[Dewey]

@zsionakides 167413 wrote:

legal prohibitions on them, would allow for impoundment to deter misuse on trails.

This is being tried on the streets of New York City where the NYPD periodically impound ebikes, unsure if they make a distinction with legal Class 1 pedal assist ebikes but the photos I’ve seen on the NYPD’s twitter feed suggest most that are crushed are Chinese imports which are more powerful than Class 3 speed pedelecs, throttle operated, and like all ebikes they don’t have VIN numbers because they are not built to NHTSA safety standards, so they definitely fall outside the current New York state ebike definition and cannot be registered as street legal mopeds at the New York DMV. Recently the Mayor declared he would be targeting the restaurants and delivery riders but the businesses selling them don’t appear to be being targeted, in the same way Trek can somehow sell Class 3 speed pedelec ebikes in Minnesota and Florida where they’re illegal.

A Brooklyn bike shop owner who sells NY legal Class 1 pedelec ebikes is advocating Albany take a unique approach to legalising Class 1 pedelec ebikes for use on trails rather than simply adopting the ‘People for Bikes’ ebike industry-written model legislation. He describes he has no problem with the NYPD enforcement actions and supports appropriate targeted enforcement. Quote from pedelec retailer Chris Nolte “We could have passed a bill last year, but the bike industry wasn’t willing to support a bill that didn’t align with their model legislation. This year we plan to work outside of the traditional channels, it’s been too many years of people outside of NY trying to make decisions on what’s best for NY.”

I have tried writing to the CPSC but they aren’t interested or funded to tackle enforcement on the supply end, and when I followed up by writing to a state AG’s office about an importer of an illegal electric moped being marketed as a Class 3 speed pedelec I received a polite letter noting my concern but promising no action. I support WABA’s position accepting pedal assist while promoting the local cycling community’s concerns and hope they will engage with local ebike retailers and riders so together we can steer and amend legislation and promote responsible ebike cycling and nuanced LE action in DC, MD & VA otherwise outside forces will continue to set the agenda.

[Dewey]

Post article.

[Dewey]

@lordofthemark 167344 wrote:

If enough states pass this, perhaps standards could be established for appearance, to make class 3 ebikes more distinguishable from Class 1s

I suspect many people who ride electric motorcycles or Class 3 pedelecs would be amenable, a lot of the DIY crowd on Endless Sphere use home built battery boxes or bags that fill the triangle and make a bicycle look a bit like a Motocross or Pit bike, some use repurposed ammo cans as battery boxes. The big three could take the lead here, if Trek, Giant and Specialized are brought in and asked to design something visually distinct for their Class 3 pedelecs, right now they sometimes look like MTB’s with wide/square frame tubes, sometimes you can’t tell.

[Dewey]

@jabberwocky 167299 wrote:

obviously the entire point of an e-bike is that it adds power to allow you to go at a consistently higher speed.

No, not the entire point for many (most) ebike cyclists. A 250w Class 1 pedelec motor helps me climb hills I cannot pedal up otherwise, helps me get going when stationary at a stop light/sign, and helps me tow my daughter’s trailer while carrying heavy shopping, for me the point of an ebike is that it provides pedal assist, I disagree I am an “edge case” there are plenty of cyclists in the DC metro area who have similarly adapted their bicycle with an electric motor, or bought an ebike, for similar reasons, and most of us probably do ride at just a little above average bicycle speeds (studies have reported an average 2mph difference between class 1 pedelecs and pedal bicycles) but try to ride appropriate to the road/trail conditions and hopefully try to be a PAL. Some people have bought an ebike or an electric motorcycle to ride at high speed, as noted earlier in the thread some of these are commuters riding legal Class 3 ebikes, but I share your anger at inconsiderate speeding on trails, just as I’m angry at gangs of ATV hooligans riding on roads while ignoring traffic laws. I would like the Virginia general assembly to adopt a classification system for ebikes to give localities the tool they need to make nuanced application of the law to ebikes riding on trails or not.

[Dewey]

@lordofthemark 167284 wrote:

are bikes allowed on the Water Taxis from Old Town to National Harbor?

No, according to the FAQ page on the website of the Potomac RiverBoat Company. For people wanting to ride to Mt Vernon they recommend a one-way bike rental from Bike and Roll leaving the bike outside the estate then taking the boat back to Alexandria as a pedestrian.

[Dewey]

@bobco85 167173 wrote:

If you want more of a visual of what that stretch looks like, I made a video during SafeTrack that includes a route on Shady Grove Rd going from Muncaster Mill Rd to the Shady Grove Metro. Scroll to 2:40 in my video for that section of Shady Grove Rd

Much obliged to you for the video, I’d come to the same conclusion, looking closer at the Google streetview photos for that road all the cyclists ride on the sidewalk. Very brave of you to ride in the bike lane to take the video, thank you.

[Dewey]

@lordofthemark 167159 wrote:

we need the General Assembly to establish a classification like that in California, possibly even copying the Ca legislative language, which would enable localities to allow class 1 and 2 ebikes on trails

I’d like for that to happen, and for all the bike advocacy groups to get behind such a change. I would note the California language requires legal ebikes be labelled by the manufacturer with their class rating but that could be interpreted as covering only manufactured complete ebikes and may exclude folks like me that have converted their bicycle with a class 1 pedelec kit motor, if the legislation were worded to make explicit retailers can certify and label aftermarket conversions in a similar way the DMV undertakes safety inspections, I would gladly pay a local bike shop that services ebikes to check my controller settings in return for the required class label.

[Dewey]

@secstate 167108 wrote:

UPS is making its love affair with bike lanes official (at least in Portland)

Interesting looking vehicle. A promotional video video (with groovetastic soundtrack) lists the trailer as 4 feet wide and shows it being ridden on a section of sidewalk between two traffic bollards. The poor 500W motor is being severely worked hauling its 250lb unladen weight plus a claimed 600lb payload, unsure if that includes the rider.

Proposed Halloween model?

[Dewey]

@drevil 167102 wrote:

Preferably, I’d find a less dangerous route, but I know this isn’t always possible.

Yeah, I looked at the parallel Redland Road on streetview but found it very narrow with no sidewalks and blind corners in places, no thanks. I’d choose to ride on the sidewalk heading South along Shady Grove Road, I’d be worried about the draught from fast passing trucks threatening to suck me into the road. To be fair heading North looks safer because it avoids the dangerous intersection with the Mid County Hwy, because of the adjacent sidewalk, and the 10′ wide Shady Grove Rd-Metro access bike path. I read somewhere there are 2,000 daily bicycle commuters in Montgomery County so wondered how Maryland cyclists choose to ride on the bike lanes next to these fast roads.

[Dewey]

There a few recumbent e-bikes listed on this review website. I’ve wondered how recumbent tandems ride/brake/corner with >1 riders, a motor wheel at the front would help such a bike train get up hills, I guess you’d have to coordinate braking going downhill.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15596[/ATTACH]

[Dewey]

@Harry Meatmotor 166289 wrote:

I’m waiting for 5kW and $200; maybe by 2019?

Taiwanese motor manufacturer Cyclone exports their 3,000w motor for $350 a 7,500w version for $700, the product line goes up to 20,000w, the batteries are extra – say $550 for 72V. These are electric motorcycle motors, with power not meant to be put through bicycle components, and illegal for road use let alone on a trail, anyone strapping one to a $200 Walmart Mongoose Dolomite would be candidate for the Darwin award.

[Dewey]

@Harry Meatmotor 166260 wrote:

I saw a nice fellow riding an Icon e-Flyer on the MVT!!!http://iconelectricbike.com/

Electric motorcycles with similar styling are Vintage. Not my cup of tea. I’m unsure where electric motorcycles are legal unless they are built to confirm with NHTSA federal motor vehicle safety standards and have a VIN number stamped on the frame. They’re not ebikes because those are defined federally as 750W and locally as 1,000W VA, 500W MD.

[Dewey]

@lordofthemark 166206 wrote:

Failing to yield to oncoming traffic is not illegal?

I thought the argument was in a contributory negligence jurisdiction like DC the behavior of the other party might be ignored and the ebike rider automatically be considered at fault, isn’t that the reasoning why WABA lobbied to change the contributory negligence law in DC for bicycle-motor vehicle collisions? WABA could (should!?) argue for the relevant piece of DC code to be amended to add an exception for motorized bicycles so that pedal bicycles and ebike cyclists are treated equitably under the law when lawfully riding on DC streets.

[Dewey]

@lordofthemark 166086 wrote:

Has anyone actually tried studying the impact of speed on bike vs ped collision, the way they have on car vs ped collisions? I guess the limited numbers of bike vs ped collisions and the generally poor data on them (for example estimates of speed) would make such studies difficult.

A Swedish academic compared speed & collision/injury/fatality data in Sweden for the period 1997-1999 from pedestrians, bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, cars, and trucks, and with some sophisticated math came up with a model illustrating the effect of % mean speed change on the rate of fatal accidents, see chart on page 76 of Nilsson, G. (2004). Studies of ebike usage in the Netherlands (Schepers, 2014) and Germany (Maier, 2015) recorded a mean average speed differential of 2 kmh between European pedelecs roughly equivalent to US Class 1 ebikes and pedal bicycles, which using Nilsson’s model might translate to a 30% theoretical increase in the very low number of fatal bicycle-pedestrian collisions. A recent German study (Schleinitz, 2017) captured real-time riding data over 17,000km using telemetry sensors and cameras on pedelecs and speed pedelecs on road and bicycle infrastructure confirmed a mean average speed differential of 2 kmh between pedelecs and cyclists but 9 kmh between speed pedelecs and cyclists. Another German study (Petzoldt, 2017) using similar data capture technology identified no difference in motor vehicle-bicycle conflict on roads between bicycle types and there is no data to suggest ebikes are more likely to be involved in pedestrian collisions on MUP’s. Maier’s (2015) study suggests only 5% of self-reported bicycle & ebike accidents are with pedestrians, by far the largest proportion 65% are falls that involve no other individual caused by poor road surface conditions and subsequent wheel lock up, loss of balance, nose over, or collision with an obstacle, I think Maier’s study influenced Bosch to introduce ABS to their speed pedelecs this year. Clearly there needs to be more research but I think these studies do support a California style ebike classification and a more nuanced application of the law taking into account the different balance of risks between different ebike classes.

Sources

Maier, O., Pfeiffer, M., Wehner, C., & Wrede, J. (2015). Empirical Survey on Bicycle Accidents to estimate the Potential Benefits of Braking Dynamics Assistance Systems. International Cycling Safety Conference 2015, 15-16 September 2015, Hannover, Germany

Nilsson, G. (2004) Traffic Safety Dimensions and the Power Model to Describe the Effect of Speed on Safety. Bulletin 221, Lund Institute of Technology, Lund, Sweden.

Petzoldt, T., Schleinitz, K., Heilmann, S., Gehlertb, T. (2017). Traffic conflicts and their contextual factors when riding conventional vs. electric bicycles. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 46(Part : 477-490. doi: 10.1016/j.trf.2016.06.010

Schepers, J., Fishman, E., den Hertog, P., Wolt, K. K., & Schwab, A. (2014). The safety of electrically assisted bicycles compared to classic bicycles. Accident Analysis And Prevention, 73: 174-180. doi:10.1016/j.aap.2014.09.010

Schleinitz, K., Petzoldt, T., Franke-Bartholdt, L., Krems, J., & Gehlert, T. (2017). The German Naturalistic Cycling Study – Comparing cycling speed of riders of different e-bikes and conventional bicycles. Safety Science, 92: 290-297. doi: 10.1016/j.ssci.2015.07.027

[Dewey]

@lordofthemark 165991 wrote:

It does sound like Virginia might be well advised to clarify distinctions among different classes of ebikes, as this would give local jurisdictions more options in the future as ebikes become more widespread.

Yes please, also the District of Columbia and Maryland. California in 2015 introduced its 3-tier classification scheme for e-bikes, since adopted by Tennessee, Utah, Arkansas, Colorado, and Illinois, and it’s under consideration by Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. The legislative push is being led by the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association and PeopleForBikes Coalition. I agree more nuance would help.

[Author]

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