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Comment by MattRix | Hacker News Reader

Requiring things like licenses and insurance would be a great way to drasticially reduce the uptake of ebikes, which seems like a horrible idea. I think this is a situation where your proposes solution (which I don’t think would be effective anyway!) is worse than the problem.

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Dramatically INCREASING the uptake of something that has serious safety concerns shouldn't be something we urge people to do. I can't see how having more untrained, unregistered, unregulated, vehicles and riders flying around is a good thing in any scenario.

Cars operated by "trained" and registered and regulated people kill more than ebikes.

How is that an argument? That in no way counters a single point I made - or are you just trying to distract?

Are you talking about serious safety risk to the rider or too others?

From what I can find ebikes tend to kill their rider. Though I can't find good statistics to answer my question.

>Are you talking about serious safety risk to the rider or too others?

To the rider, pedestrians, riders of traditional bikes, and property damage.

in israel e-things tend to kill pedestrians (half a dozen of deaths a year i think, maybe more). and a whole lot of injuries.

I never said they should be unregulated! There should still be laws that ebike users have to follow (just like regular bike users do), and police should enforce those laws as strictly as possible so that most people comply to them. You can do this without requiring training, licenses or insurance.

we have a long history of no to little enforcement (because it's incredibly difficult to do) on traditional bikes largely due to lack of licensing/training.

Ironically, insurance would make it cheaper for most of us. My rationale is that car insurance carriers would compete to sign up bike commuters because of the reduced liability risk, and would do so by offering us lower rates on our car policies.

What stops insurance companies from doing that now? Car insurance companies could ask if you have a bike and give you a reduced policy.

Good point and question. Don't know. One possible thing is that the insurance companies value higher premiums more than lower payouts.

I hope you're not responsible for solving the shortages of airline pilots.

This has nothing to do with pilots, it has to do with ebikes. They are completely different contexts.

Here in Tokyo, it's legally required to have liability insurance to ride a bicycle. I don't know how many people actually do this, but it is the legal requirement. It's also very inexpensive (and a good idea in case you hurt a pedestrian). It hasn't stopped bicycling from being very popular for getting around, and it seems like every mother with kids has an ebike with a child seat or two.

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