decent enough battery to run Strava or something for every little ride), but that was out of town, on a straight road. On a pedestrian walkway that requires me to stop or slow down every hundred or two hundred meters, it would take effort to even consistently hit 25 km/h. But with a motor assisting you, you can hit higher speeds much quicker.
Why are you biking on a pedestrian walkway? That seems like it's own seperate problem.
Uh most people don't cycle in car lanes unless going very fast.
Where do you live? I'm in the US where almost all vehicles, including cyclists, ride in the street and only car drivers refer to them as "car lanes".
Estonia. Bicycles are allowed on either the light traffic road, or the car lanes. You're not supposed to go very fast around pedestrians if you opt for the former, but a lot of people (teenagers mostly) do anyway. That's why I'm saying an e-bike that can do 45 km/h should be considered a moped, and be restricted to being used on the road where cars go. In fact that's how it is here. An e-bike that's considered a light traffic vehicle is only allowed to assist until 25 km/h. This is also what California seems to be doing, with higher speeds requiring a license plate and the class 1 vehicles getting restricted.
Here in the states we don't have a "light traffic road" as you describe. That's just not a thing in our infrastructure. This situation would be easier to resolve if we did.
Fair enough. Yeah if all e-bikes are going to be sharing the road with cars anyway, I can see why it wouldn't make sense to limit unlicensed ones to 25 in your case. But at the same time, it makes sense that if a vehicle is capable of speeding, it should have a license plate on it and require the user to be 18. No?
Yes and a driver's test, like any other licensed vehicle. What I would oppose are speed capping the vehicles themselves or outright banning them, as I think both of those "solutions" are more in service to the automotive industry than anything else. And throws the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.
Well, nobody's outright banning them luckily, and only the ones that don't require a test are being capped AFAIK. If your ebike is registered as a motorcycle, it requires a driver's test and doesn't need to have the speed capped at all.
Yes, if it can go over the speed limit I agree. However I cannot.
The spirit of my complaint is that we should just appropriately license them. If practically that means a new class of license then yes, that's how you license them.
It's basically old people trying to take away kid's mobility.
Ebikes here are capped at 25km/h, but many people, especially food couriers, tune them up. And they regularly ride through pedestrian zones. Yes, number plates are a good idea.
Number plates are adding a road block to a vehicle that is better for society than a car.
We need more ebikes, not less.
Put a bike lane next to the ped zone.
I don't consider class III e-bikes ridden in an unsafe manner "better for society."
I'm talking about reckless bikers racing through the intended safe space for pedestrians. Bikers who ignore the network of bike lanes and even bike roads that have been reserved specially for them that completely surrounds the pedestrian zone.
That is the maximum speed they can go which is like saying people drive cars at the top speed consistently when most people ride an e-bike at 15-20mph. Frankly I think these bills are eroding solidarity in the bike community...
I don't believe most people who actually have a driving licence have ever driven a car at its top speed (or if they have, maybe only once or twice on a long, straight stretch of rural motorway with no traffic).
However, my personal observation, at least in my city, is that given the opportunity, people will ride their bikes as fast as their equipment will allow. On straight sections of the bike path which I mentioned in the previous post, bicycle riders will kick their bikes into seventh gear and e-bike riders go full throttle. That path has no legal speed limit, and even if it did, there is no way to enforce it.
Japanese moped laws cap them at 30 kph even. All ebikes must be peddle assist, may not have a throttle, and the assist will turn off at a designated speed (17kph I think?) as a point of reference.
Japan also has adequate public transportation and walkable streets everywhere
This is not true everywhere as you say. I live in the countryside and we have no buses, a train that takes 50 minutes to walk to is cancelled a lot of the time in some seasons, and roads with no shoulder nor sidewalk where cars fly down at 20 over the posted speed limit.
The number of children I see zooming around the neighborhood without helmets and not even stopping at stop signs (I legit almost hit one kid one time who blew through a stop sign in front of me), is pretty horrifying. Their parents have basically given them all small motorcycles and let them go free with no supervision. It just seems so unsafe.
Some vehicles that people call "ebikes" should absolutely be registered and plated. You should not be able to take a motorized vehicle on a bike path and zoom through at 50+ MPH. The surron kiddies are going to ruin alternative transportation for everyone. Sure, surrons aren't ebikes (and something like a super 76 which has pedals really should be regulated as part of its own category like emoped or something), but regulators are going to want to put everything in nice neat categories and ban everything else.
The issue here is that we have no way to verify from your text whether you almost hit them because of their lack of responsibility, or if you weren't paying enough attention.
As someone with extensive experience with bike commuting on a regular bike, I have had multiple near death experiences while obeying all traffic laws properly and using multiple light sources. Even with my new 10 minute walking commute, the simple act of crossing the street safely when the street lights tell me to cross, has proved to be asking too much with multiple near hits in only a few months.
Humans are not remotely responsible enough to drive.
Lol I was paying perfect attention. Only reason the kid was ok was that I was far enough back to slam on my breaks (and was going the speed limit). I doubt he even realized how risky the move he pulled was.
In all fairness, I've also nearly been hit by asshole pickup trucks blowing the same stop sign. Guess it might just be that intersection that makes people think it's optional.
Not just children, but adults too! They're more likely to have a helmet on, but stop a stop sign? Nah, they don't have to stop, they are immune to traffic laws!
Stop signs and traffic lights only exist to stop cars from killing people, bicycles do not need stop signs.
It is safer for bicyclists to run stop signs than it is to come to a complete stop. Also who the fuck in 2026 actually stops at a stop sign? Nobody does.
Hell, I've had kids riding down the opposite lane of traffic riding wheelies and swerving around. Absolutely no accountability.
Kids having independence is a good thing. They are probably the first in their family to be independent from cars and so their parents don’t teach them cycling etiquette.
Yes independence is a good thing. If they were riding normal bikes, I'd have few issues with them. However, the way things currently are, I see a decent number of dead or disabled children in the future.
Not seems, is.
People are fucking stupid.
Genuinely nobody follows stop signs. I think it's like 20% actually come to a stop?
With bicycles, it's safer to treat stop signs as a yield signs since coming to a full stop means you'll cross the intersection much more slowly than if you keep some speed.
Helmets are bad for safety because (1) car drivers act more dangerous around cyclists wearing helmets and (2) they discourage people from riding bikes whereas the primary safety factor of cycling, by far, is the number of people cycling.
huh? I never wear a helmet outside of escooters but I'm not going to argue that no helmet is safer than helmet
I’m a bicyclist and a motorcyclist.
The bicyclists who act like a weekend class and a street safety test are an existential threat are full of it.
Yes, it IS possible to get licenses for things.
Having a plate on what’s a motorcycle in all but name is good for safety.
The number of people ripping along on bicycle and foot paths at 30mph+ has gotten insane. Even ignoring that, the number of single vehicle accidents on e-bikes has gone exponential.
How about instead regulate the bikes themselves so they perform safely and therefore don’t need a license?
What?
It's not that bad. Little accountability never hurt anyone!
If I had to have a dismissive opinion though, if the license plates do not increase safety and reduce bike thefts, then it's just another meaningless cog on the machine.
California bike riders are some of the most entitled idiots iv ever seen. Of every state iv driven though or lived in. Cali has the worse bikers. Frequently breaking the law, endangering themselves and others, and causing general issues for everyone.
I'm not the commenter you're replying to, I'm just a stranger who likes to play devil's advocate.
Last summer I visited San Francisco, and there were a bunch of e-bikes around. One almost plowed into me in the walkway at Golden Gate Park. It looked like it was going faster than all cars on the road next to us at the time. The guy was not wearing a helmet, didn't honk any kind of a horn or ring a bell, and barely called out a warning. It was a near miss, right after he swerved around the people in front of me.
I was looking up at the trees in the park (as you do in parks), when I hear a slight scream from one of the pedestrians in front of me, followed by a frantic "LOOK OUT" from the guy on the bike. I quickly stepped off the walkway onto the gras, so no accident happened, but it was still scary.
I can see the reasoning behind this law. There's no reason that the motor on that bike should go that fast without requiring inspections and some kind of license. Certainly no reason to be driving it that fast in a walkway, but I think that's already illegal.
As someone who's lived in San Francisco, the Bay Area has some of the all-time worst drivers bar none. Driving in the city is like Mad Max; there are seemingly no laws and it's every man for himself. Then out in the suburbs it's just people who are actively bad drivers. Gonna get tagged for this, but there might be a racial component to it. I once saw a Lexus driving around the East Bay with skis mounted to the roof horizontally (not that that is bad driving per se, but I think illustrates the type of drivers we have.)
That person was literally walking though?
walkway at Golden Gate Park
I was looking up at the trees in the park (as you do in parks)
hear a slight scream from one of the pedestrians in front of me
I quickly stepped off the walkway
I guess pedestrians are also disgusting polluters to you?
To be fair to them (even though I don't think they are engaging with me in good faith), I did take a plane to get there. Hard to bike across California, even on one of those e-bikes lol.
How does someone flying make them in any way dangerous in traffic, compared to someone who rides an unlimited speed electric motorcycle on a pedestrian walkway though?
I do hope you at least keep your money where your mouth is and only take bikes everywhere, even if it's several hundred or thousand miles.
Lol that still pollutes, you nimwit.
It's also more likely to kill people than a plane.
Don't get me wrong, I think the proposed legislation is taking the wrong approach and I think e-bikes are overall a good thing. I'm just saying that I see the reason why California wants to add some additional regulation to a motorized transport.
I have no problem with people riding regular bikes on sidewalks. Roads are scary as a cyclist surrounded by vehicles several times heavier than yours. People are riding e-bikes on the sidewalks everywhere I go. It makes walking scary on infrastructure made for walking. If you get hit by someone on a bike going 20 mph (~32 km/hr), someone is getting seriously hurt. This guy was actively endangering pedestrians.
Also, no matter how you look at it, e-bikes (individualized transport) are a worse thing for the environment than public transportation (communal transport), and certainly worse than walking (what I was doing in the walkway).
Motor + bicycle = motorcycle.
Except the house on fire doesn't share the pedestrian walkway with them, but the stove is speeding down the walkway lol
I'm whining about someone swinging a bat at people on the sidewalk while the whole neighborhood is on fire. The fire is a worse problem, and we should take care of it before it burns down everything. But someone should really take that bat away from that guy or at least replace it with a wiffle ball bat before someone gets hurt.
While my knee-jerk reaction was that they're going to over regulate, all those changes are already in effect in the EU and it didn't destroy the e-bike market there. So I guess California will manage.
Class 2 and 3 requiring license plates makes sense to me.
And class 1 would be pedelecs in the EU, where they are capped at 250 Watt and 25 kmh. Class 1 being capped at 750 Watt and 16mph (25kmh) seems okay, might be inconvenient with how much further apart everything is over there, but reaction times are the same all over the globe.
I personally don't even drive the full 25kmh, in the city I'm capped by the manual cyclists in front, which I don't need to overtake. And outside I'm too worried about my battery to go full power. I will say, cargo bikes in particular could use a higher powered motor than the 250 Watts we have here, but I have no idea what a good cap would be.
Then get a more powerful electric bike and a motorcycle license? Or perhaps don't go out of your way to annoy other road users, have you considered that as an alternative?
The idea is that someone without proven traffic knowledge and experience shouldn't be able to zoom to 50 km/h in 2 seconds. Plus with that kind of speed available on tap, you become a danger to pedestrians so it makes sense to require a license plate so it'd actually be possible to find you if you fuck someone up and decide to escape.
Or perhaps don’t go out of your way to annoy other road users
There are basically two ways that bicyclists annoy motor vehicle drivers and wind up being threatened with deadly force on the regular:
-
By following the rules
-
By not following the rules
I hope this clears things up.
I mean if you read that particular user's other comments, I'm pretty sure they try to swerve into cars and pedestrians on purpose. There was a comment saying it's basically ok to take your 40 km/h+ e-bike into pedestrians in San Francisco because they're tourists and therefore must've taken a plane there, making them as bad as car drivers.
FWIW I'm a driver and never have I felt like running a cyclist off the road. I also used to cycle and never did anyone try to run me off the road. This whole issue is pretty USA-specific IMO.
He doesn't seem like such a nice fellow online here. I don't think that means he tries to hurt people in real life.
I'm glad you haven't experienced the rage that drivers often express towards cyclists. I don't think its exclusively a US problem.
I've been riding bikes and driving cars for 30 years. It seems to me that any circumstance that requires drivers to slow down and consider how to respond to other people's needs is a guaranteed rage trigger -- for some fraction of the driving public. That seems to be carrying over into electric bikes as well.
I never said that. I just said that if you want a vehicle that's fast enough to use as a getaway vehicle when you smash someone's window in or something, you should be prepared to live with the consequences and have a visible license plate on it. If you want zero consequences for your actions, like the ability to literally kick someone's shit in and then just leg it without anyone catching you since there's no license plate... Be prepared to be limited to a lower speed.
No, it's not. If you want a fast getaway vehicle for whatever crime you're planning, it's illegal to not have a license plate. Boo fucking hoo.
Nobody is doing 50 km/h over any real distance on a skateboard lmao
Accelerating out of danger is both a last resort, and mostly ineffective. By the time you realize you need to accelerate, it's too late in almost every case. Also, in any situation where accelerating might help, braking would probably help as well. The entire argument that vehicles of any type need more power to be able to accelerate out of danger is mostly BS, as anyone who drives, or rides responsibly can see.
Considering your comments on this thread (this isn't FuckCars btw) i don't blame them.
Yeah judging by your comments, you probably go key people's cars or even punch off their mirrors and then get surprised when they try to chase you down lmao
You're thinking on the right questions..
It took years, but finally I realized the appropriate threshold is simply to have people go on an exercize-bike/meter, for a 90-minute-session, & have them sustain what they can, for that duration, then multiply their RMS-output ( root-mean-square rounds-down ) by 3x, & make that THEIR motor-limit:
This means that you don't get flimsy 50-lbs children with 750-w of bike-motor, & you also don't hobble linebackers ( I think that's what they're called: NFL tackles? ) with the same limit you're putting on small/flimsy ones.
Proportionate to the strength you wield when managing your own body, see?
So, for many reasonably-strong riders, it'd be .. around 300-w, tbh..
Alot of people would hate me for making the limit sooo close to their own physical-strength, but .. live longer.
& simply make another limit, higher, & require license-plate for that category.
I'd make it so that within the 25-kph & 3x-sustained-90-minutes-wattage, no license-plate is required: you get a photo-ID card which says you don't need a plate.
More power, more speed? then you need a plate.
Some cities need 40-kph to do the parkways, & that'd have to be one of the limits.
60-kph would be needed for other parkways, but that'd be absolute-limit, & some body-armor would be reasonable at that speed ( since crash-energy goes up with the square of the speed ).
Having been a courier, I'd put an either-speed-XOR-weight limit on them, so the fast-light people can get that, but the heavy-cargo couriers get a slower-speed, .. I"m not the only courier who discovered that it's .. an experience that many couriers have had .. to discover that one has been biking, in traffic, while unconscious. Sleep-biking. And I want that NOT happening at high-speed.
So, this is all like graduated-licensing, but done vertically, instead of temporally.
_ /\ _
Why are they capping wattage as well as speed? Is it important to the Canadian government that people must be unable to climb hills?
That is what the bike pedals are for. /s
Back in my day we pedaled up hills on our bicycles
Back in my day we hilled up our bicycles
Both ways
I would assume without reading it that it's because if you have enough wattage, you should be able to make more speed if you know how to get past whatever limiter there is.
This legislative whack-a-mole doesn't work and tends to originate from those with no understanding of the tech involved. See 3D printer laws that ban certain shapes as "gun parts." Very silly indeed.
They need to protect Alberta tar Sands profit
Two bills moving through the California legislature this year could change how e-bikes are bought, ridden, and regulated across the state. One would require riders of certain electric bikes to register their vehicles with the DMV and slap a license plate on the frame. The other would reduce the top speed that e-bikes for children are allowed to reach. If you are a daily commuter, a weekend rider, or a parent who just bought their kid a new electric bike, this news is worth paying attention to.
The bills are being pitched as a safety measure, and the lawmakers behind them say the surge in e-bike usage, especially among teens and tweens in suburban areas, has created real enforcement headaches for local police. Without license plates, officers say it is nearly impossible to ticket a rider safely without chasing them down, which creates its own set of dangers.
Officers told her they are seeing dangerous speeds from electric bikes but have no practical way to issue citations without putting themselves or others at risk.
My issue isn't them exceeding the speed limit, but outright disregarding traffic laws, like going the wrong way on the street, disregarding red lights and stop signs, and not having lights while operating at night. I don't do any of that when I'm on a bike, and the people who are breaking those laws also shouldn't be. Those are all issues that come up as readily with conventional bicycles as with e-bikes. If e-bikes on public roads are going to be required to sport a license plate, I'd think that conventional bicycles could also be required to have a license plate.
A license plate requirement means that people just writing an electric bicycle will be mass surveilled by flock cameras and have their location data added to their palantir dossier which is a seriousness civil liberties risk, the fact that they're trying to extend the bicycles is about control not safety we should resist it
They also need to stay off the fucking sidewalk!!! Back in NYC, it would be a daily occurrence that I would nearly get hit by an ebike or moped while walking my dog. It's infuriating. There's no fucking excuse guys
NYC probably bans it.
searches
Yeah.
https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYCadmin/0-0-0-31165
§ 19-176 Bicycle operation on sidewalks prohibited.
California has patchwork restrictions on it --- it may not be illegal where you see someone doing it.
searches
https://bikeeastbay.org/SidewalkCycling/
Here is a list of all the cities in the East Bay, South Bay, and Peninsula, and the sidewalk cycling laws for each community. Keep in mind that although children are allowed to ride on the sidewalk in some cities this does not mean that they are required to do so. Also note that if a jurisdiction does not specifically regulate sidewalk cycling via their local code then it is permitted everywhere (the “No Data” column below):
Who's gonna enforce it though? It's essentially unenforceable until someone causes an accident and the cops are called
Lump it onto Reason 450,439,812 as to why police in America need to be totally reformed. Since, y'know, you could make this same statement about a "Thou shalt not stab or kidnap someone in the middle of the street" law.
Then build me a mf bike lane. In many places (where I live!) its either the sidewalk or share the road with 55mph traffic. I’m taking the sidewalk…
Why should golf carts be able to ride on the side walk but not cyclists?
...who the fuck thinks golf carts should be allowed to ride on sidewalks?
The problem is not raining in the street is too dangerous cars will run you over and even a class 3 electric bike cannot keep up with cars on non-residential streets without a lot of manual exertion. I think it should be legal to ride on the sidewalk anywhere that does not have protected bike Lanes, not just a thin painted stripe
I'm OK with it being illegal to cycle on the pavement, even though I do it in places where it's not allowed. There, just as in places in my city where it is allowed, I slow down so that I'm more at the same speed as pedestrians, so that I don't cause a problem. But not everyone does, and it's easier to crack down on the shitheads if it's just plain not legal. If there were a crackdown, I'd easily be able to walk my bike in the places where I currently break the rules.
They should ban cars from the streets so pedestrians and ebikes dont have to share the little sidewalk.
Too many people in here are perfectly fine with all movement outside of their home being ID'd, documented and monitored. A plate on a bike does absolutely nothing to make the road safer. It just normalizes the "safety" of constant surveillance by your benevolent overlords.
Put normal regulations on e bike performance and build bike safe infrastructure. "It would be too dangerous to chase them"... get on your own bike you fat lazy pig.
Oh no.... Can't have people travelling around without flock cameras being able to establish travel patterns....
As more people turn to e bikes for commutes or errands, government needs to be able to track and Id you.
/s but still its probably true
I would support something that gets other cyclists to stop breaking the law. Running stop signs and red lights is dangerous for no fucking reason. I'm not sure if this is the right way though.
Maybe we should give them license plates and ban the flock cameras. Two birds, one stone.
ive seen cyclist almost run over people, by going extremely fast, and they warn pedestrians at all, or they make a obnoxious loud noise that is equally dangerous when it also involves cars.
Stop signs and stop lights only exist to prevent cars from killing people, they aren't necessary for bicycles going under 25mph.
The convenient surveillance doesn't exactly discourage the government from supporting/driving car-centric communities.
E-bikes are already capped at 25km/h here. Aren't they elsewhere?
That's nothing a cheap EEPROM reader from China cannot solve...
In the US e-bikes that can reach 60 mph — which is 96.5 km/h — without peddling are starting to become common, especially with children. They are motorcycles.
Those aren't e-bikes by any legal definition, they just look like e-bikes because they have some technically functional pedals.
E-bikes are categorized into three primary groups based on factors such as motor power, availability of pedal and/or throttle assist and maximum speeds. Familiarizing yourself with the e-bike class allows you to anticipate its performance characteristics. Depending on the class, certain areas may permit riding a Class 1 e-bike while prohibiting the use of a Class 3 e-bike for instance. These regulations vary across states with many states having their own e-bike classifications or lack thereof. California, for example, has legislation specifying three e-bike classes. There are generally accepted definitions for e-bike classes, and we provide an overview of these standard classifications below.
Class 1
A Class 1 e-bike, also known as a pedelec, relies on pedaling to propel forward. It features pedal assist but lacks throttle assist, limiting its speed to a maximum of 20 miles per hour. In most cases, Class 1 e-bikes are permitted in the same areas as traditional bicycles such as bike paths and bike lanes. However, the specific regulations governing their usage depend on local government ordinances.
Class 2
Class 2 e-bikes offer both pedal assist and throttle assist, allowing them to move forward even without pedaling. Generally, Class 2 e-bikes are not designed to exceed 20 mph. Many jurisdictions allow the use of Class 2 e-bikes on conventional bike paths and lanes.
Class 3
Class 3 e-bikes are slightly faster, reaching speeds of up to 28 mph. They often come equipped with a speedometer, which may be required in certain states like California. Class 3 e-bikes are typically permitted on roads and designated bike-only shoulder lanes. However, due to their higher power output, they are generally not allowed on standard bike lanes, paths or trails.
https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/carbapps/ebikeincentives/e-bike-basics/index.html
25 mph here
As if dozens of bros on dirt bikes and quads roaming about weren't enough, you have these dumb kids getting their hands on souped-up "e-bikes" where pedals are but an afterthought. These hellions are giving other e-bike riders, including people relying on pedal assist, a bad rep.
Heard from a friend who lives down just down the road from me say how recently this kid at her son's middle school just put some older substitute teacher into critical medical condition after colliding with this kid on his modded ebike coming down round the hill as the old teacher was crossing the street coming out from work
Yeah those are pretty much motorcycles. They need to be license plated.
You need a license for those, which requires, at least in sane countries, pretty extensive training. Bicycles require zero training. Hence, electrically assisted bicycles should be limited to sane speeds. If you want it to be faster, it's legally a motorcycle and you need training and accountability (license plate). It's not that complex. Nobody's banning faster e-mobility, you just need to prove you know how to handle it. Just like with the pollution machines...
The way you talk to people on Lemmy is unacceptable. The name calling and aggression is not okay. Please do better.
But of course you ARE that obese cunt, so why would i expect objectivity from you am I right, fatzo?
I probably weigh more than you, yes. Majority of it, by weight, is muscle mass. In fact I probably have more muscle mass than you have body weight, flab and all. Put it this way, you claim to need a fast electric bicycle to get away from whatever bullshit you pull to make people angry, I could just run away if I punched you in the face for being a cunt to someone and you couldn't catch me without your pwecious wittwe ewectwic bikey-wikey.
Pretty sensible. Brings things nearly in line with EU regs. Personally though I think 20mph is just about right as a limit without really upsetting people. It's 15.6mph here and I just don't see the point using one if I can ride faster on most terrain under my own steam.
It's 15.6mph here and I just don't see the point using one if I can ride faster on most terrain under my own steam.
Hills.
Shared bike paths. If I have to nearly stop to go around a kid on a tricycle it's no big deal since I can get back up to speed with no effort. But without the electric boost I'm more tempted to fly by to keep my speed up.
I have an ecsooter and I'm still tempted, because of preserving battery life. I try to not ride on the same paths as toddlers, and if I have to, I go really slow or even walk the scooter if it is congested.
I can ride 15.6mph up hills if I really want :)
Yeah I have a 20mph one and it feels pretty reasonable tbh
20 mph is difficult to hold your own with cars in the street.
Let's use traffic calming to limit cars to 20mph too.
That is at worst incidental. If you're worked up over a specific brand of camera, you can compromise your own convenience and ride an unpowered bike.
Whoops
I'd say stick a 30mph limit as a cutoff for needing to be licensed, with anything above that to just be considered a scooter (the 49cc kind that need licensed but aren't allowed on freeways) and anything faster than that a motorcycle, and be done with it.
There already is. Class III e bikes end at 28mph. Beyond that they're supposed to be plated.
I'd call this a problem that already has its solution in place, then. I'd bet the bigger issue is just people with faster bikes not following the law.
30mph is FAST, A 49cc moped is going to be able to hit a top speed of 30 miles per hour.
I'd say a speed limit for no licensing/registration/insurance should be 15mph. Thats about the speed an average cyclist would be able to go without electronic assists.
I can do 30+ on a road bike, and you can get a 49cc scooter to 40. The ones that cap at 30 are big or have limiters put on them. 30 is pretty fast, but not crazy fast. My little brother has a tricked out Onewheel that he races. It does 40mph. Now that's crazy fast.
You're sustaining 30 for over an hour on a road bike solely by pedaling? I didn't know we had olympians in the comments
You are misreading that he said he could keep it up for an hour
True, I did exaggerate. But the reality is sustained motorized speed is entirely different from a cyclist's burst speed, which is exactly why they shouldn't be regulated the same way.
I'd argue the opposite.
Lol. No, but do you think it's safer to pedal your ass off at thirty, or casually doing it on an e bike where you can look around and see everything else?
30 is not hard on a bike, dont need an ebike to do that
Just as an inspiration: in Germany the cut-off is 25 km/h (I'll leave doing the math to you). I think that's almost reasonable. Personally I'd favor 30 km/h, because that's a common speed limit for residential areas over here and that would allow them to better flow with traffic.
That's only 15 mph and it pretty damned terrible, really. That's slower than my cruising speed on my road bike and only half as fast as my burst speed when trying to go really quick. 40kmh would be about 25mph and that seems like an acceptable speed to have without being too unsafe to me.
Ah, an important fact I forgot to mention this rule applies to bikes with pedalling assistance, so pedelecs, strictly speaking. Real E-bikes, that can use their motor by flicking a switch always require a license plate. That's the silly part of the law her, imho. I just added this fact after having written the rest.
If you're doing more than 15 mph as a long-term cruising speed and 30 mph burst, I have to assume, you're a fairly fit and healthy person. And of course it wouldn't feel unsafe for you to do the same speeds with an E-bike. But what you have to consider is, that these bikes are also very popular with people who are not fit enough to reach those speeds unassisted and maybe haven't even ridden a bike for a long time. When I see some of our elderly citizens using them, I'm pretty happy they aren't allowed to go that much faster, since they are also not restricted to use roads and often share the way with pedestrians.
What you also have to put into consideration is, that this limit doesn't mean, that you cannot go faster, it's just that the assistance shuts of at ~15 mph and everything on top, you have to pedal in yourself. Which is a bit more exhausting, due to the overall heavier bike, but something I regularly do, even though I ride a pretty shoddy 10 year-old bike with less than ideal mechanics.
The overall experience of riding a bike like that is pretty damn great still and not at all as terrible, as you make it sound. You can go your regular cruising speed on flat parts, no restriction for downhill, but you get an extra lift for uphill sections, and what's the biggest plus for me is the extra acceleration - and ease thereof - when you have to stop at cross-sections and traffic-lights.
It's all depended on the surrounding traffic and environment a bit, so I'm not saying a carbon copy of that rule would be ideal for the US for example. But even though I'd wish for 3 mph more, it works pretty well around here. And don't forget that you can simply get a bike with a license plate for anythig beyond those rules.
You make some good points. What is of special annoyance in the US is that bikes are NOT allowed where pedestrians walk. Bikes are required to be in bike lanes (don't exist in most areas) or on the road with vehicles. The city I work in for instance, has quite a few sidewalks for people, but bikes aren't allowed on them. They just have to be in streets with other cars.
Some of these comments read like FBI boot licker plants
Too many.
"I want the government to limit my property for the state's benefit" is such a lib take. Oh and before anyone says its for "public safety" you're chugging state propaganda. If it was for public safety then they would get rid of right hand turns on red but we're not here to talk about that.
get rid of right hand turns on red
I've been driving in California for 30 years, and have never once considered right on reds a safety issue. At intersections where visibility is limited, they do prevent the turn on red.
I, like you, am uncomfortable with the license plate as a solution to the "something faster than an e-bike" problem. I don't think that's the solution. But it is a problem, and we should explore all possible solutions.
Miss me with your 30 years of driving bullshit https://apnews.com/article/red-light-turn-pedestrian-bicyclist-deaths-7f5bdee9c7b3f4cbf005f1844f486123
Miss me
What are you, twelve? You can find some isolated stories about tragic accidents (never mind the fact that the offender here did not stop at the red light, which is the crux of the issue.)
Yes, in my 30 years and hundreds of thousands of miles of driving in a state in which it is legal everywhere, I can conclusively say it's no less safe than the rest of cars vs pedestrians- which is to say not as safe as it should be, but the solution isn't in banning right-on-reds. Updates to the traffic code in Illinois (the state in which you cite the accident) go on not to ban right-on-reds, but to enforce a full and complete stop before the intersection and yielding to any pedestrians. Safety precautions that, frankly, should've been in place before and, from my seat, how it's enforced in California.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on_red
"A 1981 US Department of Transportation study determined that the frequency of motor vehicle collisions with bicyclists and pedestrians when the vehicle was turning right increased significantly after the adoption of "Western RTOR". According to that study "Estimates of the magnitude of the increases ranged from 43% to 107% for pedestrian accidents and 72% to 123% for bicyclist accidents." These RTOR accidents were between 1% and 3% of all pedestrian and bicycle accidents in the locations that were studied.[94]
A 1984 study found that where RTOR was allowed "all right-turning crashes increase by about 23%, pedestrian crashes by about 60%, and bicyclist crashes by about 100%."[95] A 1993 study also concluded that RTOR increased crashes for pedestrians and cyclists, by 44% and 59% respectively.[96]
For the 1982–1992 period, a National Highway Safety Commission report estimated that total fatal crashes in the U.S. involving vehicles making a right turn on red, were between 0 and 84, and probably toward the lower end of the range.[97]
A February 2002 study published in the ITE Journal concluded that "Prohibiting right turn on red would require drivers to turn on green. This would most likely increase the number of collisions by right turning vehicles."[2][98]
A 2009 study by The New York City Department of Transportation of injuries before and after right turn on red was allowed at specific intersections concluded that the change had not affected accident rates.[99]"
"Please regulate our ebikes while we don't have free healthcare" That's you, that's what you sound like.
I am 12 and your anecdotal evidence is childish now fuck off dumb ass lib.
Nothing like being called childish from someone not in control of their emotions.
Oh, and I don’t want e-bikes regulated. I want e-motos defined correctly.
A February 2002 study published in the ITE Journal concluded that “Prohibiting right turn on red would require drivers to turn on green. This would most likely increase the number of collisions by right turning vehicles.”[2][98]
A 2009 study by The New York City Department of Transportation of injuries before and after right turn on red was allowed at specific intersections concluded that the change had not affected accident rates.[99]"
I'm not sure the last two agree with your point there.
“Please regulate our ebikes while we don’t have free healthcare” That’s you, that’s what you sound like.
But then why not also deregulate cars and motorcycles? Why do electric motorcycles deserve to be unregulated while regular motorcycles are regulated?
We could use RTOR where I live. It would likely improve pedestrian safety because pedestrians don't cross with red. Pedestrian red and car red are synced. Lack of RTOR means cars have to make right turns when pedestrians are crossing.
[Analog] cyclist here. I'm of the opinion if it has a throttle, it needs some sort of registration and maybe even minimal insurance.
Class I (in the US), you don't need anyone's permission to ride. Just like a regular bicycle.
Class III, you need some sort of registration/license. Might as well be a motorcycle.
Class II is where we can have some discussion and disagreement.
Maybe I am mistaken on e bike ratings but can’t you have a class 3 without a throttle? And isn’t the definition of a class 2 that it does have a throttle?
I think you'll find the definitions of what constitutes each class is fairly moot when there's no-one enforcing the differences. You're right, not all class IIIs have throttles, but the ones that are causing the most problems definitely do.
Let's work on gun registration, then I'll be open to it.
Not sure where you are in the world, but where I am guns are most certainly registered.
Give you ONE guess 🤣🤣🤣
Your country already seems sensible, so I'd probably be ok with registration.
Somewhere in the American South? If so, I can see how you have such a pessimistic view of the US. My view from California is also pessimistic, but maybe not quite as much as if I were from, say, Florida or Texas.
Getting back to the original point, I'm not thrilled with the idea of any bike registration. But do have to agree with the idea of something being done about the dangerous class IIIs.
I don't agree with any of idea of registering a bike but what did people expect? Slap a motor on a bike and the cops are going to target you. Hell, no motor and they still will.
Edit: you can be mad about it if you want but I'm just letting you know thats exactly what they've always done to moped riders and now they're coming for electric motors. Same shit different year.
I mean if it drives the speed of a motorcycle and is powered like one, it should be registered.
Butttt watch the state overzealously use this to track all the bicyclists. Can't have those pesky bikers moving around without the law knowing now can we
Tough. Go back to a regular bike. Around here the cops have been making them follow the driving laws for a few years. There are no state laws but other ways to get them to not be a danger.
Exactly. America could use the exercise.
I would be getting zero exercise in my commute if it wasn’t for an ebike
You can commute on a bicycle.. true story.
There are about 9 very steep hills in the way. I would show up to my very professional job absolutely soaked to the nines heaving and hoing. Not happening.
An e bikes gives me some exercise yet I’m not absolutely dead when I get to work.
I forgot ebikes dont have liscence plates! That along with public transport is probably the most private ways to travel.
depends where you live, here ebikes than can go faster than 25km/h are considered as moped, with same obligations (insurance, license plate, full helmet)
It's more nuanced than just "regulation bad and I want my freedom." With the war in Iran destroying the world's energy economy, people will be forced to use cheaper modes of transportation. And when there aren't any buses/trains, E-bikes are a good solution. The problem will be that too many people will be pushed into it and some people are just retarded. There will be reckless people and there will be those that can barely operate the vehicle. I think it's worth considering some form of regulations knowing that they're may be an E-bike boom in the coming years (or maybe even months).
Cause its stupid. Regulate the bikes so they perform like regular bikes and forget about it.
People don’t buy ebikes to go fast, they buy them to make hills easier.
This is a weird take.
Some people are definitely buying ebikes to go fast.
And a kind of stupid take. If the bike can go up hills easy it can go fast easy. The limits are all in software and there's abundant evidence that software limits are easily circumvented.
California is spot on and if the e-bike is able to travel above 25 km/h it should be illegal to ride in the bicycle lane. Why the hell are kids riding an e-bike when they should be building endurance and muscles.
Do that for all bikes. If they run a stop sign or light, prison.
they shoud do it to normal cycilists, alot of them ignore pedestrians and expect them to move out of the way while flying at 20+mph towards them.
I went out on a 30 mile ride this weekend. On the busy but not crowded shared recreational trail there were many cyclists and many pedestrians. I came across many pedestrians in the correct lane and yielded to them a respectful distance. I also came across a number of pedestrians in the wrong lane, one of whom went absolutely apeshit angry after I firmly but politely told them they needed to walk in the correct lane. I even said "please."
We need to share these shared spaces, and cyclists who don't yield respectfully and/or go well over the safe speed are certainly a problem (and should be called out.) But goddamned are a good deal of pedestrians impeding my riding too.
Yes I being see why regular cyclists don't have license plates.
What a stupid idea.
EMS treats a pedestrian vs pedal bicycle accident the same as a pedestrian vs car accident.
Ebikes can go a lot faster.
Cars can go even faster and actually do kill thousands of people, but god fucking forbid we talk about slowing those down because we're so normalized to their violence that we're blind to it. I agree with the person you replied to, this is monumentally stupid. Give micromobility their own infrastructure, repurpose space currently given to cars. We've gotta stop pearl-clutching over sustainable progress.
Most so-called ebike deaths are actually car deaths, because the cyclist gets hit by a car
14 year old on a suron killed an 81 year old pedestrian here. The mom is being charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Cars require a license that can be taken away if the driver is a danger to society. They also drive on their own roads.
An e-bike can hit pretty high speeds and is usually ridden on pedestrian walkways. There's no license to take away, and if you don't get caught immediately, you can just go bye bye since there's no license plate.
That's why they're introducing regulations limiting unlicensed e-bikes to reasonable speeds, while more powerful e-bikes are still available if you're 18 and get a license plate. You can still ride it without any training since those don't assist you past 45 km/h either... Though personally I'm of the opinion that an ebike capable of hitting 45 km/h in 2 seconds on a pedestrian walkway should require training and a license too. Or just be banned from sidewalks.
Places that allow any sort of bike on the sidewalk are generally places that have neglected to bother with any sort of adequate biking infrastructure.
Having 3 roads in one street is easier than 5 and gives everyone more space. Separate cycling lanes where I've seen them suck. We have very wide sidewalks in lots of places and riding there is expected behavior.
But cars already require licenses and have speed limits? Now we're talking about limiting unlicensed e-bikes, whereas with a motorcycle license you could still go as fast as cars or... motorcycles.
How about we just license the ebikes according to what they're capable of like we do with cars and motorcycles?
Uhh that's what everyone's whining about here though. Not even a license requirement, a simple minimum age and license plate for high speed ebikes.
I think everyone in here is whining about slightly different things because of how many aspects there are to this discourse.
Quite possible.
Why not both
https://www.familiesforsafestreets.org/news/maryland-passes-stop-super-speeders-bill-waiting-gov-wes-moores-signature
I like FSS, in fact I attended a few rallies of the original New York chapter, but I actually think that bill is too soft. I'd rather we get serious about straight-up revoking the privledges of people who demonstrate they can't be trusted to safely wield them. This opinion isn't limited to vehicles.
The new law lays the groundwork for Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) technology, which uses GPS and onboard sensors to prevent vehicles from exceeding posted speed limits, to be used by super speeders. This is not a blanket mandate; it focuses on the most dangerous drivers while allowing safe mobility for the general public.
If this like a breathalyzer that only gets installed in some people's cars, or is it going to have to be in all cars?
It's not an either/or proposition.
A stupid person on an ebike can cause an accident.
And they slow down cars all the time. There are speed bumps galore near me.
Can, but more important thing is the weight. While lightweight bicycles can easily exceed 25km/h (and I personally can reach 40km/h with mine), they're usually much lighter, obviously. This comes with a noticeable difference in the impact itself. You could argue they're more stable or have better brakes, but people are just more irresponsible with them. I can bet my left ball on the fact that statistically ebikes crash more often than non-ebikes (per capita) and the crashes are almost always more severe
they're usually much lighter, obviously
Sure. But if the combined weight of rider and bike is around 100kg and that rises to 115kg for an electric, then that's not a huge difference.
100kg biker
220lbs. Overweight unless you are tall, but not unrealistic and not even an outlier in the US
Biker plus bike plus gear. Yes. Easily. Or it might be 90kg which changes nothing.
Lemmy when offline driver monitoring to prevent dui and falling asleep, texting: 🤬🤬
Lemmy when requiring license and registration just to ride a bicycle: 🤭
Good, they're great technology. Regulation and legislation will allow them to be used safely resulting in fewer cars on the road.
And have them pay insurance.
If you can't tell the difference between an e bike and an e motorcycle then you shouldn't be legislating
How should one distinguish them? Pedals are the obvious way, but they don't have anything to do with safety. A bike could have pedals and go 200 km/h.
What would a bike require to go 200km/h.
Seriously. Think about it.
A motor. Which is what ebikes have. The difference between a 20km/h ebike and a 200km/h ebike is the strength of the motor.
If you don't cap the strength of the motor to be classified as an "ebike", one could build an electric motorcycle that goes 200km/h and call it an ebike.
That's exactly what i'm talking about.
We're facing similar kneejerk laws down here and there is a massive world of difference between a 250-500w ebike and a multi kilowatt emote / dirt bike. However, legislators are acting like a goddamn 250w pedelec with an assist cutout at 30kph is the same as an illegally imported kilowatt emote some dipshit 17 year old ploughs into the back of a parked car at 60kph
I think we probably agree on the fundamentals here: it's the power and speed that should be a regulatory distinction.
That's not e-bike versus e-motorcycle exactly. It doesn't matter what the form factor or control mechanism is. If it's fast and powerful, you can't ride it on bike paths and need a driver's license to take it on the road.
