What a one-sided article. I am rather disappointed with the BBC.
To begin with, statistics show the prime motivator for adopting e-bikes is as an alternative to driving. Yet there is no mention of how traffic fatalities are affected by people moving away from vehicles.
The article is narrowly focused on e-bike incidents involving self-injury or injury to pedestrians. It criticizes the extra weight of an e-bike vs a conventional push bike. Let’s consider that for a moment. My weight as a rider is easily over 3x that of the e-bike. And let’s say a regular bike would weigh half as much. Then the aggregate increase in weight from me choosing an e-bike is something like 1/6th more weight. Sure, that could factor into the severity of an injury, but we’re not talking 2-ton vehicles here…
Then it mentions speed. Street legal ebikes are limited to not travel faster than regular bikes. The extra weight does add some kinetic energy. Otoh I am literally hard-pressed to go faster than the limiter on my own power and people on regular bikes pass me all the time. The only place where I have an advantage is in climbing hills. I don’t mind if they make speed zones around playgrounds and what not. I never pass a pedestrian at >20 kph myself. Most e-bikes have speedometers. Most regular bikes do not, however, so there could be some trouble with regulating that.
I regolarly use ebikes and I’m pretty cautious but I admit I see several ones going full speed wherever they can, which includes public parks and pedestrian-only streets.
I guess we just need more awareness that they’re not like regular bikes: you cannot constantly drive 25 km/h with a standard city bike, it’s 80% of the time slower/safer than an ebike when compared.
What a one-sided article. I am rather disappointed with the BBC.
To begin with, statistics show the prime motivator for adopting e-bikes is as an alternative to driving. Yet there is no mention of how traffic fatalities are affected by people moving away from vehicles.
The article is narrowly focused on e-bike incidents involving self-injury or injury to pedestrians. It criticizes the extra weight of an e-bike vs a conventional push bike. Let’s consider that for a moment. My weight as a rider is easily over 3x that of the e-bike. And let’s say a regular bike would weigh half as much. Then the aggregate increase in weight from me choosing an e-bike is something like 1/6th more weight. Sure, that could factor into the severity of an injury, but we’re not talking 2-ton vehicles here…
Then it mentions speed. Street legal ebikes are limited to not travel faster than regular bikes. The extra weight does add some kinetic energy. Otoh I am literally hard-pressed to go faster than the limiter on my own power and people on regular bikes pass me all the time. The only place where I have an advantage is in climbing hills. I don’t mind if they make speed zones around playgrounds and what not. I never pass a pedestrian at >20 kph myself. Most e-bikes have speedometers. Most regular bikes do not, however, so there could be some trouble with regulating that.
I regolarly use ebikes and I’m pretty cautious but I admit I see several ones going full speed wherever they can, which includes public parks and pedestrian-only streets. I guess we just need more awareness that they’re not like regular bikes: you cannot constantly drive 25 km/h with a standard city bike, it’s 80% of the time slower/safer than an ebike when compared.