wturber said:
Bikes are routinely allowed to go down hills at speeds well over 30 mph if the riders care to do that.
Unless (in at least some places, like AZ) you have a motor on it--then if you ride any faster (even down a steep hill on a road with a much higher speed limit) than some limit (<20MPH here) in the motorized bicycle definitions, suddenly you're breaking the law.
Which law, and what they do to you...that depends on the place (here in AZ, you're suddenly no longer a bicycle, and instead are considered (based on past incidents for various motorized bicycle riders) an uninsured, unregistered, unlicensed motorcycle rider, as soon as you go faster than "less than 20MPH").
Which is stupid...but it makes it simple for enforcement officers. (who may or may not actually choose to enforce it, but at least they can make the call easily if they choose to)
sendler2112 said:
You may still do any of that if you like on your class 1 ebike. Up to any posted speed limits of course.
I guess that depends on how they wrote the law and what they choose to do to enforce it. If they wrote it so that the bike is required to just cut out the assist above the limit speed, and it just becomes a bicycle above that, then yes, you could ride as fast as the posted limit on that road (assuming you don't get ticketed for "recklessness" due to the speed, regardless of how safe you're riding, which does happen). If, like in AZ, the law just defines a limit that the bike can be operated below, then that limit is the limit, period, whether you're using the motor or not (because LE has no certain way to know if you were or not, most likely).
Personally, I'm fine with 20MPH as a limit, but a power limit (especially something like 750-1000w) would set me back to the way things were when I was on a pedal-only bike, as far as traffic goes--when I have to accelerate from a stop, like at a traffic light, with cars behind me, if I can't accelerate at least as quickly as they can, some of them get pretty pissed off, and depending on their reactions it can get dangerous. For a cargo-hauler like my stuff, that takes bursts of at least 3-4KW, during acceleration (and possibly more than that continuous for hill climbing, etc). Even simple headwinds could increase my cruising power usage to 2KW easy (it's already at least 900-1000w to cruise at 20MPH on the flats with no wind, on SB Cruiser).
While 20MPH might be possible (at least with 1000w) on the flats, going up any kind of slope at all would slow me down enough to make it more dangerous than usual with the traffic passing me already up to twice as fast as I'd be going at 20MPH--even if it only slowed me to 15MPH it'd make more drivers angry, even though I'm not in their way (whereas at 20MPH for some reason not many see me as an obstacle). If it slowed me to 10MPH I'd probably get hit or some other road-rage action, based on things that used to happen before I added motors to my cargo-haulers.
The only place I can ride most of the time is on the street (sidewalks would be impossible even if I were on a normal-shaped bike due to other traffic on them, as well as safety considerations for driveways/etc), and whether there is a bike lane or not is irrelevant at the intersections, becuase the lane will end somewhere before the intersection (sometimes a long way from it, sometimes just before a right-turn lane starts, etc). So if I can't keep a reasonable speed (20MPH) to not piss off traffic around me that's going 30-40MPH (I try to avoid roads with higher limits than that), I'd be safer hobbling around on my cane pushing a wheelbarrow or something (to carry my cargo) on the sidewalks for hours to go a mile or two.
Sure, there's workarounds...but just not having a power limit (and keeping the speed limit) fixes the whole thing (for me).
as thats the end result
