Today is a big day for the future of e-bikes in New York City. A hearing starts at 10 a.m. You can file a written comment until 5 p.m. You can also send an email to rules@dot.nyc.gov until 5 p.m
16mph is the limitation in germany. If your bike is faster, you have to register it an pay tax, and cant use dedicated bicycle infratructure anymore.
16mph is exactly the speed where I’m fast enough but dont feel like I would die in a crash.
Everything above would require protective clothing like on motorcycles Imo, and that kind of defeats the purpose for ebikes for me. I want to ride my bike but don’t want to have to fight against wind and going up the hill.
If an ebike is as fast as a motorcycle, it should get treated as one.
16mph is the limitation in germany.
In my experience, a typical bike-friendly city in Germany will have 30 km/h limit for cars anyway (18 mph). NYC “official” speed limit is 25mph.
Yeah this proposal is reasonable. I wouldnt want to share my bikepath with old people driving more than 25kmh. They just dont have the reaction time to safely drive at speeds like that and even that is actually waaay to fast for the oldest. If you wanna go faster, use your muscles and/or drive on the road.
if you want to go faster use your muscles
Okay but the fact that you can say this without it being a joke proves how stupid this limit is.
The thing with pedelecs and 25km/h is complicated™
- we distinguish e-bikes and pedelecs
- self-driving electric bike
- bike with electric pedal assist
- motorized bikes are already a thing for a century
- motorbikes… (driving license; 16 years+; real number plate; but 20 years+ for >45km/h)
- moped has 45km/h limit and a kickstart pedal (driving license; 15 years+; insurance plate)
- mofa has 25km/h limit and (can have) real bike pedals (driving test; 15 years+; insurance plate)
- every motorized vehicle that can do more than 20km/h and doesn’t have a seat belt, mandates helmets
- bike paths are only for bikes
- outside of built-up area mofas were already allowed to use bike paths
- at least one state banned motorized vehicles from forests
It probably was always possible to drive them as moped/mofa, don’t think it was specified what kind of motor.
Pedal assist doesn’t just stop at 25km/h, it also decreases with higher speeds.
But the point is that pedelecs effectively count as bike and not motorized vehicles. That means somebody younger than 15 can drive them, but you have to be at least 10 to be allowed to drive on streets/roads. Helmets are only mandatory for <12 years old kids on bikes.
- we distinguish e-bikes and pedelecs
Not at all no. This used to be a sort of self regulating system. Peoples ability to go fast with muscles alone usually goes away around the same point where their cognitive abilities become a hazard to the rest of traffic. The difference is that most young people could easily go 18mph or more while old people wouldnt even get past 10 without e-bikes. Basically e-bikes allow people to go beyond their limits. While that sounds cool, in this case it isnt.
Yeah, much better for old uncoordinated people to go back to using cars.
Said literally nobody. 15mph is plenty fast for getting around :) The more important part is making biking more attractive by building better infrastructure for it and actively restricting car traffic by slowing it down or diverting it out of cities.
Yeah but blinking bike lights are also illegal to sell in Germany because you realized that drunk drivers target fixate on them and you apparently found that ban to be a better solution than aggressively cracking down on drunks. So I don’t give much credence to the rational integrity of German vehicular law. I go faster than 16 MPH literally every time I get on my bike. A regular non-motorized bike, powered only by me.
It’s the exact same in the Netherlands. The pedal assist is capped at that speed, but nothing stops you from powering though that and going faster. Not that it makes any sense to do so for the average daily office commuter.
You have hands
I dont think I follow. What’s your point?
As in like, “Damn, infinitesunrise got hands…”? :P
This feels like it’s purposefully designed to kneecap the adoption of e-bikes by rendering all class 1 and 2 e-bikes illegal and making it harder/more expensive to buy new ones because they have to have bespoke detuning for the NYC market.
This is a widely supported issue where I am, mostly because bike lanes are for self propelled vehicles and ebikes are sharing the roads with far heavier and faster vehicles that require licensing and insurance.
They fall between two stools though I am for licensing and insurance of them.
IMO, it should be 20mph, but it’s a software limit. It’s nothing to “tune” it.
If you want to go faster, get a motorcycle license. The higher end ebikes are getting ridiculous. Their frames, tires, and brakes are not designed for the power and speed they can put down.
IMO, it should be 20mph, but it’s a software limit. It’s nothing to “tune” it.
You’re talking about vehicles that typically aren’t open source and don’t have a firmware update mechanism. There is no reason to expect they’re even possible to change without swapping out the entire controller.
People really need to stop buying those. The companies are parasites for reasons that go far beyond this.
The people who ride these ebikes are usually immigrant delivery guys who have little to no cash and not many alternatives.
Do you live or work there? I see ebikes being used on sidewalks by delivery guys all the time. Limiting speeds makes sense for NYC IMO
Why not just add speed limits to areas where higher speeds are an issue? That’s been the approach to cars – no car is limited to 140 kmh despite speeds above that are illegal pretty much everywhere…
Regular bikes can easily go above 15 mph as well, so why should this only affect e-bikes?
ebikes are frequently heavier and are frequently ridden on sidewalks in NYC.
Maybe put in some proper bike lanes so riders don’t feel they need to ride on the sidewalk? 🤔
