[Aurornis]

> These are also designed to meet regulations, while also being able to easily be modified to circumvent them, such as removing speed restrictions, and removing the need to pedal itself.

This is the trend near me: Kids buy hackable e-bike, immediately unlock it, and then ride their new electric scooter (motorcycle) around pretending it’s an e-bike.

There’s a separated mixed use bike path parallel to a road on my commute. It’s typical to see e-bike kids driving up it faster than the road traffic on the road, while pedestrians and families jump to the side.

[SoftTalker]

This is exactly the same as the mopeds that were popular when I was a young teen (over 40 years ago).

[whywhywhywhy]

You need a license to drive a moped, you can hear them coming and people never drove them up the sidewalk, it's completely different.

[SoftTalker]

We didn't need a license, by virtue of the displacement of the stock engine being small (IIRC the limit was 125cc? Or maybe even less). They also had to have pedals, so small motorcycles or vespa-style scooters did require a license. Or at least a registration.

The mopeds would barely go 30mph as sold. That was hackable though if you were so inclined and had a set of wrenches.

[harambae]

Yeah 49cc mopeds that aren't registered appear to still be a thing where I am (Boston). And I think it's 49cc 2-stroke so equivalent to like a 90cc 4-stroke (whether that ends up violating a different emissions rules, I don't know).

Still, parking is such a racket in Seaport, including unnecessarily strict ticketing on motorcycles, that I don't blame the delivery guys for using the mopeds. I'm not sure what their realistic alternative would be.

[SoftTalker]

Too late to edit but I was way off on the engine size.... 50cc displacement or less.

[Aurornis]

Mopeds are still around. It’s completely different than a bike that can appear to be a normal bicycle on a bicycle path.