Wired: What's an Ebike?

[ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org]

Wired: What's an Ebike? California Wants You to Know

Cities want to stop kids from getting hurt. A lawmaker thinks warning them away from legal gray-area “e-motos” could help.

(paywall, unfortunately)
https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-an-e-bike-california-might-find-out/

#BikeTooter #ebikes

[isthmus@infosec.exchange]

@ai6yr
I use both an electric bicycle and a normal bicycle.

A lot of bicycle infrastructure in the UK is shared paths, therefore while it would be nice to have a higher speed limit than 15.5MPH on the roads (for example 20MPH), 15.5MPH is a reasonable speed limit if they are going to be using sharing paths.

For this reason I'm not against the UK law and think it's a well thought out sensible approach. I.E.

Riding an electric bike: the rules

Electric bikes meeting the EAPC regulations can be ridden on the road without being taxed, licensed or insured.

GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Despite the law, it's not uncommon to encounter illegal e-bikes – and they are way too fast for shared paths.

The only real advantage of an electric bicycle should be going up hills and into headwind. Or a way for non-athletic people to be able to use an electric bicycle as an alternative/primary mode of transport.

If people want to travel faster, than 15.5MPH, then they need to use roads and therefore be subjected to moped legislation.

Therefore, I think point-of-sale needs to be more heavily restricted/regulated.

What seems odd is that certain country legislators (the USA) allowed consumers to spend their hard-earned money before legislating.