I wonder how often cars injure people 
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
26 points (100.0% liked)
traingang
23029 readers
2 users here now
Post as many train pictures as possible.
All about urbanism and transportation, including freight transportation.
Home of train gang
:arm-L::train-shining::arm-R:
Talk about supply chain issues here!
List of cool books and videos about urbanism, transit, and other cool things
Titles must be informative. Please do not title your post "lmao" or use the tired "_____ challenge" format.
Archive links for reactionary sites, including the BBC.
LANDLORDS COWER IN FEAR OF MAOTRAIN
"that train pic is too powerful lmao" - u/Cadende
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
As I've posted before, I'm definitely of two minds about these aliexpress e-motorcycles.
On the one hand, anything that's not a car is good.
On the other hand, these are usually bought by people whose first criterion in selecting a bike is "how fast does it go", which, if you think about how car owners who do that act, makes it very obvious they're probably going to use them in a way that's dangerous to themselves and others. Sure, yeah, they're not going to hurt as many people as if they had a car, but also whipping around on sidewalks at 30mph is a great way to stoke up reactionary over-regulation that is going to kill the access to a great car alternative for a lot of people.
They are the only affordable option to get around the city. The speed mentioned by the police sounds like nonsense, maybe they caught someone going half of that.
If you look legitimate options that go more than 25kmh you have to pay like 10 times as much and some are getting into car territory.
Now maybe 25kmh should be enough for anyone but I don't see much willingness for that discussion outside of vehicles primarily used by youth and migrants.
London is actually rolling out speed cameras for 20/30mph zones.
And these e-motos are affordable, but an e-bike with a 250, 500, or 750W motor is also affordable. I think a lot of people just have speed/power brain and are trying to maximize the wrong thing when they transition to electric mobility devices. And I think this is partially out of ignorance, but also driven by some anti-social tendencies.
The affordability argument falls flat here in the Netherlands, where bikes, e-bikes and mopeds are widespread, and where most trips can be easily done with a regular bicycle.
But e-bikes tend to be more expensive and have a reputation as something for well-off working adults or pensioners. For youth, these "fatbikes" as we call them are mainly status symbols and I suspect they're viewed as a stepping stone to a full car, which makes me worry that we'll see the SUV-ification of bicycles getting bigger and more car-like.
I haven't had bad experiences with the drivers of these, but because they're trending and mostly owned by naive/reckless youngsters, they get stolen so often that insurers won't cover them. There's also the usual "Chinese quality" talking points.