Comment by throw0101a | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throw0101a | Hacker News Reader

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> For many, being able to pedal, but not being required to pedal all the time, is one of the main reasons to use an e-bike in the first place.

IMHO if you're not pedalling it is no longer a "bicycle", it is some other class of vehicle (e-scooter?). I have no problem with e-bikes providing a boost, but if you're not doing the work then it should be treated differently. EU 2002/24/EC sounds reasonable:

> Cycles with pedal assistance which are equipped with an auxiliary electric motor having a maximum continuous rated power of 0.25 kW, of which the output is progressively reduced and finally cut off as the vehicle reaches a speed of 25 km/h (16 mph) or if the cyclist stops pedaling.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws#Europe

There are a lot "e-bikes" where I live where are token pedals on the machine to make it "self-propelled", but folks simply use the e-motor and zip along quite quickly. They require no licensing and no insurance AFAICT.

As someone who has a motorcycle license, and had to do a bunch of training and get insurance I see folks on these things as no different to my if I were on a 125cc or 250cc motorcycle/scooter.

I'm happy to have these types of vehicles enter the mix of transportation modes (and hopefully reduce automobile use), but I think the following are needed for e-scooters (née e-bikes):

* a drivers license (like in the EU, where a Category B car license also grants an AM (≤125cc; ≤11kW) license as well)

* some kind of insurance: an add-on rider/paragraph on one's existing car insurance, or a e-scooter policy

> They require no licensing and no insurance AFAICT.

That's because the amount of damage a bicycle can do, even a powered one, is astoundingly small compared to the damage even a subcompact car traveling at typical urban speeds can do.

~40,000 people a year are killed in automotive crashes. That's one person every fifteen minutes, roughly.

A person on a bicycle killing someone in a collision is so rare I can tell you the two times it's happened in my state: once in the 90's when a bike courier hit a pedestrian who stepped out into the street without looking, and more recently when two cyclists collided on a bike path (which happens to be one of the most trafficked bike paths in the nation.)

> As someone who has a motorcycle license, and had to do a bunch of training and get insurance I see folks on these things as no different to my if I were on a 125cc or 250cc motorcycle/scooter.

Most 125CC scooters are capable of 50-60mph (even a 50cc scooter can usually easily hit 40mph); the majority of e-bikes in the US top out at 20-25mph.

A 125CC scooter weighs about 300lb; a typical e-bike is well under 50lb.

A 125CC scooter can carry a passenger; the majority of e-bikes cannot.

There is near universal experience from early childhood with learning to ride a bicycle. There is not near-universal experience with learning to ride a scooter or motorcycle.

Etc etc etc.

At least in the US, I believe e-bikes are deliberately speed-limited to maintain their categorization as bikes, and not need license and insurance. If they were built up to more motorcycle-like capacity, that would be different.

But what this post is describing is basically a cheap electric motorcycle.

there are speed limits in eu too, but I still think their users are more likely to hurt themselves than someone who's trained, either by doing it a lot on a regular bike to the point that they're able to hold relatively high speeds, or going through a special certification process like a motorcyclist. It seems highly likely for a novice to hop on this new toy but be unable to safely navigate given how different it is from a car (e.g. you can't just slam brakes in the middle of turning)

IS there any actual statistical evidence that ebikes are less safe than regular bikes? I haven't heard of any,

Around here you sometimes see things like this https://emmo.ca/Electric-Motorcycle-Style-Ebike

They all have what I like to call vestigial pedals. You can barely see them tucked in near the rear tire. I have never seen someone using the pedals.

Also pretty common to call them DUI-cycles around here as well.

In Ireland cops don't bother to enforce the EU law. I've encountered 10 year old kids doing max speed on e-scooters on the pavement (sidewalk to you Americans). There also seem to be lots of pretend-pedelecs that require no pedaling, and they're not legal without a licence and (I think) licence plates.

I just want to know where they’re getting these things. Is there some dodgy bike shop which sells the bike and then sneakily delimits it under the counter?

Interweb, I'd bet

It's trivial with most of the common cheaper equipment, you don't need a shop at all since the EU standard is mostly an arbitrary limitation and they try to reuse the same equipment worldwide. Expensive European bikes will actually have smaller motors so they will be physically limited.

In the US many bikes have an off-road mode that delimits them, no real effort required.

> IMHO if you're not pedalling it is no longer a "bicycle", it is some other class of vehicle (e-scooter?).

E-scooter, at least in the US, generally means kick/push scooters.

"Moped" would probably be the right qualifier.

I love that classification, e-bikes should absolutely require pedalling and the boost is only happening during pedalling!

And for the ones that let you get a boost without pedalling, they can be classified as e-scooters.

Using speed limits to determine classification isn't sufficient alone.

It depends on the legislation. In the US and canada ebikes can have a throttle and go up to 32km/h without pedaling. In Germany you always have to pedal and speed limit is 25km/h. There’s probably a lot more countries with different rules.

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