California makes electric skateboards street legal
theverge.com
theverge.com
"An “electrically motorized board” is any wheeled device that has a floorboard designed to be stood upon when riding that is not greater than 60 inches deep and 18 inches wide, is designed to transport only one person, and has an electric propulsion system averaging less than 1,000 watts, the maximum speed of which, when powered solely by a propulsion system on a paved level surface, is no more than 20 miles per hour."
Ability to ride uphill is also a function of output power. This cap is fairly generous but I don't understand why its necessary at all if there's a speed restriction? It'll only limit acceleration and hill performance if there's a speed restriction.
When on a level surface, cap the speed to 20mph. When on an incline, turbo mode!
Regarding bikes, it depends entirely on where you live. If you are in an urban area, where the sidewalks are crowded, and cars can't get up to high speed before the next stoplight, then certainly bikes should be on the street. If you are in a suburban area, where sidewalks are empty and cars travel at easily twice your maximum speed, then the streets are not safe for biking.
the streets are safe, the law explicitly requires 3 feet lateral separation or no pass. Choosing to endanger people on sidewalk just because not enough balls to ride on the street is kind of low.
Yeah, well, fuck it. I don't have the balls. I also have enough empathy to understand I'm two-three times slower than cars on the road in my city and drivers are seriously pissed at me when I'm holding down city traffic.
I do my best to ride safely for myself and everyone else. Usually, that means taking my rightful place in the road. Sometimes it means riding an empty sidewalk, eyes peeled, at a reasonable speed. Staying alive is more important than demonstrating the size of my balls, thanks.
Like the old saying: "Sure, you were in the right -- but you're still dead."
If there isn't a safe way for you to ride your bike in your area don't take it out on pedestrians, and don't ride on the side walk a bike can easily critically harm or even kill a small child and there are plenty of parents that might allow a 3-4 old roam around them on the side walk. Pets especially small dogs whit those retractable leashes are also quite susceptible to being hit by a bike, especially when you can't see the dog or the leash and you just swoosh into it.
If you can't ride safely on the roads near you it doesn't give you the right to endanger others doesn't matter how much of a relative danger you might put them in, go fight to get bike lanes and until then follow the actual law and stay on the road.
Nonsense. I regularly rode on such roads from childhood until recently, a period of some 30 years, and during all time I was at allegro of vision below legally blind. I have had precisely two accidents involving vehicles, one of which was stationary.
I have zero sympathy with people who say roads are not safe. Learn some situational awareness and anticipation and get off the damn pavement. If you're so terrified you're creeping along on the sidewalk you might as well just give in and get the bus.
The only true solution is separated bike paths, but that doesn't seem likely to happen in the US.
What bikes have that electric skateboards don't is stability -- it's extremely rare for a cyclist doing 20mph to suddenly fall off entirely, but falling off a skateboard is pretty easy.
Sigh that's level 10000 there. I've been by far hit/forcibly stopped/run out of my path by bikes (and other non-motored or low powered vehicles) than by cars.
Bike riders seem that they think that they own anything that the drive on they never give way on a crosswalk when it crosses a bike lane, when they drive on the sidewalk they are a menace (and often are quite rude if you make them stop or slow down), and they quite often do what ever they want in intersections especially during red signals because no one ever stops them.
Oh it's a red signal no cars are coming lets take a left here not caring that it's a green light for pedestrians we'll just hand signal and spam the bell then be annoyed when they actually don't let us pass and yell that they are engendering us because cars are now coming.
I for one would not mind that people who want to commute on bikes will actually be forced to get a proper license and that police will start actively enforcing and ticketing them (as well as having a license plate that will allow people to call in and complain).
Would you rather be hit by 3 bikes or by one car?
I don't have to get hit by either, as an "endangered pedestrian" I have the priority on the sidewalk, and while crossing the street which bike riders constantly ignore, stay in the bike lane, respect give way signs, red signal means no even if you are a bike and you can squish in, the cross walk isn't there for you to make an easy u-turn and the sidewalk isn't there for you for as long as you are seated in the bike.
If you have wheels, you belong on the streets. Bicycles and motorcycles must assert themselves on the road. Never allow a car or a truck to share a lane with you. Never let another bike share a lane with you either. Never ride a bike on the shoulder. Never sneak through a red light (well use common sense on this one).
The problem in the US is our car and truck drivers (yours sincerely included)/don't know how to drive properly either. Nobody told us not to share a lane. New Jersey drivers seem to be the worst. We do the rolling stop. We stop and sometimes park in the way of pedestrian crossing. We think we have a right to turn right even with a red light and that right supersedes the right of pedestrian trying to cross the street when they have the walk sign! I didn't even think about the last one until a car had the audacity to honk at me after speeding into a right turn on their red light screeching to a halt as I jumped for safety. As a pedestrian, I had the walk light! People like those should not be driving.
Is there an easy number to call and report reckless driving? What is the solution here? Why should they take my word without evidence? I mean some tailgating idiot could easily call and falsely report someone of brake checking.
Driverless cars can't come fast enough ... I knowninfor one will vote to eliminate human drivers -- all of them -- from the roads.
slow-moving wheelchairs excepted
Bikes are nasty jagged pointy things which will impart huge forces to randomly chosen parts of your body with a piece of metal.
Hm. It does say "averaging less than 1,000 watts". I wonder if that means it's allowed to turbo up to maintain 20mph on the uphill, as long the average stays within bounds during tests.
Drivers have a dramatically longer time to react and much better road awareness at 20mph compared to 30–35 mph, and at 20 mph something like 5% of collisions with cyclists/pedestrians are fatal, whereas at 35+ mph the majority of such collisions are fatal.
Fast-moving cars are death machines, in the hands of people I am not happy to trust with my life.
Mine's for sale if anyone wants to buy it. I live in Sunnyvale. Email in profile.
That 1KW and 20 mph is still rather generous for a skateboard.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/12/uk-hoverboard...
England can't even provide safe cycling infrastructure, let's at least keep the pavements safe for walking.
It always seems to be a busy High Street where they can get the most attention. But since they obviously know there is absolutely no chance of being prosecuted they will carry on regardless.
Anecdotally, their speed seems like a good fit for the bike lane. I keep a pretty good pace on a bike, but still find electric skateboards occasionally passing me (especially if we're both stopped at a light, since their acceleration is a bit better than mine).
See my other comment for details.
The B00SIOZY6A part is an ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number). I've always felt free to post plain Amazon links here, such as the canonical Amazon URL for this product:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SIOZY6A
Or the shortened URL that OP posted (but forgot to put in the http part so it wasn't clickable):
http://www.amzn.com/B00SIOZY6A
Now if you click on that amzn.com link, you will see ref=cm_sw_su_dp in the URL, but that's not an affiliate code either, it's an Amazon ref code.
Here's a Reddit discussion about Amazon URLs, affiliate tracking codes, and ref codes:
https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/qim88/referral_code...
Of course, if OP is the seller of that item, it would be a different story entirely!
Some interesting notes:
-require the operator of an electrically motorized board to wear a helmet
-require an operator to be at least 16 years of age
Individuals only have to own/maintain only a <$1000 electric scooter with zero emissions. While the big expensive bus is a pooled resource.
If your destination is a home or office, you can just take it inside, but what about a bar or restaurant? Leaving a bicycle outside is an invitation for theft and it's certainly too large to bring inside. Even a longboard isn't exactly simple to tuck under the bar or lean on your table.
The company wants its return to be as large as possible. Speaking in more sensible terms, they want to get as much money as they can regardless of whether they've reached a magic internal accounting threshold or not. R&D just has no relevance at all to product pricing.
You can easily duplicate the hardware these days, or even do everything in software but it seems that high quality CAS software is pretty hard to make.
TI and Mathlab pretty much got a monopoly on that as it seems I haven't seen a single off-brand graphical calculator that actually worked.
Not even sure if anyone besides TI and to lesser extent HP are even making graphical calculators these days (HP ones are (or at least were) substantially more expensive.
So when you have a market monopoly and a product with very little obsolescence (graphical calculators can easily last 10-15 years these days) there's nothing to drive the market down.
The TI-8X series is also one of the few "certified" ones and they also have localized versions that disable certain features for countries that limit the use of "smart calculators" but don't ban them outright.
While there are many people who couldn't afford the calculator. There are also a lot people who could swing a $300 scooter but not afford a well maintained car. They would certainly enjoy to cut some time off their commute.
(Yes yes, I'm sure you have an anecdote about a 51 year old you know who rides an electric skateboard all the time, but broadly speaking...)
Seriously, the only place you're allowed to use a scooter here is in your own home, and even then, your neighbours will call the police because your living room is a public Street if we say it is, sonny.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/12/hoverboard...
Electric skateboards and scooters are awfully zippy and rarely cause any disruption in my ride.
Sidewalk, personally, I think they should be reserved for pedestrians primarily, with few exceptions (hand trucks, strollers, wagons, wheelbarrows, etc.)
Of course people tend to avoid confrontation, so that's not necessarily a good indicator of sentiment. And their opinions may change as the density of electric skateboard riders increases.
Also: https://xkcd.com/409/