I’d be more upset about this if cars were also fitted with speed limiters.
Cars are fitted with speed limiters and have been for a long time. 160km/h - 165km/h is typical for cars to stop accelerating at.
Sorry, I meant reasonable speed limiters. If the bike is capped at 32kph, so should the cars. We’re talking about safety, right?
That…is a pretty dumb take.
Bikes/Scooters are not cars, they’re not insured, they’re not licensed. Children can and regularly do use them.
Now if you want to talk about properly ticketing, charging, and impounding cars/drivers breaking the rules, that’s a different conversation. But an ebike or scooter going 120km/h isn’t the same as a car doing 120km/h on a highway.
It’s more an objection to the typical “personal freedom” argument you get from car drivers who balk at the idea of speed limiters. There is no road in North America with a speed limit of 160kph, so a hard limit of that value is meaningless. I’d be open to a dynamic speed limiter that was context-aware though: we already see that cars have the capability of knowing the current speed limit and chiming to let the driver know they’re busting the limit. There’s no reason why the limit shouldn’t be enforced there in the same way that e-bikes have a fixed limit… even when they’re forced to share a road with cars that do not obey the limit.
I accept your argument that bikes aren’t insured or licensed, and that this can be used as an excuse to limit their capabilities, but as one of the law-abiding e-bike riders who’s been tailgated, close-passed and nearly run off the road by more than a few angry drivers, I can assure you that e-bikes are not the problem when it comes to safety. 2-tonnes of steel and glass being driven by (licensed, insured) absolute maniacs is the real threat.
I think some form of limit aware speed chime or warning is required on new cars sold in the EU. Having driven a few, I would not want to trust that technology to slow the car down.
Many times I have had a car’s camera pick up a speed limit sign from a neighbouring road to the highway and indicate that I was suddenly going 60 km/h over the new speed limit. Same thing if GPS tracking or map data isn’t perfect on cars that use that instead.
Well if technology can’t be trusted to keep two tonnes of steel and glass from moving at unsafe speeds, the obvious response must be to ban such vehicles from areas where they might be used to kill people.
That…is a pretty dumb take
i don’t agree
cars cause way more deaths, i’m all for limiting them to 30 km/hr. And even if scooters cause deaths its mostly the idiot riding them, with cars, the drivers murder other people … all the time.
So what’s your plan to redesign every single city in the country? Are you going to build out high speed rail?
It’s a dumb take because it doesn’t account for the myriad of things that would need to be intrinsically altered to accomplish your goal of 30km/h cars.
I don’t argue people kill tons of people with cars every year, I will argue about what your plan is outside of slow down cars. We’d be looking at least at hundreds of billions to rebuild everything, likely more.
? I’ve definitely exceeded that in cars and pickup trucks
nah, not safe enough. we need them to go 32kmph. thats safe.
32,000 mph?!
That’s the only way they can get far enough away that I’ll be happy.
If it would be up to me, I’d force everyone to get a special driving license for cars going upwards this limit.
If bigger transport requires a special license and an expertise in driving them, so should speedy cars. And it should be harder to pass since it is more dangerous to drive over this limit.
The problem isn’t the speed, there aren’t speed restrictors on motorcycles or cars.
The problem is there’s no safe lane for them to be ridden. There’s no infrastructure accommodation for them. They can’t be ridden on the sidewalk, and they’re unsafe in regular traffic. Bicycle lanes aren’t ubiquitous enough or designed well enough for bicycles, let alone these mixing with bicycles.
As usual, rather than raising taxes on the filthy rich to fund better infrastructure for the good of the people, they limit what we can do because it’s cheaper and we have less power to resist, or at least, aren’t organized well enough to exercise the power we have.
Weird you missed another key distinction: testing, licensing, and associated age restrictions.
At these speeds they’re electric motorcycles. They should be treated accordingly (and I say that as an avid cyclist who’s incredibly supportive of e-bikes).
In some ways speed is an issue, for instance if you could go the same speed as the rest of the traffic you could avoid situations where you’re biking on a tiny strip on the edge of the road and cars pass you very close, by staying in the middle of the road instead. Of course just adding adequate bike lanes would be the better solution since then you wouldn’t have any safety downsides for going slower.
I don’t think adding bike lanes would solve the speed issue. I think bike lanes should not have any bikes or devices in there that can go over 30-40kph because then you will have a mix of regular bikes and super fast ebikes which will eventually cause an accident with someone crashing into a regular bike.
If you want to go over 30-40kph stick to the regular traffic lanes.
My point is, in the absence of good bike lanes, being speed limited can be dangerous, there’s more motivation to want something that can keep up with the flow of traffic. If there was accommodation for slower bike traffic, ebikes with lower max speed would be more desirable/functional.
If an ebike can go fast enough riding in regular car lanes shouldn’t be too much of an issue. It wouldnt be any more dangerous than driving a motorcycle.
The main reason bikes don’t do well in car lanes is because they can’t keep up with the flow of traffic typically and cause cars to pile up behind them and then people get impatient and aggressive.
An ebike that can go 50-60kph would basically just be a motorcycle in traffic that could then slip into a bike lane when traffic gets bad.
Just fine them. Set up speed traps.
Toronto police do something? Not an option, they are all on paid leave pending investigation.
I unlocked the speed limiter on my ebike soon after I bought it. It was easy to find out how by reading the instruction manual - hold down some key combo on the display box and enter secret menu.
Did some testing on my rural road and got up to 45 MPH going downhill in its top gear. It felt very unsafe so I only tried that once.
No, I’m not doing that on sidewalks or around any people. Also I am licensed to drive a motorcycle on public roads.
The speed is fine, the stopping power is the problem. Like the musclecar guys with 50s front drum brakes. 😕
Even 70 km/h seems terrifying on what are essentially wide MTB tires. Hit a pot hole and you’re dead.
I’ve done 60 downhill on a commuter bicycle, and with the steering geometry forces being different downhill the bike gets uncorfortably unstable. I turned to take a driveway off the main road and the back end slid around, then caught suddenly, the rear wheel tacoed itself, i highsided and slid, ground through my shirt and jacket. Helmet kept my head safe, but I was in really rough shape and a little bloodied.
I see kids flying by helmetless on their tweaked scooters and ebikes. 🙏
Ah so these are the people riding down sidewalks where I live
You just reminded me, I was very slowly coasting my bike (one metre per second?) down the sidewalk next to my apartment as I waited for traffic to clear to get on the road. I saw two young boys, approx three and four years old, ten metres up the sidewalk but they hadn’t seen me yet. The older brother saw me, shrieked, and stepped over to shield his little brother from my rampage. It was so cute. :)
They are an amazing technology. Slowly they will change transportation in cities. A 120 km/h and a 100 km range is a game changer.
I get annoyed by them all the time because people rip them around in places you wouldn’t take a car, and they’re getting powerful enough to be dangerous. Still, the potential is huge. They use so much less space, infrastructure, and energy than cars. They’re also significantly cheaper.
They’ve killed off the 50cc Vespa gas scooter, just too good of a technology. The old 50cc’s were a pain, have to gas them up, and not always starting. Couldn’t bring them inside, too dirty of a motorcycle. It’ll be a slow change, still a newish technnology. Much to figure out about using them in traffic and such.
They have been banned in the CBD of my city because they are ridden on footwaths plenty and after numerous collision injuries someone was killed by an electric scooter. They are need to be regulated, licenced and only ridden on the road/cycle paths if they go that fast (whilst also being practically silent mind you).
Bicycles are supposed to ride on the road (not sidewalk) yes? So why are they being limited to a speed that is actively disruptive to traffic? Going 30 in a 50 zone means you are going 20km/h under the limit, which is considered disruptive and is actuality a ticket-worthy offense if you are in a car. So why are bikes being limited to that? This makes no sense. If you don’t want bike lanes and want bikes to ride with traffic, then they need to be able to flow with the speed of traffic. Absolute mindless nonsense! It’s safer to be going the speed of traffic than to be going slower and have an impatient car try to get past the slow AF cyclist.
That also seems really slow, to me.
On a modest downhill on my POS rusty mountain bike, I’m pretty sure I get up to about 50 km/h, and can go the speed of traffic. I sometimes need to brake so I don’t pass cars! On an efficient road bike, I imagine I could sustain speeds above 32 km/h on level roads, too.
I just looked it up, and indeed: 1 km cycle speeds of 40+ km/h are fairly pedestrian.
A 32 km/h level-ground limit seems really slow.
I am an experienced (adult) driver, cycle defensively, about major roads, drive according to conditions, etc., so I know how to use roads safely. If I had one of these, I imagine I would be really frustrated to be going slower than I could cycling, so I’d probably disable the limiter myself, too—but I wouldn’t be going north of 50 on any bike, electric or not.
Going highway speeds on a bicycle is insanity, regardless of age. And children shouldn’t be operating motor vehicles at all. (Well, aside from walking- or jogging-speed toys, not on roads). But 32 km/h seems overly restrictive, and inviting non-compliance.
If I had one of these, I imagine I would be really frustrated to be going slower than I could cycling, so I’d probably disable the limiter myself, too
If this is anything like in Europe, then the limit is where the assistance stops. You’re still free to pedal as fast as you like
The solution is to reduce the speed limits then, not give every kid a motorcycle
Candidates for manslaughter?
Was at the fair they were doing a drawing for an RC remote control car they claim will do 80MPH. That alone is insane.
It sounds like most people don’t understand what a meat crayon is. It’s fine, just require a license and make sure the class shows what motorcycle accidents look like, all the gore and the screaming. I remember one video, even with having all the bike gear, hit a bump and headbutted a stone wall. Dead.
I have read that many parents regret having their children. Somehow I think there is a link.
Just require a license for anything that can be unlocked. If that doesn’t help then insurance requirements.
Should be the same licence requirements and insurance as a limited speed motorcycle (must be under 50cc) which are limited to 70 km/hr.
Good. Faster eBikes = less vehicle usage
What level of car-brain causes someone to use a hidden camera to snitch in hopes of getting non-car mobility shut down or nerfed to the point of uselessness?
None?
My problems are:
- E-bikes going down bike paths and trails at 80km/h
- e-scooters going down pedestrian sidewalks at 50km/h
- 11 year olds on e-devices thinking that since their devices can go 50km/h, they can ride them in traffic at those speeds.
Nerfing non-car mobility brings the speeds down to what is safe for an unlicensed vehicle driven by an unlicensed operator in public spaces.
I have no issue with e-motorcycles, with the appropriate licensing.
