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this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
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Bicycles
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Cars arent the thing making E-Bikes unsafe. Rider behavior is the thing making E-Bikes unsafe.
I live in a town in an area that has more bike infrastructure than almost anywhere in the country. You could literally commute 40 miles each way (or more) on trails that hardly cross any roadways at all. I love bikes and think Ebikes are awesome. But when people who choose to use them decide to be idiots they are legitimately dangerous. They deserve to be treated like something different from a normal bike because they literally are.
On the trails, ebike riders in my area are often smoking pedestrians because they ride well over the posted speed limit, pass at full speed, and don’t announce themselves when passing. In one case, a woman was hit by an ebiker who then left her lying there and took off. Ebikes are not regular weight bikes. Getting hit by that rider caused her spinal damage and lasting issues, and she has no way of going after the person because they fled and everything happened on a trail. The county sheriffs wouldnt even investigate because they say the trails are the responsibility of the local transportation authority. Although realistically they would never catch them anyways
On the roads in town, the biggest danger are young kids and tourons that dont understand that if you bike on a street you are required to bike in the same way you would drive a car. They think “im on a bike, so stop signs, right of ways, and speed limits dont apply to me”. This has resulted in many young kids getting borderline killed when they get hit by cars because of things that are their own fault. Numerous times I have had kids (that cant possibly be more than 8-10 years old) blow stop signs and fly out in front of my car at 30mph. The only saving grace is that I was going the actual speed limit of 15, because if I had been going double it, like them, it would have been over with.
I have nothing against Ebikes, but this is the exact type of improper usage that these laws are trying to prevent. Both for the safety of the riders and for everyone else. 8 year olds or anyone else shouldnt be able to ride a class 2 or 3 if they are incapable of understanding road rules and how to not potentially kill someone else or themselves. Honestly class 1 shouldn’t be exempt either because it is not hard to get a class 1 to fly well over its flat ground speed, and on any bike (electric or standard) it generally feels like you are going slower than you actually are.
There is definitely argument to be made about what is the best way to go about it, but the framing of this article that we should just keep everything unregulated as if ebikes are a normal schwin is some major BS
Agree. I ride my e-bike in the street, stop for red lights, stop at stop sign, signal and use my turn signals. I have almost hit children in the street riding e-bikes and scooters with no helmets because they are running red lights and riding in the wrong lane against oncoming vehicles. I'm not happy at the prospect of my e-bike becoming regulated, but I'm tired of having to dodge cars and them. Those kids piss me off so much that if they got hit or fell I would legit just be tempted continue on my way after calling it in to 911/emergency; do stupid shit, get hit.
I feel like the best way to regulate them is to require a learners permit for driving a car, many states don't allow the permit until age 16. Then at least the rider has passed a written road test and knows the rules and is hopefully more mature that fucking 8 year olds. I don't think bikes should necessarily require insurance. Bikes with speed of 20mph or lower shouldn't require it at least. My bike weights 50lbs top speed 20 mph. If I hit someone I don't think I'm likely to kill them because most of the time I am not running at top speed anyway. It's the 80-100 lb more more bikes going 30 mph that start to get pretty dangerous.
Maybe people should stop walking on BIKE paths then? you dont expect to be safe walking in the middle of the street do you? people on their lambo feeties need to gtfo the way for cyclists if they are in their space. Are you one of those people who stand around in the bike lane acting like its part of the sidewalk?
They are not dedicated bike paths. They are shared use paths for pedestrians and unmotorized vehicles. Bikers dont get to bitch about pedestrians using their rights on a path but also bitch about drivers not wanting to share roadways with bikes. Absolute whiners
Not the OP, but I'm one of the people who uses the sidewalk, parks and other spaces where even regular bicycles are not meant to be ridden by existing law, and I've had plenty of people on ebikes and mopeds nearly clock me because they're going off roads and designated biking paths at 30mph or more. I've nearly been taken out while bike commuting in the designated bike path while I was exceeding the posted road speed limit by a few mph (really long downhill straight section of my commute without any intersections, so just inertia could get me above 30mph according to my cycling computer), only to nearly get sideswiped by some asshole swerving across multiple lanes of traffic on their fully motor-powered bikes trying to overtake me while weaving in and out of other traffic.
I'm not opposed to e-bikes per se, and I would vastly prefer they be adopted as a widespread replacement to cars, but you cannot argue in good faith that this ebikes with heavy batteries and frames and components that are much heavier than a typical bike, which can obtain much higher speeds than a typical consumer bike for any Joe off the streets who hops on one instantly, are not more dangerous than conventional bikes are to others.
As @ToastedRavioli@midwest.social said, it's not necessarily an inherent issue with all ebikes, but the users have repeatedly demonstrated, they cannot be counted on to use their ebikes in a safe manner without the compulsion of penalties and consequences for their actions. I personally watched one of these assholes whip around a blind corner faster than surrounding street traffic, only to jump up on the sidewalk and immediately t-bone a car that had been in the middle of backing out of a parking lot around the the corner where this guy couldn't see him since before he even approached the intersection.
Ebikes are not bad, in an of themselves, but they're in a similar situation to kids riding dirt bikes and ATVs in city streets a few years ago. They by a vehicle that is illegal for the way the want to use it, use it in this already prohibited manner, if they haven't gone out of their way to find a grey market bike from overseas that is already illegal by virtue of by-passining limiters or just not having them to begin with, and then we get to see their mom and girlfriend crying on the news about how it's so unfair, and their son is just a good boy and people are being mean to him because he turned somebodies' mom into a bloody stain on the street when they were just going about their day.
They kill and harm not just others, but themselves, at a horrifying rate, so some level of restrictions and regulations in clearly necessary here. Honestly, some level of registration, mandatory safety training and insurance is going to be necessary, given the level of damage people riding them irresponsibly can cause to themselves an others, and there will have to be a point where some people lose their privileges to operate them because they've shown themselves to be too irresponsible, same as with cars.