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As Teens Take to E-Bikes, Parents Ask: Is This Freedom or Danger?
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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So, unmodified, slower than a bicycle where your average cyclist can sprint to over 30 mph without much trouble.
This is just media fear mongering about [new thing]. When I was a kid there were plenty of bicycle wrecks where kids got hurt, sometimes severely, and the media wasn't pearl-clutching about the "danger" of pedal bikes.
It's much more difficult to reach and sustain 30 mph on a pedal bike, and if you're doing that you're typically quite invested in it. E-bikes on the other hand it's really easy to get to a very high speed, and I frequently see people doing it while on their phone, without wearing a helmet, and/or with additional passengers.
I think a little bit of education here could go a long way.
I couldn't agree more. Impact danger roughly scales like velocity^2, so a 30mph crash is about twice as bad as a 21mph one, all else being equal. The easier it is to get up to and maintain 28mph or more, the more likely it is that people will get in dangerous crashes.
Then the worried parents should either properly educate their children about their safety behaviour, not whine about it.
Solutions to systemic problems that rely on personal responsibility tend to have very low efficacy.
I was more focused on the "without helmet, looking at phone" part. As a parent, it should be no surprise for them if their children end up with permanent brain damage if neglecting security completely.
The parent in the article had no idea their child was riding without a helmet, and there is no reason to believe they did not teach their child to ride with a helmet.
If the goal is to actually reduce harm, infrastructure changes will have a far larger impact than education/information campaigns to convince kids and parents to be safer. This has been shown many times over by the NHTSA and the WHO.
Interactions with cars make for many more conflict opportunities during rides. Shared paths with pedestrians in high traffic areas do the same, but with much lower consequences. Dockless electric bike/scooter companies encourage adhoc rides which drastically reduce the chance that a given rider will have proper safety gear, and increases the likelihood of riding under the influence of drugs/alcohol. Having to deal with lots of intersections with stop lights/signs further increases conflict opportunities.
Separate, protected, and streamlined infrastructure for micromobility will go much further to protect people.
I mean this is easy to say about everything. If people are annoyed at car accidents, they should teach their children to drive cars better rather than whine about it!
At some point we do decide it's society's collective responsibility to ensure that something is safe, understanding that maybe not all parents will rise to the level of quality we expect. I think we're there for ebikes.
I was more focused on the "without helmet, looking at phone" part. As a parent, it should be no surprise for them if their children end up with permanent brain damage if neglecting security completely.
I don't believe that. That's 50kph!! Your average cyclist will be pedaling 12 to 15 mph (20 to 25 kph) and at that point you'll be sweating, it's not "leisure" speed. That would be up to 9mph/15kph.
You are not reaching 30mph unless you are fully sprinting on a descent with a gravel bike (maybe a mountain bike if it's a long, long, stretch) or have a road bicycle on a flat/slight slope and you are full sending it (even on a flat road I'm assuming, I've never ridden one). Not to mention these people will be using protective gear.
I have a gravel bicycle and on a flat road I can get up to 23mph (37 kph) with me going full beans (occasionally fighting the wind). For reference, I've only reached 30mph a couple times in 1,100km and it's been only on a 3km long downward stretch of road. Also because there's no point to waste that energy when you are transversing double digits distances, and it gets really scary to be at those speeds anyways.
You certainly cannot get those speeds on a city bike or mountain bike on flat asphalt since they are not as aerodynamic, and often more heavier.
I do agree with most of your post, and the whole your average cyclist doing "30 mph without much trouble" is ridiculous. I do think you are underestimating how fast road bikes can be though.
So, on a road bike, it is pretty easy on the flat to keep 20mph/32kmh. 30mph/48kmh is definitely an effort and not one that is sustainable for most people. To give you an idea, I did a charity bike ride in June which was just shy of 100 miles, it was 158.3km with 1667m of climbing as well, so not completely flat. I averaged 31.2kmh. I am in no way fast, I am alright on the flat but gravity is a cruel mistress on an uphill.
Downhill is a different thing as well, I have hit speeds of around 62mph/100kmh, and a hill near me will almost always spit me out doing 55mph/89kmh with 0 effort(roll down the hill and sit on the drops), and that is on both my road and gravel bikes. But that is probably steeper than you are thinking. However, there is also a pretty steady -1% average "downhill", it is a false flat, but it is really easy to cruise along at 25mph/40kph+.
The key difference is you're an experienced cyclist. You're capable of recognising that it's safe to go 60mph down that particular hill and if it wasn't you'd be on the brakes. Also you probably know how hard you can pull that front brake lever without going over the handle bars.
Inexperienced cyclists and high speeds are a really bad combination.
Most parents wouldn't let their teenager ride YZF-R1, and they shouldn't be letting them ride a high powered eBike either.
I think my biggest issue with this thread is the bikes they are referring too are actually Electric Motorbikes(and should be treated like any other motorbike), not an "ebike" in the typical sense of Pedal Assist Bicycle.
My eFatbike is limited to 25kph/15mph after which it stops assisting. Sometimes when pedaling back home from the trails on the side of the road I meet road bikers and it takes quite a while for them to catch me and even after overtaking I'm following them for a looong time before they get out of sight. You'd think a roadbike would be much faster but it's the uphills where ebikes shine and it makes a huge difference. On flat or downhill they smoke me tho. No competition there.
Pretty crazy that you can reach 100kph downhill. My tops with the fatbike is about 63kph. That's on gravel though.
Yeah, I don't doubt it, I was just trying to be (overly) conservative to show how pedaling up to and keeping 50kph is far from being reachable by the average cyclist.
Not only because of the bike, but you also need a well maintained strech of asphalt to reach and maintain that speed.
In my head I thought I can easily get to 60kph with the sprint output I do with my gravel bike if I had a carbon road bike, but I didn't want to say something silly. Especially because I'd still be dealig with the same terrible infrastructure and wind around here.
The other point was that once you get in the 40kphs it starts to get scary, but that's down to where you are and the conditions. So it's not like the average bro with flipflops and front basket does it on the daily.
My town has public E-bikes with assisted pedalling up to 20/kph. I used to have a normal bike and I ususally went way faster than that, at least 30kph or 35kph, This damn bike's motor stops working when I reach 20, and if I want to go above 20 I need to pedal with full power on a heavy bike. It's okayish but damn if that's not annoying.
It is an absurd statement to argue that the average cyclist on the average bike can sprint to over 30mph "without much trouble." Maybe with a tailwind going downhill, and even that is, ahem, dangerous.
I hit 20 downhill and that's already really uncomfortably fast. Pulling hard on my brakes that would take a good 5 seconds to come to a stop (Power modulator Roller Brakes)
Going 30 is asking for trouble, even with good disc brakes I think. At that speed full body motorcycle kit could be something worth considering
Edit: fix typo
Okay, so there is actually a valid reason why children on e-bikes should be limited to a 20mph speed limit: children do genuinely have difficulty with the visual processing of objects moving faster than 20mph. If a kid is on an e-bike going at 30mph (a speed most children can't do on a regular bike for any serious length of time), they're likely to have some difficulties perceiving the world around them because of the relative difference in speed between the bike and everything else. Add into that the fact that the danger of a collision increases massively as speed increases, a kid going at 30mph on an e-bike is literally an accident waiting to happen, either to themselves or one of their peers on foot (who won't be able to see or hear them coming).
That's primary school children. Not teens.
Visual perception and processing develops over time, and people don't reach adult development until... adulthood. The brain doesn't stop developing until 25. A lot of the teens on e-bikes are 13 and 14, children that are only a couple of years outside of primary school, and certainly nowhere near physically adult enough to have adult visual processing or adult perception of danger or adult impulse control. All very good reasons why they shouldn't be whizzing about on e-bikes at 30mph.
I'm not against e-bikes in general. I think those who can ride should do so more, with infrastructure built around it. I just don't think children should be on fast ones.
Your welcome to your opinions. I'm just pointing out a study of primary school children is irrelevant to this particular thread. If you have studies on teens, I'd love to read them.
Primary school age runs to age 11/12 (depending on exact birthdate - someone born on 1st September will be 12 when they enter secondary school). A 13 year old is not significantly more developmentally mature than a 12 year old, particularly in the context of how development of the brain continues until 25. Teens are more prone to risky behaviour, due to poor impulse control and poor perception of how dangerous a given activity may be, which is as much of a problem on an e-bike at 30mph as it is with drugs, alcohol, sex, and a wide range of other risky behaviours teens indulge in because they can't objectively judge what the risks actually are. The younger the teen, the higher the risk because of the lower neurological development.
#1 killer of teens is dangerous driving most often influenced by peer pressure. Removing the peers by putting them ona bike would reduce the teen mortality rate by far more than the mortality rate of teens on bikes going over 30mph. See, stats can be used in many ways. Not always supportive of your opinion. Which is why it is important to choose a source that specifically relates to the topic. If you don't want it pointed out that your source is irrelevant to the discussion.
13 and 14 year olds shouldn't be driving cars in the first place, and they're also the ones most likely to make bad decisions about riding e-bikes without speed limiters.
But teens are not primary school and are far more than 13 and 14. Why would you ignore 15-19? It seems like your point only covers a minority of cases in which case any recommendation will have a minimal impact. Why are you so concerned about a minority of cases?
Because I'm in favour of kids not dying unnecessarily?
Additionally, depending on the country 16-19 is considered old enough to ride a motorbike, in which case they're also old enough to ride an e-bike at similar speeds. The fact is that teens are a broad range, and there's plenty of things that 16-19 year olds are considered mature enough to do that 13-15 year olds aren't. Just because a 16 year old can ride a motorbike and 18 year olds can smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol doesn't magically make 13 year olds mature enough to do so. The same should apply to e-bikes: an e-bike that can go faster than 20mph is basically an electric motorbike, and should be similarly age-restricted.
How many adolescents die from bike accidents?
More than they should, especially when they're on electric bikes going at speeds up to 45mph. There is plenty of evidence that directly demonstrates that the chance of death increases exponentially with increased speed. The more children there are on e-bikes with their speed limiters cut, the more children die unnecessarily as a result. And those aged 13-14 are children, not adults. You're not going to change my mind on this, and I'm not going to change yours, so there seems to be no point in debating this further.
The media is afraid they'll have to concede any amount of space, attention, or time to anything that isn't an automobile.
I'm on the fitter end of average cyclists and I certainly can't reach 30 mph without a gradient or massive tailwind. In normal conditions an average cyclist can reach 20 mph under quite a lot of effort, not much more.
In the EU, ebikes are limited to 16 mph and I think that's plenty to cause lots of accidents with elderlies not being used to such speeds. 20 mph e-support limit is quite fast, but it's still fine I guess.
As someone who grew up around doctors and knew a brain surgeon, I can say with 100% confidence that everybody who rides a bike should wear a helmet. I feel like the average person has very little idea of how fragile we are, how easy it can be to get a traumatic brain injury, and how much of a nightmare your life can become. (This applies even more if you need to ride on the street or if you plan to ride at high speeds.)
I agree and always wear a helmet, but helmets should not be mandatory. It discourages people from cycling which means they drive instead and make the roads overall more dangerous.
I'm sure people said exactly the same thing when seatbelts became mandatory in cars. "Oh, no, you can't make safety mandatory. It'll just discourage people from driving." Safety measures become normalised very quickly.
Discouraging people from driving is a good thing, although with the amount that's wasted on pointless expressways some governments haven't noticed yet.
Anyway, there's clear evidence from countries with mandatory helmet laws that it discourages people from cycling.
But back when seatbelts became mandatory (which was in the 1980s in the UK, IIRC), cars weren't seen as a bad thing. They were seen as a good thing, as bikes are now, yet no doubt there were still people complaining that mandatory seatbelts would discourage people from utilising the Good Thing.
Have there been any long-term studies into mandatory helmet laws? Or did they just look at the 3-6 months after the introduction of the laws, when people were still getting used to the change? What was the effect after helmet-wearing became normalised in that country's society?
I suppose the other solution is to not have mandatory helmets, and natural selection will do its thing. I tend to prefer not having a load of unnecessary deaths, however.
Sure. Australia has had mandatory helmets since 1990, and there's been endless studies and debates since then, it's still ongoing. I could find no clear evidence that helmet mandates decreased overall harm over any timeframe.
To quote a review I read from 2007
And their conclusion did not find a consensus other than
Given that, helmet mandates are a bad law that takes away our liberties for no proven benefit.
Fair enough. I do like evidence-based conclusions. :)
I'm definitely in favour of good road safety initiatives like traffic calming, enforcement of driving laws, and education for both drivers and cyclists. One of the things I've observed with cyclists is on average they're more unpredictable than other vehicles on the road, and I think education of both types of road user would help alleviate that. Cyclists need consistent signals for what they're going to do, and drivers need to be able to recognise what those signals are. So much of road safety is reliant on everyone being as predictable as possible, and people taking up cycling as adults often skip the cycling proficiency lessons that teach them how to behave predictably, while drivers are never taught to recognise what signals cyclists are taught to use in those lessons. (My "work-around" solution for this is "slow down and keep more distance", which works as well for cyclists as is does anyone else who is behaving unpredictably on the road. Indeed "slow down and back off" is an approach that's hard to go wrong with!)
I disagree. My eFatbike has 250W mid-drive motor and is limited to 15mph and thus is considered a bicycle by law. You can drive faster than that but it stops assisting you at 15mph. In my opinion anything faster than that doesn't belong to the sidewalks and since you're now driving in traffic you should be registered and insured.
I quite often see people zooming past pedestrians on sidewalks with their surrons and modified ebikes and these assholes are what's going to ruin the fun for everyone else too. These are not bicycles - they're light electric motorbikes.
Sprint yeah but unlike ebikes they can't maintain that speed. I can basically keep up with roadbikers despite my ridicilously fat 4.8" mushy tires. They gain distance on flat and downhill and I catch them in uphill.
15 mph = 24 km/h. Going that fast on a sidewalk seems wild to me (the only bicyles there are children accompanied by their parents on foot), but I guess it's because we have reasonable bicycle infrastructure instead of stroads where you need a deathwish to cycle
Can I have some of whatever supplements you've been taking. 48km/h is really fast. If you have a fast bike and you're trying hard some cyclists could hit that speed briefly on the flat before they become exhausted. With a tailwind or a downhill it's easy, but then you don't need the help from the motor.
But I agree that we need to focus on the real danger, which is cars.
30mph on a pedal bicycle is very very difficult to reach and maintain. Even on a road bike designed to go fast on pavement, breaking 20mph on a flat road requires you to be extremely fit and streamlined.
I don’t think this is in any way comparable to an ebike where anyone can jump on and break 20 with no issues.
Source: bicycle was my primary mode of transport for 5 years; rode about 20 miles a day, with an attached speedometer, on a fancy road bike.
I'm not a fan of healthy young people using e-bikes but the speed argument is in bad faith. To hit 20mph for more than a short moment you have to be a fit, experienced rider unless you have a fancy race bike which is tricky to ride and will massively limit where you can ride, the comfort and safety for anyone who doesn't basically live on their bike.
Why?
Cycling as transportation rather than fitness does require a compromise. A swimming athlete might be able to swim in open waters, but a lifeguard isn't gonna let you leave the boundaries. However yea this is absolutely fear mongering bs and you are right.
And while 70mph seems excessive by any standard, you can easily achieve 40mph with a normal bike downhill and injure/maim/kill yourself.
As mentioned in other comments, the 70mph figure is wrong. My best guess is the parent misspoke and the journalist didn't fact check, but the real figure is 70km/h or 45 mph.