wturber said:
I think you might go very wrong if you try to operate such a thing in regular traffic in Southern California. The law limits you to 28 mph motor assisted. Even if we fudge up to 30 mph, that's not enough to let you flow with traffic. And in So Cal, traffic can get very congested and I'd imagine drivers getting VERY impatient with a funny little velo car slowing down an entire lane.
That law doesn't stop one from pedaling past 28 mph as long as the motor shuts off, and the police wouldn't be able to easily prove whether that was happening anyway, so it is of relatively low risk to bend the rules a bit if the vehicle is of sufficiently low drag that the 28 mph limit could be exceeded on pedal power alone.
One would have to use careful judgement regarding when, where, and how they rode such a vehicle, not just because of law enforcement, but also traffic.
And the individuals within that traffic can be EXTREMELY unpredictable. My worst encounter with a vehicle operator is below.
I've already been rammed by impatient drivers while stopped at a red light. One of those times was a year ago after a new Nissan SUV driver was butthurt at being stopped in a traffic jam 1.5 miles back while I sped passed it all on the sidewalk at 25 mph. He started honking as I flew past. After a 38 mph downhill sprint from getting back on the road after the traffic jam, I came to a red light and stopped. It stayed red for minutes. After about 3 minutes or so of sitting at the light, I hear full throttle acceleration and then tires screeching behind me. It was that SUV, and he must have been doing 70+ mph before slamming on the brakes(I could see him in the left side mirror when he was hauling ass down the hill behind me). He stopped just a few feet from behind me and it's a miracle he didn't hit me then. He then started to deliberately ram the back of my velomobile repeatedly at walking speed, pushing me towards/slightly into the intersection where 40 mph traffic was going left and right, while repeatedly honking as I was stopped at the red light. It was a white yuppie-type guy in his 40s wearing a suit on a cell phone. It was at that time that I was about to get out before I could be shoved into cross traffic along with my vehicle, figuring this guy was about to destroy my vehicle, pull out my bike lock on a 5 foot chain with an "ornamental" steel morning star spike ball attached to it, smash his windshield/windows, and try to smash his face in and drag his ass out of the vehicle and stomp the shit out of him(at least that was what was running through my head at the time, and I was about to attempt it. I really hate bullies, especially ones who threaten me in such a manner for no valid reason), and before I could even get out, the light turned green, he backed up, peeled out, slipped himself between me and another car in the turn lane, almost hit the car in the turn lane, and sped off full throttle, almost hitting another car in front of him as he made an illegal maneuver cutting off multiple motorists.
Fortunately, the only damage to my velomobile was a broken zip tie. I designed it well considering it held up to a Nissan Murano deliberately ramming it at 3-5 mph.
I've had other hostile encounters with automobile drivers, and for whatever reason(chalk it up to coincidence I guess), it's most commonly been middle aged white men in new SUVs. When I took the body shell off, another SUV driver at another stop light the better part of a year later deliberately rammed me into a car at walking speed bending my front chain rings(they were still usable, just damaged), and sped off. Me and the trike were otherwise unharmed, and the car in front of me was a junker and after talking with the driver, he didn't care about the new scratches on his rust heap.
So yeah, it COULD go very wrong. That's the nature of cycling(no matter how many wheels) in a country where the infrastructure is designed to exclude everything but automobiles and where instant gratification is ingrained into the populace. In my case, I never wrecked, but the closest I've come to doing so would have been entirely the fault of other people abusing their automobiles and generally being posterior orifices. And it could happen any time I go for a ride.
On two wheels, it is very easy to lose stability. Had I been at the light holding up a two-wheeled bike when I got rammed, I'd have been knocked to the pavement.
And face it, the sidewalk generally isn't suitable for cycling. The sidewalk I did 25 mph on was about 15 feet wide and had no pedestrians and no obstacles. That is not a common condition for a sidewalk. There's usually lots of obstacles and the pavement requires more effort to move over. There are often pedestrians as well. PLUS I was on a trike, granting me a sort of stability that one will not get on two wheels as I went over bumps and cracks, which allowed me to do 25 mph without feeling my life was in peril. I almost never ride on the sidewalk, but the traffic conditions were such that the situation warranted it(it was also sweltering outside and I hate being trapped behind cars in the heat spewing out hot exhaust while I have no motion to provide cooling airflow, which really, really sucks in a velomobile).
There's a lesson for e-beach to learn from him straying off pavement in general, but overall the road will usually be a more suitable surface than the sidewalk when one is on any pavement. But the biggest danger on the road is also the reason he rode on the sidewalk to begin with: the automobile traffic. When one rides in the street, the lesser the differential in speed between the cyclist and the automobile traffic, the safer the cyclist is. But it still won't stop jerks from being jerks. That's just a risk we all take when using the street. And at high speeds, I generally trust three wheels more than two, but if and only if the setup is correct for the circumstances(suspension, good brakes, no less than 20" wheels, correct center of gravity to allow sharp cornering without tipping over, ect).
