Everyone loves e-bikes – except some who have to share roads with them
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Instead of putting the blame on e-bikes, blame your local city government for not providing the right infrastructure for bikers in general, because they should not travel on the same "road" as pedestrians.
Personally, I would like bikes/e-bikes/scooters to just be predictable and predictability means laws and regulations.
Same as any other bike. Go in the bike-lane and if there is none, go on the road meant for vehicles. Yes, bikes need to follow signs for one way streets. If you have to travel on sidewalks, jump of your bike and lead it until you get to a proper road. Yes, if you're on a bike, you need to follow traffic lights.
E-Scooters are much more complicated. They have to use bikelanes (even if their usage is not required for bikes) and can't use "Fahrrad Frei" sidewalks, but can use "Fahrrad Frei" one-way streets. They're also not allowed to use ways blocked for motorized traffic, which is usually another way in germany to declare mixed use pedestrian/cycle streets. There are also a few other exceptions, which are even more complex. If you just pretend to be a bike, there are few to no issues with other people and even police [1].
[1]: Except for large, pedestrianized areas allowed for bikes, where police are sometimes on the lookout for E-Scooter users, due to the bad experiences with rentals.
The arguments against a bike lisence are the same as "big govt can't make me wear seatbelt for my safety" bad arguments shouted be people who know they're wrong and get backed into a corner. Unfortunately on this issue they shout so loud that people listen ...
The other oft-forgotten aspect of cycling is that in places with social healthcare, the health benefits from cycling will save money, so it can actually save the state money to introduce free cycle liability insurance if it increases the numbers cycling.
"... e-bike is far from the deadliest" means that there are things that are much deadlier than e-bikes, like cars. So you seem to be in agreement with (this part of) the article.
(I know they are legally allowed on the road; in practice though, it doesn't work out very well.)
Not just legally allowed, legally required to travel by road, just because it's not safe to travel with a vehicle together on the same place as pedestrians. Then that the US has a problem with focusing only on cars, is a separate issue.
If you dismount and push a bike, people get struck by pedals and handlebars. The rider has to allow much more space to prevent people walking right into them.
Riding at walking speed, some pedestrians may give a bit of space, but most of them don't alter their movement in any appreciable way. A capable rider has better control of a bicycle when they are actually riding it, and can keep pedals away from shins even in close proximity.
That being said, ebikes are partially banned here. Pedal assist is fine but full ebikes count as motor vehicles. I think it's a decent compromise.
It's not deadly for the cyclist.
https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2022-07-14/cyclist-who-rode-o...
Hey, driving a car into cyclists isn't deadly for the driver, so, under your logic that's not "actually dangerous" either? Right?
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/people/cyclist-riding-e...
To me it is quite obvious that pedestrian crashing with a bicycle is much less dangerous than pedestrian hit by a car.
I'd even say it's probably more dangerous for the human on the bike if they get thrown off the bike in a weird way.
only because there are more, but cars have to actually follow safety guidelines when they are designed to reduce risks for pedestrians being hit.
that's why most of them looks the same.
bikes don't and e-bikes in particular run much faster than regular bikes and are used much more by incompetent bikers, given they are basically a non-taxed non-regulated non-plated moped (mopeds are quite dangerous for pedestrians)
> Instead of putting the blame on e-bikes, blame your local city government
one way roads are a way the local government address the issue, sidewalks are another way to protect pedestrians, if people on e-bikes (see above why e-bikes more than regular bikes) don't follow rules (they usually don't, everybody knows that, unless we are playing the hypocrisy game) I'm all in for arresting them and destroying the vehicle to build anti bikes protection on sidewalks.
Problem is local government would never do that.
I can tell you all about the city where I live where they spent millions to build bike lanes all over the city, after people and local fad-of-the-moment political groups protested, rallied, involved - and probably paid - influencers to ask for them!, and bikes (e-bikes more than others, riders more than regular folks) ride on the sidewalk because "It's safer, the bike lane runs side by side with the car lane"
Welcome to the realm of reality, where people are usually shit.
I say don't give the the tools to be shittier: ban e-bikes and force owners to get a permit to ride them in a city.
At least we know who they ate in case of accident (they usually run!)
The politics around this are tricky in part because of comments like yours. https://nypost.com/2019/08/31/nyc-bicyclists-are-killing-ped...
Anyway the article is quoting the same statistics anyone gets from cover, government sources like this: https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/bicycle-crash-da...
Pedestrian killed in 2017 by bicylists/pedestrian accidents 1, bicylists only fatalites 1.
Pedestrian injured in 2017 by bicylists/pedestrian accidents 315, bicylists injured in 2017 by bicylists/pedestrian accidents 88.
But the city where I live, Milan, built standard bike lanes as they are built all over Europe.
So please, before assuming, ask.
I would also remind you that walking is more sustainable than electric bikes and pedestrians surely don't want to die because of e-bikes mania.
So, I'm going to get super pedantic here... But, nope.
Walking burns more calories than riding an ebike and those calories come from somewhere. Walking isn't an efficient conversion of calories into energy.
Biking ends up being more sustainable because it coverts more calories into motion.
E-bikes even more sustainable because it uses less calories and instead relies on a battery (charged from on ever greening grid).
You could debate about whether or not biking is more sustainable than ebiking due to battery production impact. However, both are going to have a clear win over walking.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore
https://www.bikeradar.com/features/long-reads/cycling-enviro....
You can't be serious...
Walking also reduce your risk of going to the hospital, how much energy is saved?
Do ambulances run on magic dust?
> However, both are going to have a clear win over walking.
I seriously hoped you were jocking.
Until we won't be born with wheels, walking will win.
I sincerely hope that you'll at least get this, one day...
Can you do the same?
No clue how Milan is. But for me, the most common reason I leave a bike lane is because someone has parked their car in it.
A large percentage of motorists treat bike lanes as parking lanes and often cities aren't ticketing them.
call the police and make them notice it.
if bike lanes are not available, they have to, by the law, use the road, not 'what the biker thinks it's best'
Imagine if car drivers did the same "oh, there's a truck stuck in to middle of the road, let me cut through this park where kids are playing, at 80mph"
They are often the ones blocking the road.
> if bike lanes are not available, they have to, by the law, use the road, not 'what the biker thinks it's best'
As I'm sure you are aware, laws are not universal. In Idaho where I live, cyclists are allowed on the sidewalk so long as they yield to pedestrians. [1]
> Imagine if car drivers did the same "oh, there's a truck stuck in to middle of the road, let me cut through this park where kids are playing, at 80mph"
Bikes and cars are different. It's perfectly reasonable to bike at 10mph on a sidewalk and where I live it happens all the time without incident.
You aren't operating a 2 ton metal box with low visibility.
Hah - trust me, that's not just Italy either. Though it's more likely to be construction workers who hopefully do actually have some sort of permit to be using the bike lane, but it's still an issue for cyclists.
And yeah, the moment someone starts comparing what you can safely do on a bike (where your total weight is very likely under 100kg, most of which - your body - is squishy, and is rarely moving at over 30 km/h) vs a car (literally a hard metal box weighing up to 10 times as much, and capable of speeds well over 100km/h just with the lightest touch of the driver's foot) I just tune out - the physics involved are fundamentally different.
Definitely a problem, though at least where I'm at (Idaho) it's generally the case that they are actually doing something that requires blocking SOMETHING and I get why they choose the bike lane over the sidewalk or road.
That said, there are times when they just store their cones in the bike lane, and that can be super frustrating.
It wasn't Milan, but I know I refrained from renting a bike in Italy because the road traffic seemed to dangerous. Maybe the standard European bike lanes you're referring to (which don't exist, btw, there are various styles in various countries, some good, some terrible) don't work for Italian road users.
https://road.cc/content/news/milan-confirms-new-bike-network...
Second, standard European bike lanes aren't a thing. I would ride a bike anywhere in Amsterdam or Rotterdam. I would think twice before doing it anywhere in Italy.
And idk what you're talking about with walking being more sustainable, obviously you can go farther on a bike than by walking.
But cars kills pedestrians they hit. A lot. And I mean, really a lot, the amount of people cars kill is staggering.
So do bikes.
see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32376016
> And I mean, really a lot, the amount of people cars kill is staggering.
The amount of kilometers cars run is also staggering.
Nobody is saying cars are good, but at least cars don't run on sidewalks, they stay on the roads and pedestrians don't walk in the middle of the road "just because they can".
Rules are rules, unless someone thinks that bikers are special and aren't subject to the same laws the rest of us have to follow.
Unfortunately it's much easier to encounter bikes going the wrong way, biking on pedestrian only zones, zig-zagging between people walking in a park, jumping on the sidewalk or skipping the red light, than cars (in proportion to the number of vehicles circulating)
Comparing it per-kilometer is disingenuous due to the wildly different speed. If you want to make a fairer comparison, you should look at it per travel-hour. And cars definitely do all the things you mention bikes doing wrong - you are probably just so used to it that you don't notice it anymore.
that would be awesome. if only there was a way to monitor bikes and who runs them...
anyway, per hour is even more faulty than per kilometers.
nobody drives a bike for 5 hours straight, unless it's a professional competition.
> And cars definitely do all the things you mention bikes doing wrong - you are probably just so used to it that you don't notice it anymore.
I've never seen a car jumping on the sidewalk intentionally or running high speed among people in a park walking their kids in a stroller, in the almost 50 years I've been on this planet.
Plenty of people do, actually. When I was a bit more overweight and trying to lose it, I used to go for 4-6h long rides around London in the weekends, and 3-4h long rides in the evenings after work.
Lots of non-professional cyclists go on cycle tours where they can ride for 10h or more for several days.
On top of that, 1h-1h30min long rides to and from work and other places were quite common as they are for many cyclists, and I suspect this is about the same for drivers in big cities.
There are indeed different rules for cyclists. There's the Idaho Stop and variants, Paris allows cyclists to go treat red lights as give way. Here in the UK, some one-way roads have a bit of paint to indicate that cyclists can use it in either direction.
Personally, I find that traffic lights are fundamentally designed for motor vehicles and there's better designed junctions that can allow cyclists/e-scooters to go through (with care) whilst the larger vehicles are stopped. Also, zebra crossings are much better for cyclists to use as they don't have to automatically stop (which costs speed, momentum and energy) when there's no-one on it or if they can safely pass behind the person crossing.
if not, they can't
and people on foot need to be sure that nobody is going to come that way, it's not the bikers decision.
rules are rules, they ate there for safety reasons, exceptions to the rules, are still rules.
> , I find that traffic lights are fundamentally designed for motor vehicles
they are designed to simply make precedences rules obvious.
they were invented for railroads.
I dream too of a way for people to always be allowed to cross safely, for example using light bridges, for pedestrians
except that when they are available, like where I live, bikers use them even if they are explicitly forbidden to any vehicle.
this is the bridge, you can clearly see the sign and the blockers
https://blog.urbanfile.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-0...
> they are designed to simply make precedences rules obvious.
While what you are saying is true, the crosswalk signals that accompany traffic lights have a considerably shorter green than that for automobiles. Traffic lights are also timed to favour the continuous flow of motor vehicle traffic, rather than pedestrians or cyclists. In other words, pedestrians (and, to a lesser degree, cyclists) are considerably disadvantaged by traffic lights.
Another consideration for cyclists is that amber lights are timed for motor vehicles. Entering an intersection as the light changes means that a cyclists will usually be leaving the intersection once the light is red. On the other hand, stopping under such circumstances is an excellent way to be struck by an automobile from behind since the driver does have enough time to clear the intersection.
Judging from what I've seen on Not Just Bikes, it is possible to design controlled intersections that strikes a more reasonable balance between multiple users. Unfortunately, that is not the case in my neck of the woods yet.
If you look at the details of most controlled intersections in my city, it becomes abundantly clear that pedestrian and cyclist safety were (at best) secondary considerations. Some of them are so bad that pedestrians are expected to wait to cross in a blind zone. Things are slowly changing around here, unfortunately it takes a lot of money to undo something that should have been done properly in the first place. NIMBYism also makes change near impossible in many areas, since the loss of as much as one on-street parking spot per block is considered by some to be a more heinous crime than pedestrians being run down. (Thankfully parts of the city are seeing change due to lower vehicle ownership by nearby residents.)
Not all the red lights are like that.
The comment that you cite doesn’t actually have any supporting citations…
> Rules are rules, unless someone thinks that bikers are special and aren't subject to the same laws the rest of us have to follow.
I would love for enforcement of cyclists who break the law to increase. But that would require actually providing working infrastructure for bikes.
You can’t write someone a ticket for not riding in a bike lane when literally every single block someone has parked in the bike lane. If there was a place where every single day on every block, someone parked in the only road for cars in a major city and on a major road artery, this would be a national news story. But this is what happens on weekdays at ~8:45am where I am in LA.
Every city also has completely different rules about cycling, which very few people bother to know about. In many cities it’s fine to ride on the sidewalk.
And a reply to that comment states: […] it does not appear to actually show a per-mile statistic. Where are you getting that from?
And as the tabloid paper itself states:
> Since 2011, bicyclists have injured more than 2,250 pedestrians — including at least seven who died — according to stats from the city Department of Transportation and published reports.
So 6 / 2250 = 0.002666666667, or 0.3%. What percentage of car-pedestrian incidents lead to death? I'm guessing it is >1%.
> Nobody is saying cars are good, but at least cars don't run on sidewalks, they stay on the roads and pedestrians don't walk in the middle of the road "just because they can".
First off, they do not "stay on roads". See "Car smashes into Toronto bike shop and the metaphor is lost on no one":
* https://www.blogto.com/city/2022/05/car-smashes-toronto-bike...
* https://driving.ca/auto-news/crashes/toronto-motorist-drives...
Also "Why Cars Rarely Crash into Buildings in the Netherlands":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_0DgnJ1uQ
And pedestrians walk/cross the middle of the road all the time, at least where I live. This has been dubbed "jaywalking" as part of a campaign of anti-pedestrian propaganda in the earlier twentieth century:
Another fact is, bikers, electric or not, simply disregard any traffic rule. Cycling (fast) on sidewalks. Ignoring one ways, red lights or well literally anything that makes traffic rules.
The problem with bikers is mostly their mentality. Feeling above others, above rules, 'I have everything under control' mentality, in past few years added the sense of righteousness because they are 'ecological' (on their 5k$ ebike with tons of eco waste required to produce one, instead of boring good old public transport which works pretty great here).
When my wife worked at emergency, they had a case where pedestrian was hit by cyclist in similar situation as my experiences above (crossing road on green, mental cyclist comes speeding on his red light). Pedestrian went into coma and died 4 days after the accident, 40 years old healthy guy with family. These kind of cases don't make big news, its not terrorism but it happens. Just talk to emergency folks.
I challenge you to pick any stop sign in your neighborhood and count how many cars come to the legally mandated complete stop before the line.
There ate cameras mounted everywhere.
I worked on a mobility project for the city of Monza to make street crossing safer around schools and public offices.
Unfortunately bikes don't have plates and we can't send the rider a ticket after the fact.
Anyway: I challenge you to monitor a stop sign on a road heavily used by riders working for any of the delivery companies and see what happens.
My city actually does have stop sign cameras, a relative rarity in the states. There are 8 of them for thousands of stop signs. Maybe it’s different where you are but here almost nobody stops at a stop sign properly and sometimes pedestrians and cyclists get killed because of it. The cameras generate constant complaints from people who live near them because even though they’re marked, drivers are so unaccustomed to a full stop that they struggle to do so even when they know it results in an automatic fine.
that's quite the interpretation there...
the most dangerous intersections are already monitored, don't need to challenge me to do it, they are already studied to improve safety.
sure enough, the less dangerous are going to be less dangerous. At least I believe that's what's going to happen, no matter if it's cars or bikes.
This is factually false, or at least, in several countries, where their design is regulated:
1. the engines are limited to 250W, which is not weak, but not strong, either;
2. some even have an electronic cap to 25 km/h, and engine turns off after such speed (I believe this is for mid-engine models);
3. can't propel on-demand.
E-bikes are also heavy, not aerodynamic, and don't put the driver in a position to push stronly. The speed demons who overtake me in the streets, are typically non electric racing bikes.
I had both types, and they definitely assist the ride, but they don't push the driver to go faster.
Wheat fits the description you've given are actually electric (kick)scooters:
- they propel only on-demand
- they're often driven by reckless teenagers, which sometimes bring a passenger
- since they're smaller than bikes, there is a considerably lower (both physical and psychological) barrier to traveling on the pavements
which is a lot.
especially if the biker is a 90kg man.
I don't buy that at all. New York City has substantial bike infrastructure and all of that egregious and law-breaking behavior is still rampant.
I would even say the level of disregard couldn't be more flagrant. You can see ebike riders riding on the sidewalk right next to the protected bike line or see them riding in the dedicated red bus lane when the protected green bike lane is clearly visible on the same street and has cyclists visibly using it. Despite having protected lanes that follow the direction of traffic, ebikes will go the wrong way down that bike lane. They regularly leave the protected bike lane to go ride out in the middle of traffic and almost never stop at traffic lights and weave through pedestrians using the cross walk.
I'd love not to be on the sidewalk, it tends to slow me way down (pedestrians that I don't want to hit).
Streets are designed car-first, with a bike lane added as afterthought. Good cycling infrastructure requires completely separate "cycling highways", a radical intersection redesign, and actually creating areas where cars are second-rate citizens - if at all present. I am simply not seeing that in NYC yet.
But please walk me through your logic though - cyclists don't use the existing infrastructure that the city built them because it doesn't yet rise to some level of what is deemed necessary? Is that it? Does that make any sense?
What does "_bike infrastructure_" even mean? Is that made up punctuation supposed to imply some meaning?
>"Good cycling infrastructure requires completely separate "cycling highways", a radical intersection redesign, and actually creating areas where cars are second-rate citizens - if at all present. I am simply not seeing that in NYC yet."
I guess you haven't seen the "cycling highway" that parallels the actual West Side Highway? It's called the Hudson River Greenway and it's 11 miles of protected(concrete bollards) and dedicated cycling lanes. How about the dedicated Brooklyn Bridge bike lane. [1] Or the new secure bike storage pods they already started rolling out?[2] I guess you just haven't seen any of these yet?
And for areas where are cars are second rate citizens I guess you haven't seen The Flatiron or the stretch of Broadway between Madison Sq Park and 30th Street or Herald Square or Broadway between 14th and the Flatiron? The Meatpacking District? All of these are car-free designated pedestrian zones.
[1] https://gothamist.com/news/new-brooklyn-bridge-bike-lane-imm...
[2] https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/awesome-bike-parking-po...
You're 100% right, it's not the bike's fault, but somehow they act as enablers for idiots. And having the infrastructure doesn't help.
It might be because the bikes are capped at 25 kmh? I mean, its already faster than my average speed when i take a car to move stuff within the city (there is no traffic jam, the streets are just very narrow, with a lot of turns and pedestrians)
On the other hand, ebikes are a lot better than cars, so I'm willing to be more tolerant of them than I'd like. I'd just feel a lot better about them if infrastructure would keep pace...
I completely agree. I also think the biggest contribution to this phenomenon is the proliferation of food and grocery delivery services. The business model seems to practically require this type of beahvior.
In EU there’s no such problem, but there’re more E-bikes around because they appeal to elder or people that wouldn’t generally feel comfortable riding a normal bike, so yeah, numbers are increasing and some older people aren’t happy.
About the “bikes need dedicated infrastructure”: every time a dedicated bike lane is proposed around my region in Italy, the project gets scrapped because it would remove parking lots, or make some car lane narrower.
You can’t have bike infra without sacrificing car infra, and that’s the big deal.
The former typically are treated as bicycles (can go everywhere bicycles are allowed), the latter as lightweight motor cycles (⇒ requires insurance, some driver’s license and helmet use, can’t go on regular bicycle lanes, may be restricted from using some separate bike paths)
What is a problem are (rent) e-scooters, they are driven everywhere (roads/cycle paths/sidewalks) without respecting any traffic rule, and they go as fast as 25 km/h on those tiny wheels, with brakes that cannot be called efficient, they are a real danger to both pedestrians and bikers (besides to their drivers), particularly after sunset (they have no lights).
They plan to put obligatory lights and to reduce speed (to either a lower speed everywhere or geofencing the center of the city) and a number of other safety provisions, but they will be effective, if I recall correctly, starting 2024.
It's bad enough when someone comes whizzing from behind on their road bike, but at least I can kinda hear their rear cassette idling and pull kids out of the way. The ebikes are just silent and I can't hear them coming up from behind for nothing. Just, whoom, all of a sudden they are cutting between me and the tykes and my inner momma-bear becomes an outer momma-bear before I even know it happened. I do not know what it is with me, but I just cannot stand it when they come out of nowhere near the rugrats at those speeds.
Yeah, I know, I'm complaining about idiots, big surprise. But where I am, it's gotten pretty bad with the pandemic and seems that only the idiots bought ebikes.
Maybe I'm just jealous and should buy one myself!
This is contradictory. Dedicated bike infrastructure is for bikes only. Pedestrians and dogs should have their own dedicated, also physically segregated (from the bikes!), paths.
Mixed bike/pedestrian paths is horrible for everyone. The cyclists who cannot ride efficiently and are constantly worried someone or their dog are suddenly going to appear in front of them, and for the pedenstrian (and their dogs) who, as you aptly described, have to be constantly worried about getting run over by a bike.
I do agree pretty much with everything else in your comment though.
Yes I've had people argue things like this can't be true on here.
I'm fed up of putting people who don't follow rules or wear helmets on a pedastle.
And yes, I know 2 people who's lives were saved by a helmet in a collision. But that doesn't change that these are in the minority and actually are safe cyclists.
Frankly why the stigma of public transport which I exclusively use exists astounds me but people probably "ass-ume" I drive a car daily.
There are several recent cases of drivers getting 15 months or less for killing pedestrians.