Investigating a teen’s death on an ebike and the Rad brand’s safety
bicycling.com
bicycling.com
The fact that this was an e-bike is irrelevant, aside from perhaps the extra weight. It's difficult to imagine the kid was using the electric features of the bike while going down that steep hill, because you could probably coast on any bike faster than 25mph on a hill like that. Plenty of non-electric bikes could have a brake failure, assuming that was the case in this situation. And riders can misjudge their bike's handling/braking capabilities with the extra weight of a passenger. None of these things are intentional or justify lawsuits.
Perhaps the state should sue the parents for not helicoptering and ensuring that two kids didn't ride one bike down a steep hill. After all, if every other player involved is liable, then the parents should also be liable. Or nobody is liable because it was an unfortunate accident.
On the other hand, many of the the newer motorcycle-style e-bikes are being designed, marketed, and sold, as two-seaters.
One of the rules for the "progressive drivers license" in my state, for teenagers, is that they can't have more than one teenager in the car at a time.
Really, giving a kid any kind of moving vehicle means new risks. Even if everything is right, crashes happen. I seriously doubt the one girl bought her e-bike with the strong consideration of it being a "two person bike". Besides, there are plenty of teens or adults who might weigh the same as those two girls together. The second seat is irrelevant.
Here's one of the latest Trek ebikes. Roughly half of the marketing pictures show two riders. Naturally, the e-bike market is changing rapidly, and whatever I say could be wrong next week.
https://electra.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/electra-bikes/e...
Really? Ten seconds on google: https://www.vintag.es/2015/11/lovely-vintage-photos-of-coupl...
In this case, they want them to not spec bikes with flimsy components like the pathetic brakes described by a half-dozen people in that article as needing constant adjustment, with the consequences of forgetting to do it every couple weeks that you might die. I certainly won't buy an e-bike with those kind of brakes myself now, and the fact that no sane person who knows the risk would, really does suggest that perhaps selling such a bike now that we've seen the risks, is very irresponsible. I hope they get a huge settlement or judgment that makes all e-bike makers reconsider the position on the spectrum of cheap vs. safe that they have chosen.
And if they just wanted to send a message to the bike company, why sue the other girl?
Really, that last point really hits me poorly.
Heck, car parking brakes can fail on hills, so drivers need to know to turn their front wheels the right way to help prevent a runaway car. Many car parking brakes aren't designed for steep hills. Is the car maker at fault if the parking brake fails in an abnormal environment?
Some bikes with caliper brakes can have tire failures due to rim heating from long downhill braking. And a blown front tire could lead to a bad crash. Are the bike makers, wheel makers, brake makers, and tire makers at fault here too? Or perhaps California should be sued for making a road that's too steep?
As for rich people not suing because they need more money... these people sued their daughter's friend's family. How is that going to help? All that will do is add salt to the wound the living child probably has. In fact, it's just evil to do that to the other kid.
Most active kids probably engage in activities that have a non-zero chance of death or serious injury on a regular basis. 99.999% of the time, if injuries result, they are minor, but there's always going to be a few instances where the outcome is horrific.
Society is worse because of the lawsuit (and fear of lawsuit) culture this type of behavior results in.
The mother seems to be milking this for attention. Lawsuits, Twitter postings, a foundation, a mural, press coverage in People and the New York Times. But where's the forensic evidence that the e-bike failed? One of the arguments in the lawsuit is that the manufacturer is liable because, without power assist, the kids would not have been able to get a bike to the top of that hill. That's pushing it.
For an alternate view, see this article in Outside Magazine.[2]
[1] https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2022/12/29/goo...
[2] https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/...
Which mother?
Except unlike the people in those videos, they have no skill at all. “Unearned speed” is the term in cycling communities.
I’m genuinely surprised there aren’t more deaths. Blowing red lights without even looking, salmoning, texting while riding, it’s insane.
And I’m simply shocked, shocked that the rich lawyer power couple is seeking to absolve themselves of their culpability through a lawsuit.
Riding against the traffic in a one-way bike lane
Parents carry blame for buying a 13 year old a motorized vehicle that they the ride very fast.
Also for endangering pedestrians who are now at the mercy of kids barreling down the road.
It is a tragedy, but it is not clear to me that there wouldn't be a similar legal outcome even with a motorless bike.
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.
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 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.
20mph is fast as hell when you fall off or hit something.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But this kind of thing is practically never done for the thousands of children and teenagers that die each year from being hit by cars. It's just expected, normal, the price of doing business.
A notable exception is Strong Towns' Crash Analysis Studio, they do great work: https://www.strongtowns.org/crash-studio
Singling out ebikes seems like status-quo bias -- they get disproportionate scrutiny simply because they are new, not because of the level of risk they present.
Yes. The local denizens of Nextdoor go on and on about the kids on eBikes, while it's the local drivers who are absolutely slaughtering each other and everyone else: https://ktvz.com/category/news/accidents-crashes/
Second the Strong Towns recommendation. They do great work.
We are quite happy with the bike though. It has replaced a bunch of car trips for us, and among other things, I do most of the shopping for our family of four with it.
I am pretty comfortable getting around with a regular bike. I'm a fit cyclist. But the eBike is a step up:
* I can sit a person on the back of it. Even my wife if we're not going far (she's petite).
* I can carry quite a bit of groceries with it and not break a sweat.
* If it is hot outside, I use more pedal assist and get a pleasant cooling effect. In summer I'd much rather hop on my eBike than get in the hot car, as the eBike provides an instant breeze, whereas the car's AC takes some time.
* If it is cold outside, I can layer up a lot more on the eBike. If I start to warm up and feel like I might sweat some, I can use more pedal assist.
* I can cruise up hills, even on the hottest days, without showing up sweaty.
* It is, of course, faster than a regular bike. I like riding bikes and enjoy spending time on them, but sometimes you have to get somewhere quickly.
As others are saying, outside of a few issues with DIY bike assembly, the main issue with eBike safety is automobiles and especially the huge, heavy, high ones that have proliferated in the US in recent years.
We know how to do safer bike infrastructure. There are great examples in other countries that have pioneered it. Whether we want to make it safer or not is a policy choice.
If you're a fit cyclist, riding on decent surfaces, respect the safety speed limit and don't have to ride around pedestrians staring at phone with headphones randomly walking into your path.
Even in countries with good biking infrastructure ebike accident rate is comparable to motorcycles - because for the most part they are shitty motorcycles (brakes, tires, forks/frame) with the safety advantage of being limited to very low speed (which many people circumvent).
Strapping a child seat to a motorcycle would get me arrested/child taken by social services - bit strapping one on a ebike makes me hip.
> Overall, the report concludes that the main culprit in all bicycle (regular and electric) injuries was the rider’s own behavior (44 percent) — a steering error, for example — while 32 percent was road conditions. And the majority of these accidents affected only the rider. Two-thirds of the 110,000 traffic victims treated in Dutch hospitals last year were cyclists, VeiligheidNL says. The survey was conducted with hospitalized riders between July 2020 and June 2021.
Even in countries with top biking infrastructure ebikes are significanly more dangerous.
Again - if I suggested I drove my kid to kindergarten on a motorcycle I'd have social services on my door. When I'm exposing them to a similar risk on an ebike that's OK ?
Ebikes are not bycicles.
The stats from the article you cite say that eBikes are 1.6 times more dangerous, whereas road bikes come in at 2.0 and mountain bikes at 3 for mountain bikes.
So in the grand scheme of things, that extra speed has a bit of a cost but less than some kinds of completely human-powered bikes, and it's nowhere near the cost the lack of infrastructure in the US that is absolutely lethal.
Look at the pedestrian death rates in the US:
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/10/10/exactly-how-far-u-s-s...
It's kind of difficult to victim blame people just going about their business walking. They're getting killed because of cars and poor infrastructure.
Well, sort of. If you go by count of any incident regardless of severity, sure. But stratify the results and the picture becomes very different. Motorcycles are far more likely to be seriously injured in an at-fault crash, whereas cyclists are far more likely to be seriously injured if the other party is a car and at fault.
Ebikes seem like bikes but they let you go way faster than you would with a bio bike - I don't think it's responsible treating them as such and using child seats or allowing anyone to ride them without training/helmets.
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/06/02/why-helmets-arent-the...
It's not a bad idea to wear one in any case in my opinion, but it really is about the infrastructure. Here's the same author of the piece being discussed explaining why he doesn't wear a helmet much:
https://velo.outsideonline.com/2018/11/commentary-why-i-stop...
But it's not something I'd do, or support as a public policy.
His helmet was split in two, and it messed up his shoulder pretty badly and needed months of PT, but no neurological damage that could be detected.
This is in Silicon Valley, he had moved from the UK a year or two prior.
This is absolutely known as a design flaw! Downhill mountain bikers have known for decades (since say the 2000s?) that combination of brakes and wheels is problematic, and it's known as an immediate red flag that a mountain bike is poorly specced and designed. It is done solely because quick release axles are slightly cheaper. Front disc brakes require a thru-axle design on the front wheel!
I also didn't see in the article, if the Rad bike had cable or hydraulic disc brakes. In my opinion, despite being very common, cable disc brakes are under-powered and unreliable for a heavy consumer e-bike. They are powerful but easily lose their adjustment (I have cable disc brakes on one of my own bikes).
I'm pleased to see someone taking these cheap, bad e-bike designs to court.
Forget downhill MTB, no reputable bike company ships road bikes without proper axles these days.
Wow this company is crazy
Especially on a bicycle where you have a passenger onboard, high speeds are just best avoided.
It seems like there may be more to this than ‘just’ angry, bereaved parents.
And the rhetoric of "nobody has considered kids on these things" is ridiculous. Of course they have. ATVs have been a thing for a long long time. And it has been known for a long time that those are dangerous. Do we even allow three wheelers anymore? I remember we had motorcycles at that age growing up.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that too many kids are getting on these bikes without training or proper headgear and such. I'm not clear on what this story is asserting to be done about it. Some vague assertions about bad designs, but no design points actually called out. They reference an older design that was problematic, but specifically do not accuse the current bikes of using that.
I didn't get to what the current status of this lawsuit is. Is that known?
There are two design problems. The first is quick releases, which no serious bike manufacturer would spec with disc brakes anymore; the actual industry had long moved on to through-axles at a time when RadRunner was still selling these bikes. They particularly don't make sense to spec when you are selling bikes to people who are expected to have no understanding of how they work.
The other design problem is that manufacturers like RadPower will install the most garbage flexy throwaway shit for components in places where they assume the customer can't tell the difference. That's how you end up with mechanical disc brakes; sure, they have plenty of stopping power when adjusted correctly. But they need to be adjusted for pad wear and a million other things, and when they were made out of sheet metal, that can be hard to do.
But we shouldn't lose track of the most likely cause - they were two kids on a very heavy bike with a very relaxed position (read: difficult to control) going down a 14% incline. They probably picked up much more speed than they were expecting to, panicked and binned it. 99% of the time, they walk away with scrapes, and very rarely, they hit their head in just the wrong way to cause massive damage.
None of that really enters here, though? The "wheel could have come off due to design" is irrelevant in a case where the wheel didn't come off. That it didn't have enough stopping power could be relevant? But even that wasn't asserted here, instead it was that the operator lost control and they crashed. Which sucks in every sense of the word.
Your gripe that they use cheap components would matter if you can show that this crash was a component failure. That isn't claimed.
This entire comments section is too filled with people grinding their axe to the tune of a dead kid excusing any logic to their claim.
The second half, I completely flipped. The author doesn't specifically claim it in this case, but it seems pretty likely that the brakes failed, and that the brakes are either undersized or low quality on these bikes. I haven't owned an e-bike before but the idea that you need to do brake maintenance every 200 miles is totally unreasonable. I've owned owned several bikes and ridden them way more than 200 miles and I don't think I've ever had to maintain the brakes at all.
I had been thinking about buying one of these actually, and now I will steer clear.
There actually is something in the first half that if you read a little between the lines does seem like it might indicate some negligence by the other girl's mother:
>> Kaye thought it was cute and snapped a photo with her phone and texted it to Eme’s mom, who’s a friend of hers. She replied that if at some point the girls wanted to ride Eme’s sister’s new electric bike (it was a bat mitzvah gift), they were welcome to walk over and use it.
It was a new electric bike, and it was a gift for the sister, and the sister was probably 12 or 13 since that is the age for a bat mitzvah. I don't have any siblings, but from what I saw of friends who did growing up, a 12 or 13 year old who gets a gift like this is going to monopolize it for a while.
I'd expect then that Eme had little to no experience riding it, which Eme's mother should have known. At the very least that means they should not have been allowed to ride together, since riding with a passenger is much harder than riding solo.
Eme's mother than should not have invited the girls over to ride it, unless she was going to supervise to make sure they didn't do anything too risky for their skill level. If she did not supervise that might be negligent. If she did supervise but allowed them ride tandem that might be negligent.
Ebikes that go faster (30 km/h or 45km/h pedal assisted max) 1000w max require a min. age of 16 and a special M license or vehicle license. Additionally you are required to get a plate for the Ebike and you must wear a helmet.
All ebikes require day time running lights and fast ebikes will also require a tachometer in 2024.
We do have issues with a new type of rollers that have replaced the old mopets. Those you can drive without any licenses or helmet if you are older than 16. This will probably change however even though they don't go over 20km/h they can still be dangerous.
Do you mean speedometer? I don’t see how motor speed is relevant to safety.
In my head, people would calmly walk away from this, and it would serve as a stark reminder of how dangerous this all is, help reduce congestion by reducing licensed drivers, and encourage carpooling and expanded public transit. In reality, an angry mob would probably tar and feather me for trying to enact such a ridiculous idea.
Sad also how slow and ineffective government is, from the perspective of housing and transit, and more over from failure to regulate danger to the public well.
My town (Boulder, CO) is inundated with what look like 12-17 year-olds absolutely tearing around on e-bikes. They are rarely petaling, 50/50 on helmet wearing, and often going 20-30 (or more) mph. I assume they have just defeated the speed governors. This particular group is essentially underaged, unlicensed motorcycle riders that uses roads, bikes lines, and sidewalks as it seems convenient. One of the fundamental safety problems is that although people are very used to cyclists here, they are not used to the car-like speed that these things go.
it seems slightly weird to me to be blaming the bike here. bikes experience failures, that’s true of any bike. a more complicated bike has more failure points.
2 youngish kids on an e-bike on a hill with a 14% grade? e-bike or not, that’s a dangerous situation.
If there was any evidence of that happening here though, it would be in the law suit.
Unlike Hydraulic Disc Brakes, Mechanical Disc Brakes ARE NOT self-adjusting! It is VITAL you adjust them as the pads wear!