Two bills moving through the California legislature this year could change how e-bikes are bought, ridden, and regulated across the state. One would require
As a cyclist, I’m all for e-bikes requiring a license.
Most e-bikes in my area are ridden by people who can’t get a driver’s license. This includes people underage, people with their license revoked, and people who have restrictions on their licenses.
And people regularly remove the regulators on those bikes, making them unsafe on the roads.
Meanwhile, they’re also tearing up the mountain bike trails I normally ride on my pedal bike. Many of the people riding these have zero traffic safety training, zero trail etiquette, and zero interest in cooperating with others.
Last week at dusk I had what looked like a 13 year old riding his bike behind me in city traffic, doing a wheelie. Eventually he swerved around me to cross oncoming traffic and hop up onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street so he could avoid an intersection.
Sure, there’s probably plenty of well behaved e-bike riders out there, but the volume of unsafe ones I’ve seen over the past month is insane.
As a cyclist, I’m all for e-bikes requiring a license.
As a cyclist, I disagree. For traffic, we only need licensing on e-bikes that support people to go faster than ±20 km/h whithout pedalling to such speed by their own body strength. Basically: treat e-bike like the motorcycles they are. But ± 20km/h is a speed a normal healthy person on a normal non-electric bicycle can also easily achieve. It’s a generally safe speed in most situations. If it isn’t, it’s a mental health or sociopath behavior of the driver / very poor street infrastructure problem, but the light e-bike shouldn’t have to take the blame.
On mountainbike trails (and on hiking trails!!!) i’m more in favor of something getting close a complete ban for anything motorised.
Perhaps you live in a car dependent area and e bikes are the first viable non car mode of transport in your area and so you are seeing those growing pains of introducing a new mode of transportation for the first time in its history.
Ebikes should not need a license, the bikes themselves need regulation so they are safe without one.
Ebikes should not need a license, the bikes themselves need regulation so they are safe without one.
Agreed. What in my country are class I and II bikes should not need a license. The regulation you speak of should “regulate” class III bikes as something other than an “e-bike”, and require license/registration/insurance. We already do this with hypothetical class IV bikes; a motorcycles.
As a cyclist, I’m all for e-bikes requiring a license.
Most e-bikes in my area are ridden by people who can’t get a driver’s license. This includes people underage, people with their license revoked, and people who have restrictions on their licenses.
And people regularly remove the regulators on those bikes, making them unsafe on the roads.
Meanwhile, they’re also tearing up the mountain bike trails I normally ride on my pedal bike. Many of the people riding these have zero traffic safety training, zero trail etiquette, and zero interest in cooperating with others.
Last week at dusk I had what looked like a 13 year old riding his bike behind me in city traffic, doing a wheelie. Eventually he swerved around me to cross oncoming traffic and hop up onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street so he could avoid an intersection.
Sure, there’s probably plenty of well behaved e-bike riders out there, but the volume of unsafe ones I’ve seen over the past month is insane.
As a cyclist, I disagree. For traffic, we only need licensing on e-bikes that support people to go faster than ±20 km/h whithout pedalling to such speed by their own body strength. Basically: treat e-bike like the motorcycles they are. But ± 20km/h is a speed a normal healthy person on a normal non-electric bicycle can also easily achieve. It’s a generally safe speed in most situations. If it isn’t, it’s a mental health or sociopath behavior of the driver / very poor street infrastructure problem, but the light e-bike shouldn’t have to take the blame.
On mountainbike trails (and on hiking trails!!!) i’m more in favor of something getting close a complete ban for anything motorised.
Perhaps you live in a car dependent area and e bikes are the first viable non car mode of transport in your area and so you are seeing those growing pains of introducing a new mode of transportation for the first time in its history.
Ebikes should not need a license, the bikes themselves need regulation so they are safe without one.
Agreed. What in my country are class I and II bikes should not need a license. The regulation you speak of should “regulate” class III bikes as something other than an “e-bike”, and require license/registration/insurance. We already do this with hypothetical class IV bikes; a motorcycles.