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- cross-posted to:
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Alrighty,
So your system knows the exact situation and still is slowing down my bike, just at the moment I need to accelerate to avoid being overrun by that large truck heading into me.
How stupid are these folks? We’ve got rules, when people don’t follow those rules, you fine them. Case closed.
No system to prevent a bike speeding, teach people to obey the law.
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People in this thread clearly have never been to Amsterdam. We have protected bike lanes, and where there is mixed traffic, bikes have preference and are actually respected by larger vehicles.
On the other hand, there has been an increase in accidents due to electric bikes going too fast mixed with normal bikes and pedestrians.
I’ve been in so many close calls with e-scooter riding in sidewalks in my city. But it’s always a specific kind of asshole that does that.
In my city, that specific kind of asshole is someone with multiple DUIs, since they can still legally ride an E-bike
Also eBikes in the Netherlands don’t have acceleators unless they’re illegally modified.
E-bikes elsewhere have accelerators and not just pedal assist? Wouldn’t that make it an electric scooter?
In the US it’s really common to have an accelerator.
Interesting. If I’m not mistaken, here if it has an accelerator then it has to be registered with a license plate and it’s not considered a bicycle.
Only pedal assists electric bikes which go up to 25kph are allowed.
I think if it has pedal assist as an option it’s OK, as long as it doesn’t have more than a certain amount of power. I’m not certain, but I think it’s something like that.
That’s also my understanding.
I give this two weeks until a hacker bricks every ebike on their network.
Exactly this. Foolish ideas from someone behind a desk.
Nerds and hackers will win this easily.
Nerds and hackers will also win any battle in removing top speed limitations. The issue we’re having right now is that non-techies also have easy access to 60 km/h death machines because they can just buy Chinesium fatbikes with 1kW motors and a preinstalled throttle.
If they start requiring helmets you’ll see this fad die down real quick. As it’s mostly children (or uncivilized adults) buying these to look cool and cause trouble.
Good! Back to the situation of “I need to use the strength of my legs to accelerate”, much safer
-Guy who has no interest in seeing cars largely replaced with bikes in cities
ummm, what?
E-bikes can replace cars in far more situations than regular bicycles can.
Okay, but would you stop calling me a “guy who (said something that you think he could say)”?
Sure, as soon as you stop hating on e-bikes
to avoid being overrun by that large truck heading into me
lol, I’m guessing you’ve never ridden a bike in Amsterdam
You got me there… :-)
I live in Canada and seeing so many people riding around without helmets in Amsterdam felt weird until I realized how protected the cyclists are by the design of the road infrastructure. Cycling while sharing the road with a truck with no barrier in-between is common where I live so I appreciate your perspective.
Also ebike speed is lower and closer to actual bike speeds in the EU which may play a role in head injuries.
I was driving a rental scooter last summer and the thing just suddenly stopped in the middle of traffic. It had randomly decided that I was on a sidewalk when I absolutely was not. It was both an embarrassing and a scary situation.
Dude, that sucks. I can picture the walk of shame. They really shouldn’t do shit like that.
Should’ve just left it in the road and walked off lol. It’s the company’s problem now… Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
That’s literally what people are already doing and that’s why rental scooters are getting banned in many cities; they just leave them laying around where they shouldn’t and it’s a massive nuisance to everyone.
It’s gonma destroy somebody’s car tho
So your system knows the exact situation and still is slowing down my bike, just at the moment I need to accelerate to avoid being overrun by that large truck heading into me.
After reading the article, it seems like the system is supposed to temporarily jam pedal assist, turning your ebike into a regular bike. And the system would need to be installed in all street legal ebikes for that to happen. Since you’re still free to accelerate by pedaling like a normal bike user, that significantly reduces the amount of situations where the pedal assist would actually save you. If you can’t avoid collision by pedaling harder, you probably had no chance in the first place.
Considering most of the inner city’s roads now have a 30 km/h speed limit for cars, collision safety is probably even less of a concern now.
I do share the concern of others in the comments that such a system would probably be broken on day one, and you have a bunch of script kiddies with flipper zeros running around bricking ebikes.
The only way for that not to happen is to use proper encryption for any wireless signals being used to control this system. Considering the Dutch governmental reputation for IT failures, this is probably not going to go well.
Precisely; for context, it was recently discussed in Dutch media how some of these e-bikes reach 60 km/h. Together with a culture of people refusing to wear bicycle helmets, there’s certainly some more nuance and middle ground.
There needs to be some kind of solution, but doing nothing is not really an option.
And the system would need to be installed in all street legal ebikes for that to happen.
Wouldn’t street legal ebikes not go too fast by default anyway? I feel like if that’s the case, this would mostly inconvenience people with legal ebikes and have barely any effect on illegal ones that can go faster.
Street legal bikes can be modified. This system would, in theory, make it harder to exceed speed limits on assisted pedalling, or at least easier to find those who do it and fine them.
at least easier to find those who do it and fine them.
Missed that part, can you please clarify how?
This is speculative, but since it uses a standardized system, it should be easier to check if anything has been modified. And it is connected to some remote system, so that may allow for extra opportunities to catch them too.
But pedal accelerating an ebike is not quite as easy as a regular bike. They’re over 20kg due to steel frames and batteries.
Since you’re still free to accelerate by pedaling like a normal bike user, that significantly reduces the amount of situations where the pedal assist would actually save you.
Bro e-bikes are like 3-6x heavier than normal bikes, manual pedaling sucks and you can’t accelerate for shit
Imagine someone suggested this for cars
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a46554218/new-car-regulated-speed-limit-california-bill/ California is already trying.
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It is already the case for new cars in EU from july 1st
Wait seriously? Do you have a link or name to search for?
Damn, finally. Can’t wait to see this actually take place. Only ambulances, firefighter or such services that genuinely need the speed and can justify it should be able to go fast in a city. On a highway where everybody are in properly protected vehicle all going in the same direction, sure, go fast, but a city where people actually live, kids walk to school, people walk their dogs, why going over the speed limit where you could literally kill someone.
July 2024 is very close but I wonder what will be the percentage of cars on the roads supporting ISA. I imagine less than 1% so curious about the rate of change. I imagine that due to LEZ though it could go relatively fast. There is hope after all for a city genuinely made for people.
I’m all for it too. We are in the minority but it would have so many advantages. Beyond just speeding it reduces the desire for aggressive driving too.
Yeah I’ve been wishing for something like this for a long time. Actual conversation I once had:
“Drugs are illegal because it’s bad for you! We’re protecting you against your bad choices!”
“OK then, it’s illegal to go faster than 130km/h everywhere in France, why don’t you protect me and others against my bad decisions and forbid selling cars that go higher than that?”
Mumbles something about personal freedom
My current (2023 model) has such sensors and cameras to detect speed limits and switches cruise control based on it. It gets it wrong way too often to actually enforce it. E.g. 50kmh roads turning into highways and the car not recognising the highway sign due to a bush, the fact that Dutch highways have different speed limits at different times often without clear signing, or even the opposite problem where it’ll see a 120kmh sign from another lane and active cruise will suddenly speed me up to that on a 50kmh bend.
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sure, 2019 EU regulation, to apply in 2022 and 2024 : https://road-safety-charter.ec.europa.eu/resources-knowledge/media-and-press/intelligent-speed-assistance-isa-set-become-mandatory-across
you still can de-activate it, but you have to do it every time you run the car.
To stay in topic : In some cities there is already an automatic speed limit to 5km/h in certain areas (packed narrow streets in city center, around schools…) for rental scooters, so it is not surprising they want to extend it to all electric mobility. Even for cars speed limit is often limited at 30 km/h in city centers.
Thanks! :)
They should!
The obsession with scooter and bike speeds that don’t have the mass to seriously hurt people at top speed is crazy.
Like you can find videos of people being hit at top speed by scooters/bikes, usually the pedestrian is pretty fine but rightfully annoyed. Every fatal accident I can find is the escooter/ebiker was hit by a car.
Fingers crossed they stop being dumb and just make actual infrastructure for micromobility so they don’t have to compete with giant murder machines.
With a usual bike, I mostly agree. But there are beasts like that now, they are heavier than a bike and even heavier han average scooter, and from the looks, they are mostly owned by a-holes. And not just from the looks, but from the fact that they remove facrory limit of 25 km/h
You know what? Yeah you’re right, that’s just a motorcycle with pedals and probably could do a lot of force if it hits a pedestrian and probably should just be treated like a motorcycle.
I have a cutesy little escooter that I feel like has a better chance of harming someone by picking it up and using it as a blunt weapon than trying to run them over at 15 mph. Make no mistake, riding on sidewalks is still super dangerous and shouldn’t be done if there is any chance of a pedestrian, but you’d think they would just build proper infrastructure instead of limit them. If they had a bike lane with passing space, they could be as beastly as they want while passing me.
I watched something very similar to this hit at least 40mph (~65kph) down my 30mph (~50kph) limit road the other day. The guy did not have a helmet on and was in a light jacket and jeans with trainers.
It was as you said, a motorcycle with pedals - only ridden by more of an idiot than the people who ride around during summer on 600cc bikes wearing shorts and t-shirts (cause at least they have a crash helmet on)
I know, it’s just bikes like the one in my link - there are many of them, and they’re in a city. I don’t care much if somebody rides in a forest on an electric dirtbike and thinks it’s a bicycle :)
Searching for scooter and pedestrian brings up plenty of results, just gotta disclude vehicles from the pool of results.
Ahh, that was from an event 2022, probably also part of why I missed it, also I was looking in US last time I looked for statistics. Any chance finding statistics for like 2023?
I think also helpful to remember that many have died just from being punched and their head hitting the pavement. If a bike knocks someone over there’s always the potential for serious injury, especially for older folks.
In my town people have died from being run into with 25 kmh rental e-scooters (eg. Voi) so they definitely have enough mass and speed to both seriously injure and kill people. I can only imagine the damage that is caused by these high speed fatbikes I see people riding on bikepaths now.
actual infrastructure for micromobility
Right, because Amsterdam, as we all know, is such a shithole in that regard.
You’re the obsessed one in this case.
So, implement it in cars… Lethal machines that need to be limited.
The speed limits they listed seem so low given that 90% of bicycles in Amsterdam (or at least, those that are “victims” in traffic accidents) are unpowered. I’m not even a hobbyist cyclist, but on my (unpowered) entry-level hybrid bicycle I rode faster than 25 km/h (or 15 mph) the last time I took it out… and heck, I can run faster than 15 km/h.
The accident stats also don’t back up the idea that e-bikes are a problem demanding regulation, which makes me think that there’s knee-jerk politics at play here rather than this being a clear-headed response to a real problem. I’ll explain how I arrived at that conclusion.
First of all, as an aside, it’s weird that they said “more than half of all traffic victims were on a bicycle,” when the metric here should be the number of traffic collisions caused by cyclists. But supposing that’s actually what they meant:
- if half of all accidents are caused by bicycles, then the other half are caused by cars and other motor vehicles. Since bicycles outnumber cars 4:1 in Amsterdam, that means cars are 4 times as likely to cause accidents as bicycles (startling low compared to how much more dangerous they are in the US). They recently lowered the speed limit of cars to 30 km/h, but I’m not sure if the stats take that into account. Maybe it needs lowered further, or maybe they should only allow cars with the same sort of smart governors installed that they’re testing out for e-bikes?
- One in ten of those cyclists was on an electric bike (meaning 5% of accidents were caused by someone on an e-bike). 57% of bicycles sold in the Netherlands in 2022 were electric, but bikes last a while and they have a ton of them. As of the start of 2023 they had an estimated 5 million e-bikes, and the country has 23 million bicycles total (more than 1 per person). This means that 22% of their bikes are e-bikes, and (assuming that ratio applies to bikes on the road in Amsterdam) then given that only 10% of accidents involving bicycles involved e-bikes, that means that unpowered bicycles are a bit over twice as likely to cause accidents as e-bikes. Honestly, though, the ratio of e-bikes to unpowered bicycles is probably higher - I would expect people are more inclined to ride the new bicycle they just bought rather than one of the ones they’ve had for several years.
Obviously these stats are fairly sloppy, but I worked with what I could find.
Assuming my conclusion is accurate, this still doesn’t mean that e-bikes are less dangerous than bicycles - the accidents they’re in may be worse - but it certainly doesn’t suggest that e-bikes are the problem. I’m aligned with the other commenters here - this isn’t going to address the problem of people riding already illegal e-bikes.
The tech sounds cool and I’d love if it could be applied to cars, too, even if it’s opt-in only.
25 km/h is a sporty bike ride tempo, not a going to the shops to get some food bike ride tempo. Especially considering that most bikes here are upright sitting city bikes rather than sporty, leaning forward bikes.
I have a step through frame that you sit upright on. 20-25km/h is my average commuting speed for getting to work and going to the shops. I regularly have to push to 30km/h+ because of motor traffic trying to ride up my ass even though I’m in the designated bike lane. (cars in Australia like driving fast in the bike lanes to avoid the chicanes on the road designed to slow motor traffic for cyclist safety)
If ebikes are disproportionately represented in cycling accidents, then I would argue it’s not the speed, it’s the barrier to entry. People who have never ridden before, people who aren’t physically able to ride a standard bike, these groups make up a significant portion of ebike riders because ebikes are accessible.
Yes, speed will contribute to this, people with limited riding experience being able to ride fast, possibly without the physical fitness required to control a bike at high speed.
The issue then isn’t the speed itself, but rider education and training.
If ebikes are disproportionately represented in cycling accidents
To be clear, based off the (incomplete) data I have, it looks like e-bikes are under-represented. 22% of bicycles are e-bikes and e-bikes only make up 10% of cycling accidents.
It’s possible the 10% stat was of total accidents, making it 20% of cycling accidents, meaning they’d be properly represented. Or maybe the stat is from multiple years ago, when e-bikes made up 10% or less of bikes on the road. Or both, in which case they would be over-represented, at which point it would at least make sense to include the stat.
If they are over-represented, what you said would make sense! And at that point, I would think it would be most effective to focus on providing more opportunities for training and education to riders. Maybe they’re already doing that, too, and this is just one more thing they’re exploring.
Maybe in NL.
On my bike commute (about 4km one-way) lightly down hill I can easily reach 30km/h.
Uphill the same route (depending on how fit I am) I can more or less pull 25km/h through.Though I am not in a busy city. I would probably get killed with the way I am driving where I live.
Depends on how often you ride I guess but if there is an e-scooter infront of me (they go 20 km/h), I have to hold back a bit.
I don’t have the data to back it up, but as someone who lives in the Netherlands I can tell you that e-bikes definitely seem like a problem. People who ride a normal bike to go somewhere definitely don’t go faster than 15 kph on average. You totally can do so if you want, just like you can run everywhere instead of walking, but then you might arrive sweaty and out of breath. E-bikes allow people who don’t usually have the physical strength to cycle that fast to suddenly go 25 kph without much effort. Especially children and elderly are a problem. The bikes are heavy, meaning that they’re hard to control for these groups. And children and elderly also both often lack the awareness of their surroundings needed for driving this fast. I’ve seen many dangerous situations where these groups on an e-bike yeet into a crossing, suddenly have to brake due to other traffic that they failed to account for, and then almost fall over or crash.
E-bikes have a way too large speed difference with normal bikes, and imo they’re definitely a danger. Anything that makes them slower is imo a good thing.
I can easily ride my bike at 25-30km/h on flat even surface.
Light hills are more difficult on the long run but I can probably manage 20km/h.Edit:
A relative worked in the ER so I have some ideas why e-bikes are maybe more prone to accidents. My theory: Older folks.
The usual demographic driving e-bikes usually are/were +50 years old.
With reflexes being not what they were and them going out more due to being mobile again, they surely are more prone to be involved in traffic accidents.Makes sense, and is aligned with the “reduced barrier to entry” theory posited by another commenter. Just to be clear, though, what I read (though very imperfect stat-wise) suggests that e-bikes are less prone to accidents, not more.
The US has several proposals for this on cars. You say opt in only. How about this: when you exceed the speed limit the car automatically notifies the government so they can fine you. You can opt-in to have the car automatically control you top speed so you don’t get fined.
The tech I’m talking about isn’t related to speed limits, but zones where pedestrians, particularly children, are much more likely to be in the street.
when you exceed the speed limit the car automatically notifies the government so they can find you.
I assume you meant “fine”; regardless, why is there a need for that in order to enable the second piece?
You can opt-in to have the car automatically control you top speed so you don’t get fined.
Change that to “You can enable a feature that will automatically reduce your set cruising speed (or, if you’re not using cruise control at that point, give you tactile feedback on the accelerator foot pedal) when you enter an area where pedestrians are in the street or are expected to be in the street (i.e., there’s a cross walk up ahead and a pedestrian has triggered it).” Or, to summarize similar to what you said: “You can have the car automatically reduce your speed when necessary so you don’t kill people.”
The “zones” should have lower speed limits. That is a traffic engineering problem.
The need for the opt in process is to counter the (stupid) arguments of I need to be able to drive fast to get my grandma to the hospital.
You don’t need “tactal feedback.” You need to limit the speed of the vehicle, like a rev limiter. Why do you need the ability to break the law?
Same with speed-limiters for cars, etc.
I wish cars would get speed limiters installed. Trucks and trailers especially, why does a truck try and overtake a car anyway? Or another truck?
Why stop only at e-bikes? Get them installed inside mobility scooters as well, slow down Grandma! /s
There are no US roads I am aware of where the speed limit is over 80mph.
Why can a stock US car go faster than 80mph, then? Why does NHSTA approve of cars that can go double, triple that speed? Makes no sense to me, for sure. Especially when similar agencies are doing idiotic and pointless shit like banning Kei Trucks for “safety” reasons when these vehicles are objectively safer and better for the public than any current-model “light truck” 120mph+ road yacht.
Europe approached this same question with a pretty straightforward answer: Intelligent Speed Assistance.
It’ll be mandatory relatively soon for all new cars, as far as I am aware. It’s already mandatory for new cars in the EU. There’s some nasty privacy implications of it, obviously. Very possibly nasty enough to bring me to a “no” overall on the idea. But the safety considerations are without doubt correct.Intelligent Speed Assistance is great, went to Spain a few years back and essentially the car would know the limit of each road and give you a little signal/sound each time you went over. Great feature tbh, took about a day to get used to it at first but after that it was smooth sailing.
Texas has a toll road with an 85 mph speed limit https://www.foxnews.com/auto/texas-opens-highway-with-85-mph-speed-limit-fastest-in-america-is-it-too-fast
I didn’t know that, sounds incredibly dystopian tbh. Guess I’ll have to keep my dinosaur of a car running as long as possible.
Running a motor at or near its mechanical limit for long periods is very bad for it and also is less efficient (in terms of fuel economy). That’s why cars are “capable” of 140mph, even though there is nowhere you can actually drive that fast except for race tracks.
What is it for though? It’s overridable, so essentially it just makes it easier to ride without paying too much attention. Also, the speedometer legally had to be slightly lower than the actual speed, sp you’re actually driivng slower than the speed limit.
Always good to get the US perspective on an article about Amsterdam
We Europeans often share our view on US’s business, and you want to gatekeep Americans from sharing their view on European’s stuff? The whole point of a link aggregator with comments is people sharing their view.
They can, cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_speed_assistance with example in this thread
If you’re in a situation where you need to outspeed a truck to not die, you have tp consider your life choices. I can’t even imagine a situation that could lead to it, if we don’t count “I just randomly started to cross a busy road” ones.
This makes no sense in the geographical context. The reverse is usually true here in the Netherlands. Modded electric bikes and scooters go way above the legal limit and put themselves in danger by speeding across infront of trafic. Where cars have to suddenly account for them beeing somewhere quicker then expected/ coming out of “nowhere”.
Yes, I know and I see them daily. I was answering on a comment “ooh, they will slow me down and I’ll get in a dangerous situation because of that!” The one thing i don’t see much is "speeding in front of traffic, as in Copenhagen there are not many places where there are no bicycle lanes and the cars are driving fast at the same time.
It’s relatively common for a car to merge into you where I live. If you’re adjacent to the front wheel it’s safer to accelerate the rest of the way than it is to brake.
Edit: it’s also insane that they’re trying to do this with e-bikes before cars.
First, you have to catch them. Without plates on the bike, they become anonymous asap.
Secondly, you need to understand us Dutch. Rules are for the Germans, as it’s always smart to ask forgiveness than permission (read: catch us if you can)
Was amazed that the ebikes in Switzerland have number plates.
Then realised it’s Switzerland and of course they do
For anyone that might be interested in this: it’s only for certain ebikes. Standard ebikes that only pedal assist up to 25km/h don’t need anything special over a regular bike, which afaik is the standard limit in Europe. You can get ebikes that go up to 45km/h and they are regulated more like mopeds, requiring a number plate, rear view mirror, and that the rider wears a helmet.
Oh, it’s coming for more countries. In Spain no new ebike/scooter is sold without plates since 2024, and in 2027 it will be illegal to go through puvlic spaces without a licensed plate. This 3 year gap is so that people that bought a scooter in 2023 don’t feel too cheated out.
Anything motorised that’s used in traffic should have license plate to be fair. Kudos to the Swiss
I see the German Maneuver app coming for e-bike, soon™️.
Headline 5 years from now, “Dutch hackers sit at outdoor cafes and boost bikers’ pedal control, causing havoc and lulz”.
In much of the EU, a terrorist org or nation state could cause tens of thousands of casualties using a system like this in a matter of minutes.
All they’d have to do is accelerate every bike to top speed at one during peak time. Even if remote acceleration is impossible (or not yet exploited), you could still do a-lot of damage with threshold changes or sudden braking; any remote intervention is a safety and security risk.
There are a lot easier ways to cause damage than this.
The usual “too many people are getting hit by cars while on bicycles, obviously it’s the bicycles that are the problem”
If ebikes that go over 25kmh are already illegal, why would those ebikes have this speed limiter module installed?
Why are ebikes are not allowed to go fast enough to just ride on the road with cars, making it much safer for pedestrians and for the ebikes?
According to Paul Timmer of the Townmaking Institute, getting the device working on all e-bikes should be pretty straightforward. “There are five manufacturers and suppliers of motors for electric bicycles. They all work with similar systems,”
Also completely false, are they going to make it illegal to buy ebikes that don’t come with those 5 drive systems from large corporations, and shut out the small businesses that make ebike motors?
The article also describes this working on lower speed limits like close to schools or when approaching worksites. I can’t see why this is not a good idea
I can’t see why this is not a good idea
I believe the argument here is that it’s security theater, i.e it looks positive but in practice has literally no effect. To clarify if people buy a “normal” e-bike today, they are already speed limited. Consequently people who have bike going faster that said limit are doing something already beyond the ordinary. The likelihood that such people would suddenly change their behavior to buy typical bikes when they have even more restrictions is probably not high, but the announcement still makes it look like something is done for the greater good.
The way i see it, its an area that is in the process of becoming regulated. The article mentions
More than half of all electric cyclists ride faster than the permitted 25 kilometers
This can’t be the case if they are speed limited
My bad I didn’t see that proportion thanks for clarifying. As more than half are already going over the speed limit then there is indeed a more systemic problem. I thought it was about say 10% fringe that go with heavily modified bikes. I’m not sure more tech would help though, rather than fines with explanation of the risk until people do start respecting the limit. If people are unable to respect that and it causes more accidents, then yes ISA on e-bikes, cars, everything causing accident on the road.
Now do cars!
Apparently starting ISA in July 2024 https://www.brusselstimes.com/855280/self-braking-cars-all-new-cars-to-be-fitted-with-speed-limiting-technology
The technology to do it has existed for probably almost a hundred years at this point, but it was never implemented because of public pushback.
