Why do I have a #SpeedLimiter on my #EBike but not on my car?
Is the version of me who drives a multi-ton metal box just assumed to be less of a threat to others than the me who pedals along completely exposed on a 60lb #bicycle with a motor that's less powerful than a travel hairdryer?
And if so why and thanks.
(ETA my issue is with fast cars, not slow bikes)
@DrTCombs I think many people perceive bicycles as toys for children and feel don’t belong on roads where there are automobiles while simultaneously believing bikes should require licensing and insurance. Also, lawyers mostly ruin everything everywhere for everyone.
@DrTCombs The vehicle that has come closest to knocking me off my e-bike was an un-restricted one!
@DrTCombs
I hate this framing every time I see it.
Why your car doesn't have a speed limiter is a good question.
Why your ebike does is obvious: your ebike is allowed in environments where cars aren't. Trails, MUPs, bike lanes, etc. Introducing vehicles without limiters there just turns them into roads, with the associated dangers.
Your ebike doesn't have licensing or insurance requirements. Even on roads, operating them without limits isn't compatible with these differences.
@DrTCombs In short: the limiter is what makes it a bike. Without the limiter, you have an electric motorbike, and should have all the responsibilities and limitations that go operating a motorbike.
@UrbanEdm
Yet we don't speed limit motorcycles
@DrTCombs And we should.
But we also require licensing, insurance, and don't let them use facilities intended for pedestrians and unpowered bikes.
Continually focusing on the ebikes limiter instead of the lack of limiter on other vehicles creates a backwards narrative, and makes ebikes that much more threatening to unpowered transport.
@UrbanEdm
But I'm not trying to focus on the bikes. My beef is with the cars, and I'm perplexed and bemused how most of the comments here assumed otherwise.
If we have the technology and will to limit speeds on vehicles that pose relatively little threat to public safety, there is no excuse for not doing the same for the heavy vehicles that are implicated in tens of thousands of deaths every year
@UrbanEdm
But if I can be trusted to follow a speed limit in a car, why can I not be trusted to follow one on my bike?
@DrTCombs 1) I initially read the hash as #BikeToddler 😂 😅
2) I like the idea that people on ebikes are just innately a threat to social order. You go to bike and you're just swinging a flail and screaming war cries as you ride to the grocery store.
@DrTCombs Put limiters on the multi-ton metal boxes too :)
I ride an ebike, and I think having limiters is reasonable given that drivers and vehicles don't need to be licensed and that ebikes are allowed in spaces normally reserved for more-vulnerable users (pedestrians, acoustic bikes, etc). Without a limiter, at some point it becomes a motorcycle disguised as a bicycle.
@sporksmith
I agree! I'm fine with my e-assist being limited. I want the same principle applied to cars. They are dangerous and driven by yahoos without proper training.
@DrTCombs I am going to make an uninformed guess that it has to do with what’s allowed on bike paths. From “no motorized vehicles allowed” to “no motorized vehicles capable of going faster than X”. If you can pedal unassisted faster than X, good on you.
@DrTCombs I'm fine with cars that can be driven ten times faster ON THE TRACK. I can do all this cool stuff to get it race-ready. I should be able to ignore the speed governor...with a safety cage, helmet, five point harness, and NO PEDESTRIANS.
On the street? Why haven't we fixed this yet if I can make the stupid car get extra low, put itself in the magic rev range, know where I am and the throttle position...but it can't limit speed?!
Bullpucky.
@DrTCombs But I had one of those instructive moments the other day, in that I was going what WA would define as "reasonable and prudent given conditions" and getting passed like a dirty shirt.
Like...what is someone going 90 on the freeway for?
@DrTCombs allow me to speculate for a moment, the day the majority of the population is commuting via e-bike is the day that speed limiter will go away.
Motor normative.
Cars and car drivers get a free pass for all sorts of harms because they always have done.
@DrTCombs Isn't an e-bike with no speed limiter and a powerful motor a motorcycle? The danger is to the rider, if they aren't licensed to drive a motorcycle and wearing protective gear. It becomes a different kind of vehicle. And as a hiker and a pedestrian, bikers riding at high speed are a threat to me, several times I've had to jump out of the way of bikers ignoring rules and common sense.
@DrTCombs You very well could have a speed limiter in your car and not even know it. Many cars that are capable of very high speeds, notably BMW, Audi, and Mercedes, all have limiters set at 155 mph
@isnerdy
Yeah but once I get my car over around 35mph I'll probably kill anyone I hit with it, so a 155mph limiter is of irrelevant, no?
@DrTCombs As someone who’s been hit by a car going 35mph, and lived to tell the tale (thank you, bicycle helmet!) trust me, that’s something I’m deeply sympathetic to on city streets. But cars also drive on freeways where there aren’t pedestrians, and the limiters in question were designed with the autobahn in mind
@DrTCombs Because you're allowed to co-exist with cyclists on bike facilities at bicycle speeds, and you aren't able to hit motorcycle speeds on proper roads where you can take out pedestrians while not carrying any insurance or any mechanism (a license) that can be revoked if you repeatedly do so.
@DrTCombs
For e-bikes, it's because we want at least one space on the road, bike lanes, to be safe for normal bikes at all ages of life. At least in France, if you want an e-bike without a limiter, it's fine, but you're then just considered as a motorbike and cannot use the bike lane. Please don't change that. I don't want motorbikes on the bike lanes.
For cars, it's because nobody is ready in the general population for that.
@DrTCombs I agree—all vehicles should have these, not just my ebike and some delivery vehicles like this Staples truck:
Cars always complain that bicycles slow traffic when we have no bike lanes. Easy solution, build more bike lanes and make the maximum speed limit 20 kph (the average bicycle speed). Better still, install a speed limiter in all new vehicles which can be geofenced. But, will it happen, the speed limiter? Unfortunately, no, and we all know why---unless we have a revolution.
I will clarify that I'm a-ok with a speed limiter on my bike
I'm absolutely not ok with cars that can be driven ten times faster