Fine for riding e-bikes on trails in DC?

[Oldtowner]

@baiskeli 97575 wrote:

Again – this is not about fully-powered scooters, it’s about bicycles that are foot-powered most of the time.

e-bike:

Scooter like those in the streets of Hanoi:

Article comparing e-bikes and scooters:

http://www.politusic.com/everything-else/electric-scooter-ebike-motorcycle/

Ah, but if it were that easy to tell the apart. What is this? Note the pedals.

[baiskeli]

@Oldtowner 97761 wrote:

Ah, but if it were that easy to tell the apart. What is this? Note the pedals.

That’s what governments are for — to make some legal definition so we can tell the difference. And the definition should relate to the problem, such as noise or speed.

[DismalScientist]

No. Governments, as they exist, make legal definitions that are not apparent and often irrelevant to social problems. This maximizes discretion and, therefore, power by government authorities.:rolleyes::mad:

[baiskeli]

@DismalScientist 97789 wrote:

No. Governments, as they exist, make legal definitions that are not apparent and often irrelevant to social problems. This maximizes discretion and, therefore, power by government authorities.:rolleyes::mad:

Yes. Government can, and usually does, make good definitions that make sense. Such as what kind of vehicle can use a trail and what kind can’t. You’ll have to wait until the government allows big fat electric scooters on trails, or passes some really vague ordinance giving police the power to decide, to launch a libertarian rant, Dismal. Sorry.

[jabberwocky]

I think the problem is that some arbitrary limit (like a motor wattage limit or assisted speed limit or something) is basically so impossible to enforce that you may as well not even have the limit. Its much simpler to just say that certain infrastructure is for non-motorized vehicles.

[jrenaut]

@mstone 97690 wrote:

The change is to the default speed limit where there isn’t one posted, basically the neighborhood back roads.

In DC, this default is already 25mph, which as you may have noticed doesn’t mean much. I’d like to see the maximum speed on any road in DC (with the possible exception of 395 and 295) set to 25mph.

[DismalScientist]

The possible exception of 395 and 295? That is hardcore.

[mstone]

@DismalScientist 97806 wrote:

The possible exception of 395 and 295? That is hardcore.

Hey, if you’re going to fantasize about things that will never happen, you might as well go big.

[ShawnoftheDread]

@baiskeli 97795 wrote:

Yes. Government can, and usually does, make good definitions that make sense. Such as what kind of vehicle can use a trail and what kind can’t. You’ll have to wait until the government allows big fat electric scooters on trails, or passes some really vague ordinance giving police the power to decide, to launch a libertarian rant, Dismal. Sorry.

No, he doesn’t have to wait at all. The government has already decided that a bike isn’t allowed on the trail if it has a battery assist that helps it move up a hill no faster than most of us can pedal up the hill. This is so arbitrary and counter to public desires that even the lovers of government among our group routinely ignore the government ban and ride their ebikes on the trails. So you’ll have to wait to launch your pro-government rant. Sorry.

[dasgeh]

To the original question: My understanding is that if riding a bike that has motor is legal (in Virginia, at least) if the motor is off.

To the bigger issue of e-bikes as transportation, as I’ve said before, I’m a strong believer that ebikes make cycling in general MORE safe. Most importantly, ebikes can help get more people on bikes and the biggest factor to make cycling safer is to get more bikes out and about. Having a motor helps the most going from 0 to 8 mph, so riding an ebike, you feel less “protective” of your momentum. There’s less incentive to “Idaho stop” on an ebike, because going from 0mph back up to speed just isn’t much harder than going from 3 mph back up to speed (same logic goes for slowing to pass pedestrians/other riders, and other dangerous behavior that is common on bikes because cyclists don’t want to slow down because, in part, they don’t want to work to get the speed back).

As to the question of whether they should be on paved trails, people on ebikes are just as vulnerable as people on regular bikes. Why do cyclists prefer trails? Safety, first and foremost, and ebikers want and deserve that, too. If the complaint is behavior, regulate the behavior. It’s ethically wrong and just plain dumb to ban a type of bike that enables some people to bike who could not be out on a pedal bike, that gets more people on bikes, and that encourages more courteous cycling behavior in an attempt to stem behavior that is already observable in the rest of the cycling community.

Who are these people who could or would not be out on motor-less bikes, but who will bike on ebikes? Family cyclists (hauling a huge bikes with extra people on it deserves a little help), pregnant women for whom motor-less biking makes them sick, people whose trip would be too far for their level of fitness on a regular bike, people whose wardrobe and time requirements are not compatible with a regular lab, people with chronic illnesses that do not allow them to drive in spread out cities with poor public transportation systems. And those are just the examples from my life and my family. There are so many more, and they don’t deserve to be forced to mix with multi-ton boxes of metal travelling twice their speed.

As to line drawing what is an ebike and what is not, it is totally possible and there already attempts to do so. There is a federal law defining an ebike and empowering the FTC to refine the definition by regulation. That definition isn’t perfect, but it’s a good starting point.

And to the comment that people with little experience may jump on ebikes, I just don’t buy it. Ebikes are significant investments, and they are still bikes, offering little protection in a fall. On any bike, you feel the difference between 15 mph and 30 mph, and you know that hitting something or someone at 30 mph is going to hurt you.

(I know nothing about mountain biking, so can’t comment on that aspect of it. Just transportational cycling)

[americancyclo]

again, the League of American Bicyclists survey: http://bikeleague.org/content/survey-perceptions-electric-bikes

They have some visual examples that gave me pause when I took the survey.

I learned that I am ok with an ebike going 20 mph, a little uneasy about 30mph, and vehemently against 50mph.

I think my personal perference for unassisted speed is a 25mph cutoff. or maybe 20 mph.

[DismalScientist]

@dasgeh 98056 wrote:

.
As to line drawing what is an ebike and what is not, it is totally possible and there already attempts to do so. There is a federal law defining an ebike and empowering the FTC to refine the definition by regulation. That definition isn’t perfect, but it’s a good starting point.

Please leave the FTC out of this.

[jnva]

@americancyclo 98059 wrote:

again, the League of American Bicyclists survey: http://bikeleague.org/content/survey-perceptions-electric-bikes

They have some visual examples that gave me pause when I took the survey.

I learned that I am ok with an ebike going 20 mph, a little uneasy about 30mph, and vehemently against 50mph.

I think my personal perference for unassisted speed is a 25mph cutoff. or maybe 20 mph.

Let’s mandate that cars be speed limited to 65mph. Cars kill people.

[jrenaut]

@jnva 98064 wrote:

Let’s mandate that cars be speed limited to 25mph. Cars kill people.

Fixed.

[mstone]

@dasgeh 98056 wrote:

As to the question of whether they should be on paved trails, people on ebikes are just as vulnerable as people on regular bikes.[/quote]

Or motorcycles.

Quote:

Why do cyclists prefer trails? Safety, first and foremost, and ebikers want and deserve that, too.

A big part of that is the speed differential. If the bike can easily keep up with traffic, that factor disappears.

I think that current production e-bikes are fine on most of our current infrastructure. I’m pretty sure that most of our trails can handle people puttering along at low speeds on ebikes, and nobody really cares/will press the issue. I’m also pretty sure that most of our trails can’t deal with larger numbers of higher speed electric vehicles. Every time we go around on this it comes back to what we have now basically works (with some winks & nods) but that the limiting factor is basically technology: it’s extremely likely that within the next 10 years, advancements in batteries will make it easy to have a crazy, overpowered electric vehicle on a trail. I haven’t seen a workable proposal to deal with that reality which seems more effective than just officially banning motorized vehicles and hoping for good discretion in enforcement. I really hate that idea, but I also see no possibility that we’re going to have cops on the W&OD with dynamometers, checking for legal horsepower. (Or somehow checking for speed governors.) The only real winning scenario I see is for on-street infrastructure to improve to the point that the people on electric bikes don’t have a desire to use the MUPs and we can keep the no-motor rule without having to wink at all.

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