Freeride/Enduro/Downhill helmets exist (https://mountainbikeguys.com/downhill-helmet/) but nobody has come up with a rating yet afaik. I own one, and it probably saved my life at least once, but can understand how nobody wants to wear one outside a downhill bike park.
Obviously more training can help. For example it would be useful to practice riding in the rain, ice, and wet leaves. But at what point does more training not help? When will you be safe?
Riding a bike next to cars is inherently unsafe. When a car hits you, you are ducked. There's a limit to how vigilant you can be and most riders accept it's a when and not an if.
Note motorcycles have mandatory training but still have 10x the death rate.
You can hold the throttle wide open, and it won’t matter if any amount of brake is applied.
E-bikes just aren’t that dangerous, especially compared to a full power motor vehicle. I suspect that the bulk of injuries to children on e-bikes are happening in throttle models because those are cheaper models. You don’t buy your kid a $5k mid drive ebike when you can get a $1k rear drive one. Mid drives are physically unable to have throttle, whereas rear drive bikes almost universally have them.
If you are truly interested in saving children from injuries, the best thing we could do is put speed and power limits on cars. Speeding cars maim, kill, and injure several orders of magnitude more children than e-bikes.
Total agreement on the other part but the injuries I’m hearing about have been kids riding their class-2 e-bikes into fixed objects, not crashing with cars.
https://support.radpowerbikes.com/hc/en-us/articles/44061799...
I upgraded to hydraulic brakes and wanted to keep the motor cutoff - it was hard to find levers with the integrated switch. I ended up with a kit using XOD brakes, which have the integrated cutoff and are otherwise just fine. I did, however, toss their included brake pads after a bit of riding and replaced them with Tektro P20.11 metal/ceramic pads, and those made a huge difference. That and bleeding the brakes properly.
Imagine the equivalent argument for cars.
Are you, and this argument, the reason so many newer and/or electric vehicles don't have "idle creep"?
There are some (a small amount) that support throttle. For example: https://bafangusadirect.com/products/bafang-1000w-bbshd-mid-...
Sure, but we don’t let children drive full power motor vehicles (except older teenagers after passing a test, and obtaining liability insurance).
If your argument is “somebody think of the children” then you have to consider that any child in the US is far, far, far more likely to be maimed or killed by a car while on their bike, then by their bike while on the bike.
If we are going to ban a category of vehicle for the sake of children based on injuries to children, then the logical vehicle to ban is the one that isn’t already speed and power limited.
My position is that it doesn’t matter if the kid is driving cars or not, if large, multi ton, unlimited speed, unlimited power vehicles (cars) are what is killing kids by the thousands, then why are we suggesting banning something which just isn’t as dangerous in an absolute sense.
If you want to compare motor vehicles to bicycles, then let’s add in trains, planes and ferries. And why miles driven and not time spent traveling. There’s a million ways to slice this, but there is no getting around the fact that if your kid dies in a vehicle accident, it’s almost always going to be a car.
By those measures we should get rid of bikes AND cars and stick to public transportation options.
I already think that e-bikes are over-regulated so I push back hard on reactive arguments like the GP. To ride legally I have to limit myself to 2/3 HP (500 watts) regardless of vehicle and rider weight, go no faster than 32kph, ride on road lanes where the other vehicles travel at 2x-3x my speed, wear PPE, have government approved lighting and reflectors, etc.
These things are already massively regulated in ways that limit their actual utility without necessarily helping safety. We don’t need to ban them outright because parents allow their children to do stupid shit on them, or adults are riding them without the proper skills. We don't suggest banning things like downhill mountain bikes even though children ride them, and they are far more dangerous to use as intended than e-bikes.
That's not what I said. I think e-bikes with throttles are too dangerous to be on the market for any buyer. It is a bad, dangerous human-machine interface. There is a reason that the big e-bike brands do not offer them. Yamaha doesn't. Specialized doesn't. Trek doesn't. It is a proper use of consumer safety regulatory powers to set requirements for the controls on a dangerous machine. Without them, you just get a race to the bottom.
In most states you can buy a 49cc scooter which is heavier, faster, more powerful, and has identical controls and operate it without any specialized training. Is that also something we should ban?
The human interface for a hand throttle on e-bikes isn’t novel, it’s been around for the better part of a century on most motorcycles and that seems to work just fine.
I’m not talking about little electric folding scooters. I never mentioned those.
49cc scooters have the same controls as throttle equipped e-bikes. One brake on each side, and throttle on the right. The only difference is that rear brake on the scooter is on the left.
The main difference is that the ebike is arguably safer since you can’t apply throttle and brake at the same time due to the cutout.
Huh, I always thought that virtually everywhere treated these the same as motorbikes (ie you need a license, insurance etc).
The bike featured in the article, a BESV PSA1, is considered a "class 1" machine under the most common framework. It has a low-power motor, pedal assist, and no throttle. I am not aware of any place that requires licenses or insurance for such a bike.
One of us is misunderstanding the GGP.
Are you talking about something with a throttle?
In the EU (and still the UK), anything with a throttle is treated like a motorcycle - it needs licence plates, tax, insurance and a driving licence. A child would therefore not be able to ride one. You also can't ride them on bike paths or lanes.
A pedelec on the other hand, which is what "ebike" usually refers to, still requires pedalling and can only offer motor assistance up to 15.5 MPH - these can be used wherever bicycles can and by anyone, and have no legal requirements to use.
I understand that the US doesn't really regulate non-standard vehicles, but it does seem to me like a child shouldn't be using something with a throttle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedelec#Legal_status_of_pedele...