Guess which one of these vehicles has a motor that prevents it from going too fast for the safety of others?
Guess which one of these vehicles has a motor that prevents it from going too fast for the safety of others?
121 comments
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The limiter on an ebike also protects the 14 year old kid riding it from going too fast. If it didn't have limits then it'd be an electric motorbike that would need licencing, insurance, roadworthiness etc.
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OK but I'm not 14 nor are most of the people riding electric bikes. You can voluntarily put a limiter on it if your kid is riding it.
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What does the 14yo have to do with licensing, insurance and roadworthiness?
It's totally possible to put age restrictions on activities without requireing licensing, insurance or anything else. You don't need a license or insurance to drink, for example.
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But it’s also illegal to be drunk in public
I don’t know about you but I would very much like there to be restrictions on the size and speed of vehicles in bike lanes and I have personally witnessed a ton of assholes riding the good ol dui-cycles blasting 30mph on a multiuse path with pedestrians and normal cyclists. All that does is turn what are supposed to be safe paths into another area where you can injured my a motorized vehicle.
We already have requirements for motorized vehicles and the whole purpose of the max speed on the bikes is so that they aren’t considered mopeds which have had regulatory requirements for decades
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To be fair that truck is unsafe at any speed.
Even sitting in the parking lot people bash their legs on the tow hitch.
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bash their legs on the tow hitch
I doubt that very much, see as it's practically at eye-level.
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The height actually makes it worse cause they will often have a drop hitch to get low enough to meet the trailer, this tends to make it even less noticeable that there is a hitch at shin level.
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At the rate many pedestrians are locked into looking down at their phones, eye level obstructions are maybe more dangerous.
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Okay, maybe their arms
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unsafe at any speed
Found the Nader!
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that will be the bike
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The electric bicycle doesn't require a license to use. Supposedly you have been properly trained in the operation of a vehicle and are licensed to use it before getting behind the wheel. Supposedly. In reality the DMV hands licenses out like Halloween candy.
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I hit 50 MPH on downhills on my regular human-powered bicycle. Don't need a license or training for that either.
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The arguments made for bicycles being speed limited make sense, because it's not just about licensing requirements (what precious few there are...) but also mechanical limits on safe operation and a need to find a balance between individual freedom and public safety.
This is also the reason why, in Europe at least, all trucks have a 90 km/h governor by law, even though truck drivers are licensed to a higher standard than car drivers.
Cars being excluded from the conversations we are having about trucks and bicycles and motorcycles is nothing but pure hypocrisy. But then again, when has hypocrisy ever stopped a politician?
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Arguably regular bicycles should require a license to use, especially if they're ridden on roads (and I'm an avid cyclist saying this). Something I've seen a lot in recent years is people (full-grown adults who should know better as well as children) riding on the wrong side of the road, against traffic. It's just beyond insane how dumb this is - not to mention completely illegal.
I few weeks ago I was riding home and came face-to-face with a woman on a bike towing her two little children, riding on the wrong side of the road around a completely blind turn. I was barely able to avoid hitting her, and I was on a bike. A car going a normal 25 mph around that turn likely would have crashed into her. I stopped and tried to talk to her about what she was doing, but she gave me that bland cow look that people adopt when they decide not to listen to criticism and rode on down the wrong side of the street.
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The wrong side thing I'd say is probably because many bikes (even ebikes!) don't come with a mirror. So the rider lacks awareness if they aren't doing regular head-turns.
Similar lacking bell, which can be used to announce your presence to other people who might be around the corner (when you wouldn't want to use a loud horn).
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Seems to me that building distinct infrastructure for non-motor vehicles is much better solution than growing out the bureaucratic machinery that would be required to license every damn bicycle, and that any time we get the misplaced urge to self-harm by suggesting that this joy of a transportation mode be made to comply with the same licensing requirements as 2+ ton combustion machine we instead redirect that energy into something positive like infrastructure advocacy.
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We're mostly trained to drive at 60kmph and not 150kmph, yet there's no limiter at 90kmph.
But yes i agree, these rule are to protect the rider, not others, just like the mandatory helmet rule on moped and motorcycle.
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Fuck cars, but also fuck idiots on unlicensed 40mph Temu deathtraps.
Want to go Bertie Big Bollocks fast, grow some leg muscles.
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Tbf, an idiot in a 40mph temu deathtrap crashing against you would still do roughly half the damage of one of those trucks crashing against you at 10mph. But yeah, I hate them too.
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I'd say the speed limits on ebikes are primarily there for the safety of the operator, not others. Pretty much all cars nowadays have similar electronic limits.
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For instance my wrangler is limited to about 80 through the engineering of a low power engine and the wind resistance of a cardboard box.
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Looooooool 👏
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They are there because ebikes often share space with pedestrians, and bycicle paths are much more likely to intersect
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The people getting the limiter laws passed aren't doing it for rider safety, they're doing it because their constituent's confirmation bias and motornormativity is causing them to phone or write in complaints that they would have never made over a near-death encounter with a pickup truck.
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Which one of these vehicles expects to be operated in pedestrian spaces?
I don't know why this is so hard. Cars should also have speed limiters, and the reason they don't is bullshit tradition. As we invent the next paradigm in personal transportation we shouldn't be making the same mistakes. I really can't imagine how anyone could disagree with this unless they are acting in bad faith.
The existence of ebikes doesn't depreciate the existence of motorcycles or mopeds. If you want a motorcycle or moped then get one, but don't pretend it's ok to ride it on bike paths.
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Cars operate in pedestrian spaces all the time.
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Yes, this is precisely what I mean by "bad faith." Even in the most terminally car brain culture there is effort made to separate pedestrian and automobile traffic, even if that means time interleaving on the same roadway. Very few places in the developed world allow pedestrians and automobiles to share the same roadway at the same time the way bicycles and pedestrians can.
The simple and (I thought) self evident premise here is that cyclists and pedestrians can coexist in ways pedestrians and motor vehicles cannot. Blurring the line between a bicycle and a moped serves nobody besides those who seek to perpetuate the exact same legacy ideas which currently force pedestrians and motor vehicles into needless, dangerous conflict.
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You make it sound like cars are driving over the sidewalk at the same propensity and speed that they are driving on the road.
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But don’t you understand? I need to be able to go 130 mph at a moments notice! Just think of all the times I could need that!
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Furthermore, in contrast to a car, I see people in bycicles and even ebikes far less willing to brake for any obstacles or civilians in their path. This is because they are less adept at accelerating and braking, so they want to conserve momentum above all else. They also have less visibility at a glance given how bad or completely absent most bicycle mirrors are, and maintaining stability, having to operate the pedals, and having to turn your head and body far more often while being in a far more uncomfortable position makes for a far more stressed operator.
I've always considered it absurd that scooters can't have seats in a lot of countries, this is the one thing bicycles and ebikes get right and it allows for a safer ride with the possibility to rest from the stress of it. Being able to walk and use the road shouldn't be a vehicle training issue, it should be road education training issue. Speed, that is one that varies significantly, like Germany's autobahn shows. Cars can receive traffic tickets and revoking licenses. On an ebike, there isn't a license to revoke, and 25km/h is already considerably dangerous to bystanders, specially coming from a vehicle that far from being designed and tested for collisions is a mesh of protruding elements instead that also has the absence of an insurance provider for when accidents do happen
This is fuck cars, don't expect common sense to predominate, people here hate cars as if they were in a religion dedicated to it. I wonder how many just live in a bubble of privilege where the countries are wealthy enough to have the carless transit infrastructure and their lifestyles are sedentary enough and localized in a sufficiently centralized urban hub where they can actually hold those beliefs.
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Ebikes typically have a speed limiter. That brodozer doesn't because they modded it.
However, some go fuck-all by rolling their own ebikes for higher speeds to get around license restrictions normally needed for a motorcycle.
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I'm for options. Where I live there is no option. You must drive. The busses come once and hour and go nowhere useful itnseems. There are few sidewalks and fewer bike lanes. Even if you wanted to ride a bike there's strides everywhere making it dangerous AF.
I want the option to drive, or walk, or ride a bike, or take a bus.
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I could take a picture of my truck that's governed to 90mph and one of those overpowered ebikes that only have pedals for regulatory reasons (that people ride dangerously on bike/pedestrian paths all the time) and ask the same thing. Don't get me wrong, I hate our society's dependence on cars, but this isn't making much of a point.
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The regulatory reasons are actually what the speed limit on bikes is about. Lots of places, once you're powered and going over 20mph they become motorcycles, meaning they can only be used on roads, require blinkers, brake lights, horns, registration, licensing, insurance, etc.
So the manufacturers have the motor cut off at 20mph to keep them classified as bicycles.
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That's assuming they're actually limited, or that the limiter isn't trivial to bypass. There are a lot of them where I live and it makes trying to use the bike path frustrating sometimes. Regulation is spotty and enforcement is almost nonexistent in most locales.
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Question for everyone, if I, in the unlikely event, go over 20 mph on a bike lane using an nonelectric bike, can I get a ticket?
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I suggest you look up the number of peopls killed evey year by bicycles and compare it to the number killed by pickups. I'll wait.
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His idea of dangerous is scratching his precious truck, not people's lives. Hope that clears it up.
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You could and you’d be making a similar point to the OP: cars are far more dangerous and have governors only to protect the engine from damage, not to protect people.
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While I think they're being a dick, you're wrong about the purpose of governors - they're also there to prevent the loss of handling that results from low speed tires / low power power-steering being run beyond their rated capacity (and historically to prevent blowover crashes, which is only really a risk to trucks anymore)
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90 is too fast.
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Plus one of them doesn't blow exhaust into the face of the rider on the other one. I know I'd take the one that doesn't have exhaust.
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Both? Almost all cars have speed limiters because the tires they ship with arent rated for higher speeds.
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A truck like that probably only can do 100mph maybe 120mph. A governor wouldn’t kick in until like 150mph. Most of the cars I have seen where it matters have a “track mode” to turn it off anyway.
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The speed limit seems to be 105 according to google. Speed limiter removed looks like about 120? It may be a a brick, but 300 HP is still 300HP. As long as it's got reasonable gearing it should easily exceed 100mph. With half the power (and cylinders) my Outback can do faster than that, and it ain't exactly aerodynamic.
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The truck doesn’t have a motor at all. It’s got an engine.
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both vehicles are for roads.
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Why are bikes on sidewalks?
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In Chicago it's because of 1 of 3 reasons:
- They are 12 or under.
- There isn't any bike infrastructure and they are safer on the sidewalk.
- They're a dick and ride on the sidewalk anyway in spite the very nice protected bike lanes that are right next to the sidewalk. This is the case 90% of the time and could be curbed with some education and enforcement, but that'll never probably happen.
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Both do so I’m not sure what your point is.
I mean if you actually cared about reality more than your feelings you could investigate which of these devices kills or injures more pedestrians. But I’m guessing your views are too entrenched to be influenced by facts.
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death machine to compensate for no life
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How many trucks per year kill while going above 80?
121 comments
For those of you in countries that care about people and push pedestrian safety in vehicle design: take a close look at that front bumper if you haven't.