[blastrat]

most electric bikes I see are ridden dangerously to pedestrians; by NYC deliverymen (doubt I've ever seen a woman on one), swiftly and silently sneaking up to run you down on sidewalks or the wrong way on one way streets.

I would vote hard in favor of limiting speed and or requiring them to make artificial noise, unless we could get some other type of pervasive and privacy intrusive monitoring of riders' behavior.

I sometimes ride my pedal bike the wrong way, and sometimes on sidewalks (two avenue blocks out of your way in NYC to get around the block is quite a long distance) but I always do it "respectfully": slowly and yielding the right of way. Till there is a system in place to effectively educate the constant churn of the class of people who deliver goods, I am soooo anti.

electic bikes are technically illegal in NYC; it's a law that is never enforced.

edit, addition: the mix of cars vs pedestrians works as well as it traditionally has worked and I and many other people don't have a problem with it; due to various types of complexity theory, adding bikes to the mix does not work as well, it particularly degrades the pedestrian experience, and is quite dangerous for bikers.

I find electric bikes even more destabilizing and most objectionable, because they are faster and quieter, and I think because they are favored by a statistical sample that skews toward more selfish/self-interested.

Why is it so hard for discussion groups to accept that somebody has an opinion with muddying it up? What I said originally should not require so much refinement for people to grasp that it's my one little opinion and it doesn't threaten your worldview more than your worldview needs to be shaken up.

[krirken]

> most electric bikes I see are ridden dangerously to pedestrians; by NYC deliverymen (doubt I've ever seen a woman on one), swiftly and silently sneaking up to run you down on sidewalks or the wrong way on one way streets.

Both of those uses of a bicycle - operation on a sidewalk and riding against traffic on a one-way street - are a violation of NYC traffic law [1]. The operator is the one causing danger, not the bicycle.

[1] http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/bicyclerules_engli...

[blastrat]

what you say is true, but what I said is also truly what I wanted to say, so to clarify:

NYC has widespread ignoring of many traffic laws, and that does not bother me. I am talking about, in the context of widespread violations, what does bother me: the electric bikes. You could accept that there is some validity in what I say without agreeing with me.

Given the choice, I would not be in favor of pedestrians and bikers being forced to follow all traffic laws. However, I would be in favor of electric bikes being forced to follow all traffic laws, especially the one that bans them! :)

[krirken]

I see, and I agree that the accountability of cyclists (and slightly less so for motorists) in NYC is almost zero. I also agree that electric powered bicycles should be held to a higher standard than normal bikes, particularly in that their use is entirely illegal so it should be much easier to spot and ticket them. I mostly posted these facts because most non-NYCers don't even realize that these uses of a bike are actually against the law.

EDIT: I just read your edit,

> I find electric bikes even more destabilizing and most objectionable, because they are faster and quieter, and I think because they are favored by a statistical sample that skews toward more selfish/self-interested.

This is a good summary of my thoughts about electrical bicycles as well.

[andrewliebchen]

Cars are by far the most dangerous things to pedestrians. If electric bikes get people out of their cars, pedestrians will be better off on balance. Rather than banning electric bikes, NYC could to better to build separate infrastructure for bikes.

[ZanyProgrammer]

That has almost nothing to do with the post you responded to. Electric bikes are faster than normal bikes, and people treat them as mini mopeds rather than normal bikes (and there's already a problem with bicycle/pedestrian collisions).

[bitwize]

> requiring them to make artificial noise

Baseball card in the spokes, enforced by government regulation.