Hacker News Reader

Comment by denimnerd42 | Hacker News Reader

These stories are going to come out more and more.

I'm all for getting kids out and letting them be independent. I would ride my bike to the store across all sorts of roads when I was 12-13 year olds to buy rated R movies and Parental Advisory CDs. ("Mom, I'm going for a bike ride!")

When you add these 20-25mph+ ebikes (they can be easily fooled to go faster than legal) and no prefrontal cortex development the situation can get scary quick. Unfortunately we don't have the infrastructure or dedicated, separated bike lanes that make them safe. so stupid solutions like "banning them" are obvious and lazy but there's not much else to do immediately.

View on HN

>When you add these 20-25mph+ ebikes

I know you're talking in general, but this specific case, the Rad bike DOES NOT exceed 20mph under motor power. I own a different model than the one in this case, but mine stops powering the motor at 19.8mph. It is not possible for the bike to go faster than that under power. If they've modified the bike in any way to bypass that limit, that's not the manufacturer's fault. Clearly, this road has a pretty decently steep hill. That would easily make it possible to reach speeds greater than 20mph, but it would not be under power of the motor. At this point, it's not any different from a non-eBike. The fact that this particular bike was an eBike is just a red herring to me.

So, stressing that a bike can go 20-25mph+ is misdirection. Any bike going down the incline described in TFA can reach those speeds. Parents not exercising parental controls and allowing their kids unsupervised activity in known dangerous conditions need to accept some responsibility.

How much time do you think someone peddling under their own power could maintain 20mph? Unless they have a lot experience biking, not much, so their exposure to high risk speeds is far less than a bike they can hop on and hold that speed the whole time.

20mph is fast as hell when you fall off or hit something.

Going down a hill? They could do it until they get to the bottom of the hill...

They were going down a hill. It's trivial for anyone, even an inexperienced rider, to exceed 20mph on a downhill slope on a regular (non electric) bike. They also claim that the combination of disc brakes and a quick release axle is dangerous and can lead to the wheel coming off while at speed..............except the wheel didn't actually come off in this case. I feel bad for these people and their loss, but it's unlikely the fact that this was an electric bike, it had low trail, or a combination of disc brakes and a QR axle had anything to do with this. It's likely it was just the combination of an inexperienced rider, two people on one bike, and a steep hill leading to excess speeds, and would have happened on any other non-electric bike as well.

But we don't have many instances of flat ground accidents, all the serious injuries in the article involved going downhill, from what I could tell. And that's what I'd expect, as you can decelerate fairly quickly even if your breaks stop working, unless you're headed downhill.

> How much time do you think someone peddling under their own power could maintain 20mph?

For as long as the hill lasts. I had a simple bike computer on my (not electric) mountain bike growing up, and once hit 33mph going as fast as possible down a hill in my neighborhood. Bombing down that hill I'd probably be at speeds over 20mph for a solid minute. A lot can go wrong in a minute.

Especially since teenage me enjoyed going fast, and would sometimes bike down the hill as fast as possible, then immediately turn around, pedal back up it, and do it again.

What's this got to do with the price of tea in China? Not once anywhere have I seen someone claiming 20mph speeds powered by meat motor. Where are you coming up with that?

That's the speed most ebikes go to. My claim is that the risk for ebikes is higher than regular bikes because the average speed of ebike riders is higher.

Also, completely aside, 20mph on a regular bike is totally doable, just exhausting. Like running 10mph, most active people can do it pretty easily, but only in short spurts.

Yup. A bike can go 60+ down a hill.

Unless you're on a fairly high end bike, you will start feeling uncomfortably wobbly somewhere in the 30-40mph range.

It's not just the speed. The bike is heavier, and it had two people on it, making the braking distance a lot longer. And most untrained riders are afraid of using the front brake because they're afraid of flipping the bike, but on a decline the rear brakes are much less effective.

> Unfortunately we don't have the infrastructure or dedicated, separated bike lanes that make them safe.

I don't think we had that when we were growing up either?

We just didn't have the internet, so one kid dying on a bike somewhere one time wasn't national news.

I do remember national and local news segments about kids dying or being disabled by cars while they were riding their bikes. Most of the time there had to be some kind of point to drive home so it was about lack of helmets or whatever. Not that they really help vs a car. But that's why I just lied about where I was going. I never would have been allowed to ride across the major roads where I was going. If I had died they would have victim blamed me too.

> Unfortunately we don't have the infrastructure or dedicated, separated bike lanes that make them safe.

How much risk does an ebike going 25mph+ pose to a cyclists on a regular bike, or a pedestrian? I know all of the bike paths near where I live ban any vehicle with a motor.

Does it say "no motorized vehicles"? That does not include ebikes in my area (Southern US).

What I'm talking about is what I saw when I traveled to China. They have these sections of the main streets that are just for 1 person electric vehicles/bicycles. Then they have the main road on one side and the pedestrian sidewalk on the other. That's more what I'm talking about.

> Does it say "no motorized vehicles"? That does not include ebikes in my area (Southern US).

Yeah, exactly. I think that varies area to area. In my area the county manages the trails, and they've made statements saying that those "onewheel" motorized boards aren't allowed, because they're motor vehicles. I assumed that also applied to ebikes, but you may be right.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com