Do that for all bikes. If they run a stop sign or light, prison.
What age do you suggest bicycle riders have to be? I think registering pedal bikes is absurd and limits many people. You already can get tickets on a bicycle for anything from running stop signs to speeding to DUI. I do think e bikes with a throttle should be registered like scooters because people riding them are getting folded up BAD because they treat the safety like that of a bicycle but then do motorcycle speeds on them and it leads to pretty serious injury. But I think any bike that’s pedal only or only pedal assist (read: NO throttle) has no reason to be registered.
Ok then if we’re playing the ‘limits’ card: I see you throwing shade at throttle. I really hope we don’t erase the people with disabilities and recovery trying to use extra help on the pedals as ‘a fad’
Eg: We already have bad actors over on the gluten allergies deniers. It doesn’t mean every one with a diet restricting is doing ‘a fad’.
Don’t bring that shit here. Don’t be like that when it comes to bikes. Maybe you don’t speak for every one and their special needs that you’re clearly ignoring.
Not disagreeing with you overall, but when I was at school, there was a hill that let me get enough speed on my pedal bike to keep up with the flow of traffic. It felt wild being able to merge into traffic at speed on a bicycle for the left turn at the end of it. Probably not the safest thing to do, though I’m glad I did because it was fun. The hill wasn’t even that steep, just long.
That’s awesome! Yea I have tracked behind road bike guys before because I did not have a safe space to pass them and they were clocking 30mph on flat ground! But you have to work for it on a pedal bike, these guys with a throttle are doing 30 everywhere they can because why wouldn’t you? I ride motorcycles and I wear all of the gear. I got into an accident at 30mph and I now have a custom made steel plate and 16 screws holding me together, and if not for the jacket I may have lost my left arm so my concern is legitimately about safety because i have been in that hospital bed. I can only imagine some poor 14 year old getting way out of their depth and ending up in an accident like that, and that is why I think throttle e bikes should be treated closer to scooters. Where I live you don’t need a moto endorsement for a scooter of 50cc or lower, but you need at least a learners permit for a regular licence so you have been educated on the road rules and risks etc.
Just shoot tgem in the face. It’s america after all.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
What network of bike lanes and bike roads?? Sure, there are SOME bike lanes, but where we are, most roads don’t have them and sometimes you gotta get in with the cars or on the sidewalk.
Oh and it’s technically illegal to ride on the sidewalk. We do it anyway because going with the cars is pretty unsafe when you can only go 15mph at best.
– Frost
There actually is a network of bike lanes and bike roads. It is still faster for the bikers to just race through the pedestrian zone. And woe to those who don’t jump out of the food couriers way.
And while you complain about the dangers of the road for cyclists, you endanger pedestrians in the same way.
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.
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).
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’m gonna play devil’s advocate here a little bit. If you can drive a “bicycle” the same as a scooter (30 mph motorized vehicle) why would you not regulate the same? Scooters have to be registered and I think these 30mph ebikes with a throttle are pretty much the same thing. Should have reg and insurance if your doing 30 and operating on the roadways as a motorized vehicle. Otherwise why did I register any of my motorcycles? Why register a car? Read about ebike injuries. Their more akin to motorcycle crashes than bicycle accidents. Also can cause damage to other motor vehicles and injure pedestrians just as much as a scooter would.
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.
Studies show that treating stop signs as yield signs and lights as stop signs saves cyclist lives. See the Idaho stop.
What makes cars safe to be around is not necessary for cyclist safety to themselves or others.
The cyclists around where I am ignore stop signs and lights. I’ve seen some that will get to a red light, take a right without stopping. Immediately take a u turn less that 30 feet from the intersection. Then take another right without stopping.
I’m not convinced that criminalizing them is the correct answer. Ideally we would just build real bike infrastructure and public transit. Less cars on the road is also probably a lot safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
Stop signs and stop lights only exist to prevent cars from killing people, they aren’t necessary for bicycles going under 25mph.
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.
The convenient surveillance doesn’t exactly discourage the government from supporting/driving car-centric communities.
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.
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 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.
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.
Helmets are pretty important for safety. I don’t really have strong opinions on whether helmets should be required or not, just because if you go flying without a helmet and die it only kills you, but… yeah, we’ve gotten hit by cars (on our dinky 15mph escooter) and the helmet probably saved our life.
That also applies even if you don’t get hit by a car and just, say, get your wheel stuck in a train track rail or something and go down. (We’ve had that happen, too, on a bike.)
– Frost
huh? I never wear a helmet outside of escooters but I’m not going to argue that no helmet is safer than helmet
I should have been clearer sorry. Wearing a helmet is obviously better in a crash; but, both personally and societally, not wearing one decreases the chances of getting in a crash in the first place.
Not seems, is.
People are fucking stupid.
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.
deleted by creator
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.
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
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.
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?
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
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.
Removed by mod
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.
Removed by mod
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.
Removed by mod
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.
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.
Removed by mod
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.
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.)
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.
