Hacker News Reader

Comment by monkeywork | Hacker News Reader

These ebikes that are designed to look like motorcycles are a bane and shouldn't be allowed to be driven without a license and insurance.

In the Toronto area we often see these bombing around, riders acting like they are motorcycles but having no training or understanding of safe practices, not wearing proper safety equipment, and several of the privately owned ones have been modified to increase their speed significantly.

I have no issue with the tech, I think it could be a great green solution, but the policies and regulations around it need to get caught up before people are seriously injured.

View on HN

Agreed; I have been driving for 20 years, motorcycle rider for 10 (and have owned anything from 50cc scooter which was my favourite, through 400cc supermoto to 750cc adventure/touring), enjoy bicycles - but the e-scooters / electric mopeds in Toronto, Canada are absolutely horrendous. They follow no particular rules of traffic - one second they are a vehicle occupying middle of a lane and blocking other vehicles. Next second they are a bicycle scooching to the right of the lane. Then they are pedestrian, crossing the street over a pedestrian crossing when all the rest of the traffic has come to a stop. All throughout they are drunkenly weaving in and out with no predictability or order.

They have no training, no safety equipment, no licensing, no enforcement, no accountability, and no care. In the meantime everybody else around them is trying very very very hard not to be part of a fatal accident.

So like the poster, I have no problem with technology. I have huge problems with lack of regulation and enforcement, and/or the users of such vehicles.

They are fairly explicitly advertised as tool to avoid regulation, insurance, rules and safety, for their own personal selfish convenience; and again, explicitly designed to mislead - they are designed to look like a motorized scooter [why not make them look like an eBike that they are?], but with semi-functional pedals so they can claim they are a bicycle.

Get these punks off my lawn! :-) [and let the hate and downvote begin!:]

Every single one of these complaints can and is frequently made about bicyclists as well. Maybe the problem is the increased number of people using bikes of any sort without training rather than anything specific about the fact that they're motorized.

Fair enough - there's truth in what you're saying :)

But while strictly speaking behaviour and concern overall are to your point similar; I think what additionally bothers me personally [and I recognize this is an emotional reaction] is this feeling of overt attempt to mislead.

A bicycle is a bicycle is a bicycle. They are predictably unpredictable - I understand what to expect out of them ("Anything":).

These electric scooters are intentionally made to look like a licensed motorized scooter which (in Toronto) is a vehicle like any other, licensed, insured and held accountable. Motorized scooter's behaviour is in principle predictable like any other car or motorcycle vehicle - they ride in the blocking position of lane and obey all traffic rules.

The electric scooters try to gain the veneer of respectability of motorized vehicle and look different than bicycles/e-bikes... but they do not behave like motorized scooters or motorcycles (and couldn't even if they wanted to - they cannot keep up with traffic to tide in blocking position and move with the flow).

There's a few people around me that ride them around and I feel the same way as you. I very very rarely ride my motorbike wihtout at least kevlar leggings and a kevlar jacket but I see these inexperienced riders riding through the streets and footpaths at 40km/h with a bicycle helmet on and a kid on the back, sometimes with a helmet, sometimes without.

It's dumb. It's also unfortunate that it's going to take ~10 people to die/permanent disability before anything is done about it.

I think you're right about the design of the bikes too. The ones I see are definitely designed to look and function like a moped/motorcycle.

The article says they can go 30mph. The law in most US states says that speed makes it a motorcycle. In your home province of Ontario, it also makes it a motorcycle. [1]

In California, for example, that means helmet is required and the operator must have driver's license that includes motorcycle operation. This is why most ebikes sold in the US are limited to 20mph.

So yeah, I don't get it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws

The limit is 20mph for throttle powered electric bikes. The limit is at a higher 28mph for pedal-assist bikes.

So many ebikes, boosted boards, electric unicycle ect go over those speeds.

Cops never enforce these rules, at least not pre-accident. Pulling over a scooter, checking the license, and then checking the specifics of the vehicle, takes time. They have bigger fish to fry (speeding/parking tickets). In my area we have color-coded stickers on our license plates so that cops can see whether your insurance is still valid. It isn't a perfect system, but a special license plate for non-motorcycle things might make their job easier. Everyone without the special plate would need a motorcycle license.

What really gets me angry is dealerships selling scooters, even full motorcycles, to people without appropriate licenses. You don't need a license to own a car/truck/motorcycle, only to use it. They know what they are doing when they sell a 250cc scooter to someone without a license.

Given that you don’t need a license to own one, why would you be upset that a business sells them without checking for a license?

Because kids are buying bikes and riding them without licenses. They either get hurt or cause injury, which is a bigger financial deal given they won't have insurance coverage. During the first months of summer, cops also regularly pull over sportbikes because they know so many (most?) aren't properly licensed. Just as I would be liable for handing my keys to an unlicensed rider, businesses should not allow purchasers to drive away without a license.

IMO, the business ought to make clear “this vehicle does [or does not] require a license to operate on public roads”.

After that, they’re not cops.

I bought an airplane before I had a pilot certificate. It wasn’t illegal nor improper to sell that to me; it’s on me, not the seller, to comply with the law, IMO.

But did you climb into it on the seller's property and fly it away? They aren't cops, but they should still act like reasonable people. In most areas there is no law about selling scuba equipment. Scuba licenses aren't handed out by governments. But good luck buying regulators or getting a tank filled from a proper shop without showing some form of proof you aren't going to go kill yourself.

I've purchased scuba equipment and tank fills from dive shops all over the world and have seldom been asked for a certification card.

So have I, but we probably give the impression we know what we are talking about. Send a 16yo kid who doesn't know a thing and see if they sell to him. That happens at motorcycle shops every day.

So then they go out and get a license, and they still go get hurt or cause an injury. There's little to no real training required to get a motorcycle endorsement, or even a driver's license.

As I always bitch and moan about... it needs to be WAY harder to get a license or motorcycle endorsement in the first place. We are constantly attacking the symptoms of the problem, and never going after the actual cause of the problem.

If you are talking about Ontario still the motorcycle license takes 3 phases and ultimately years to get. Unlike a car you can ride by yourself with an M1 because its impracticable to have a licensed driver with you but it has severe restrictions (like daylight hours only).

Depends. 99+% of people seeking a motorcycle license already have a normal driver's license for cars. That's the standard system whereby they can ride alone after some preliminary test. They already know how to drive on the roads. But it is possible to start with a motorcycle without first having a car license. Such people are subject to a blended version of the graduated system for car drivers, with the addition of various motorcycle restrictions. I've seen a couple people do this (kids who buy a bike while in highschool). I would not recommend it.

If you enforce license and insurance you have two forms of motivation for the person to operate safely... first they can lose said license and cause serious hardships on themselves if that is their primary mode of transport, and if they cause damage / act reckless their insurance can increase.

I'm also very confused by your statement -- you seem to think saying that these folks getting a license is not a good idea, and then turn around and say it needs to be harder to get a license?? which is it?

>not wearing proper safety equipment,

Well, that's their problem. Also take a look at how 3 billion people ride their motorcycles and mopeds (often 3-5 at a time) in e.g. China, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc. and the complains against ebikes are absolutely nullified...

I live in China and walked by one of those e-bike food delivery guys the other day. He was casually sitting on the sidewalk with his gear halfway taken off (I guess on break). Most of the skin on the front of his knee was completely, all the way down to the muscle and kneecap, gone. Looked like it was a few days old.

If you look at the road mortality statistics for those countries you'll see that safety equipment and regulations are absolutely necessary if you want to avoid lots of pain and suffering, and externalities. It's just those places simply can't afford them and deal with it in ways more advanced economies aren't prepared to accept.

>> Well, that's their problem.

I don;t live in Cambodia. When people here get hurt in my neighborhood they block traffic, are taken to hospital and are treated by teams of government-paid professionals. Then if they have severe head injuries that medical treatment may continue for many decades. We insist on helmets, as we insist on things like brakes and seatbelts, because we know that individual injuries quickly become everyone's problem.

Take a look at the chaos in their streets and the associated fatalities.

Riding a motorbike in Vietnam is a completely different experience to riding a motorbike in a western country.

People are actually aware of motorbikes, since it's the primary method of transport. Also, traffic moves a lot slower, you're usually riding at only 20-30 km/h in town in Vietnam. I felt much safer riding a motorbike in Vietnam than in New Zealand.

Upon saying that, the road injury and fatality statistics for the countries you mentioned are shocking. Vietnam is 2.5x higher than the USA for road fatalities per 100,000 per year, and the USA itself is shockingly high for a developed country, they're double Australia's rate.

>Upon saying that, the road injury and fatality statistics for the countries you mentioned are shocking. Vietnam is 2.5x higher than the USA for road fatalities per 100,000 per year

Just 2.5x doesn't sound shocking to me -- and probably the most of the difference is not even caused by driving patterns.

E.g. the road conditions in Vietnam vs the US, and the vehicle conditions there (breaks, mechanical faults, age, etc.) compared to the US...

I wonder if the AI gang will set up labs in Asian countries. It seems to be the forefront of massive multi-agent free floating shared space mobility.. So much ML training.

I wonder if per-capita is a misleading measure here. Clearly density (i.e. people or vehicles per sq. mi ) is more predictive of your accident rates.

The standard measure is per million miles or kilometers driven.

>Well, that's their problem.

You could say the same of seatbelts, yet their use is enforced by law because automobile fatalaties were a major public health problem. Society has an interest in protecting those who don't protect themselves.

>You could say the same of seatbelts, yet their use is enforced by law because automobile fatalaties were a major public health problem.

Was it because of that, or merely because the government just likes to overreach and regulate?

It was because of that, I promise.

The "mopeds" are actually gas scooters and presumably in the USA you need a licence and training for those and they have to stay on the road.

Though personally I would prefer a proper modern Vespa

additionally/alternatively close one road after another for cars and make it exclusively pedestrian/cycling ground.

And keep everything that is not powered exclusively by muscles out of those areas.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com