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Comment by fluoridation | Hacker News Reader

The thing about bikes is that if you want to go fast, you have to put in kilometers on the saddle. That trains not just your body, but also your mind, and teaches you how to behave on the road. An electric bike allows someone with little training to go much faster than they would be able to otherwise. Now imagine that you're an experienced rider going at a cool 35 km/h and as you're about to pass a newbie on an electric bike they swerve into you because they don't yet have the habit of looking back before moving sideways. Yes, it's a mistake of that particular person alone, but it's a mistake they were able to make because e-bikes exist.

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Wait til you find out who's driving the cars on the road

Cars at least are less able to swerve unpredictably, and drivers have to complete training in order to be allowed on the road.

The standard they once met (which might have been 70 years ago) is not that good a measure of people’s driving skill today.

...and yet car-on-car accidents are still a major source of premature deaths, to mention nothing of when the cyclist is the victim. The potential to do great harm has to be the overwhelming factor when assessing road risk.

There are civil, if not criminal, penalties for suddenly swerving into another car without justification.

> There are civil, if not criminal, penalties for...

Not really, or not enough at least. Drivers can and do cause horrific accidents because of inattention, bad judgement, intoxication, and road rage. There aren't enough penalties and, it seems, the situation has been getting worse and more chaotic lately, at least where I live in the Northeastern US.

Justification is easy in the USA

This is a short list of a few common get out of jail free cards for traffic violence:

1. I couldn't see them

2. The sun was in my eyes

3. I had a medical emergency

4. The car was in my blind spot

5. They came out of nowhere

6. My car lost control

7. My brakes didn't work

We're not living in a utopis. Drivers can do whatever they can get away with. If the other party has a dashcam, then they maybe boned if the police can be motivated to do their job for once without murdering someone.

Pretty sure almost anyone can go faster downhill on an analog bike than the 25kph that Ebike pedal assistance is limited to

Children master bike riding in a few days. Let’s not overcomplicate things.

There's a huge difference between being able to handle a bike at 5 mph, 15 mph, and 28 mph.

Oh, they master it, do they? So, you'd let a child who's been riding a bike for a week or so ride with heavy traffic, right? They've mastered it, so there's nothing else for them to learn.

20 year old me who just ate pavement because they didn’t know how to safely navigate street car rails would disagree.

That was 40 year old me a couple years ago. Street car rails are terrible, bad for bikes and pedestrians, a lot of expense, and doesn't provide much more than a bus.

You should have watched this video: https://youtu.be/sEON08d76oE?t=112 it nicely explains the importance of things like tram rails, and keeping a potato in your pants.

Learning to ride a bike and learning to ride one on public roads with traffic are two different skills.

Dumbest comment I've read in a while here. Most Americans can't seem to "master" bike riding and so they all need to wear helmets. The Dutch don't and aren't the world capital of TBIs.

Dumbest comment I've read in a while here. (high five, it works both ways).

The Dutch have a bicycle culture and bicycle friendly streets where cars are outnumbered and don't despise cyclists in the manner of Sydney, Australia or Mean City, USA.

The Dutch also live in a flat country and don't extreme cycle down the side of Big Sur, etc either.

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