[cucumber3732842]

Back in the 20th century, before electric bikes, when I was but a wee lad the neighborhood Karens screeched until the local PD dropped one of those mobile "your speed is" trailers onto my street for about a month.

It turns out 12yo me could go 29mph on a mountain bike.

30 is too low IMO. Make it 35 or something. 25 is a joke.

[kube-system]

I like going fast as much as the next guy, but lets be real, the safety profile of someone pedaling 30 mph is not the same as someone pressing a button to go 30 mph.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/1tu6v9d/scooter_...

When you're pedaling at 30 mph, you're much more likely to be engaged, paying attention, and under ideal conditions. Folks who cruise at 30 at the press of a button, tend to actually do so consistently. Anyone who rides on a bike path anywhere today can obviously observe the differences in behavior.

[ggreer]

I picked 30mph because that's the current threshold for what is considered a motorcycle in the state of Washington. Until recently, e-bikes were exempt from this because the old law was made back when e-bikes were rare and couldn't go much faster than regular bicycles.

I've gone >50mph on a bicycle, 40mph on level ground. Yes it's possible, but it requires significant effort and you can't accelerate as quickly as an e-bike. That's why I said, "and has a motor". Heck, a fast runner can endanger people on the sidewalk. When I'm running, I often slow down in crowded areas so that if someone does randomly veer into my path, I'll have time to avoid them.

If lots of people (who I assume are very fit) were riding bicycles dangerously, maybe the legislature would make some laws about that. But until it becomes a problem, there's really no need.

[cucumber3732842]

> that's the current threshold

The current threshold is dumb. The whole premise is dumb. Ebikes don't need legislating beyond enforcing existing laws about cycling on sidewalks and the like.

>I've gone >50mph on a bicycle, 40mph on level ground. Yes it's possible, but it requires significant effort and you can't accelerate as quickly as an e-bike.

It's also pretty clear that the geometry of the vehicle was not really optimized for such speeds. I don't think anyone going 30+ (commuting, the spandex crowd who rides for fun is a different story) thinks it's ok to be doing that around pedestrians or anything else sketchy. Most of the problems seem to simply be correlation to accessibility of speed to problem demographics, teenagers and the like. You'll have that problem regardless of form factor. 70yr ago the boomers were drunk crashing muscle cars because those were accessible.

>If lots of people (who I assume are very fit) were riding bicycles dangerously, maybe the legislature would make some laws about that. But until it becomes a problem, there's really no need.

Depends wholly on other unrelated demographic factors IMO. What can these people do for the government vs what problems do you cause it is the primary driver of whether you get stomped or pandered to.