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Comment by cuteboy19 | Hacker News Reader

Why not just go with e bikes

Blue Vélib’(electric) are a staple of Parisian (and many other cities) transportation system.

https://www.velib-metropole.fr/en/service

So this website says 14 years is the minimum age. Honest question, how is a 14-year-old safer in Parisian traffic on an e-bike than a scooter? You can easily go on sidewalks with bikes, too, if you are so inclined, and falling off into the traffic or hitting someone doesn't seem any less problematic?

I live in Paris and my observation is that 14yo don't use the e-bikes (or the cheaper non-electric bikes) as much. It's probably just less fun and also one criticism is that they use it in pairs (well look at the photo in the article) which I guess is less ideal with bikes in a urban settings.

Twitter is all about how it's old people who went and voted (7% turnout). Well, their loss.

Personally I didn't have an opinion so I didn't vote :)

The weight distribution in a scooter is all at the base. People have life changing foot and shin injuries from being impacted. People usually don’t cycle as quick consistently through cities, pressing a button on a scooter gets you to over 20km/h in moments.

first, rental scooters in Paris are very commonly geofenced and restricted <10km/h in dangerous areas (or automatically completely disabled in some areas)

second, regarding this:

> People usually don’t cycle as quick consistently through cities, pressing a button on a scooter

there are at least 8000 electric bicycles for rent scattered throughout Paris, how in the world is pressing a button on an electrical bicycle any different from pressing a button on a scooter? And I highly doubt your claim that people are e-biking any slower than scooters, too.

I'm not going to get into the debate on e-bikes. I think there needs to be stricter legislation or oversight on those too, given the amount of close calls I've had in my city with them also (particularly the illegal "uncapped" ones, or the one's that have number plates and should not even be in the cycle lanes as they are legally scooters).

That said, 10km/h into someone's ankles with the weight distribution at that level is going to shatter your legs.

> how in the world is pressing a button on an electrical bicycle any different from pressing a button on a scooter?

I don't know about the US, but in Europe, light regulation only apply to electric bikes that provide pedal assistance, i.e. there is no propulsion if you don't start peddling (and as soon as you stop peddling). Ebikes that provide propulsion from just pressing a button would be regulated like mopeds (mandatory registration, insurance, helmet) because they're considered more dangerous.

My city has both rental scooters and rental ebikes. While I see tens of people using the rental scooters, I've literally never seen the rental ebikes used. Not sure why, people just seem to prefer the form factor of scooters. Maybe they expect it to be less effort than pedal assist bikes.

Here in Barcelona, thieves stole the batteries from the rental e-bikes so now most of them don't work.

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