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Comment by Galanwe | Hacker News Reader

This drives me mad as well. Electric bikes should be limited to 25kph and non throttled in Europe, yet half the bikes I see are both, and drive recklessly.

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The other day I was passed by one which kept up with the cars on the main road, which has a speed limit of 80km/h. Most cars don't go full speed there, but will reach at least 60km/h . On it were two young boys without helmets. It's insane.

I don't really get that logic. Cars can do way over 100 yet no one calls for limiting all cars all the time, because some drivers drive reckless.

And if we want to limit cars - you know, the number one thing that actually kills a lot of people directly - then I don't think it helps artificially limiting alternatives like E-Bikes.

The only difference is with enforcing the rules, but there are solutions for that. Police on E-Bikes doing patrolling, mandatory number plates, E-Bike driving licence, .. not that I want all those things, but I much rather have that and not crippled bikes so cars stay the norm.

You are being confused, vehicles by themselves are not limited, their category is.

You can have an electric vehicle that runs at 100kph if you want, but that is not a bike, that is a motorcycle.

The problem here is people having vehicles assimilated as ebikes, but with radically different specs.

I have no problem with these guys driving their vehicles on the car lane, like motorbikes do, but that's not what we're talking about here.

These vehicles are running on the bike lane, drivers are without helmets, they cross pavements, and enjoy all the slow vehicles perks, while being far more dangerous for their surroundings.

Ok, but I am talking about being able to drive in city traffic and keep up with cars and not be a blocker - and then go to the forest with my e-bike where I do mind the other people walking around there and drive adequate. Not possible with current legislation.

I can only drive my E-Bike with my car to the forest (like to many people do), or drive slowly there myself.

In Europe a class 1 ebike can't have a throttle and assist must be limited to 25km/h (it's 32km/h in the US). They can be faster and have a throttle, but then they are more like scooters in terms of licensing and insurance. If you go to most bike shops in Western Europe they will only have class 1 e-bikes. A class 1 bike is generally allowed everywhere a bike is.

While there are a lot of people riding more powerful bikes in Europe illegally, at least some countries are trying to crack down on them. In the US, it seems easier to buy class 2 and 3 e-bikes, and there seems to be a higher proportion of illegal bikes. It's an open secret which "class 1" bikes you can buy and then overclock easily.

So in Europe you mostly have class 1 e-bikes and obviously illegal (as in you can tell just by looking at them), but in the US you have these plus a lot of class 2 and 3 e-bikes, and overclocked class 1 e-bikes. The end result is most mountain bike trails in Europe allow class 1 e-bikes only, but in the US it's impossible to enforce class 1 only, so a lot of regions are trending towards banning all e-bikes from all trails. So be careful about wishing for a more powerful e-bike you can drive in traffic and mountain bike trails.

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