wturber
1 MW
MadRhino said:wturber said:... The laws aren't designed for their exceptional performance and tolerating their rare exception is no great burden on traffic or society. But if you suddenly have many thousands riding at those speeds, the complexion of things changes.
As long as street usage have speed limits, the performance of cyclists, ebikes or motorcycles is irrelevant.
... excepts as it relates to things like brake lights, turn signals, brake performance, tire reliability and so forth. Hence the general requirement for registration, liability insurance etc. At least, this is sensible from the standpoint of rights and responsibilities.
But from the standpoint of safety per trip, riding a two wheeled vehicle in regular traffic is about 60 times more deadly than riding in a car and about 25 times more deadly than riding a bicycle. If you go by traffic miles, motorcycles are only about 27 times more deadly than cars. I have no good stats on bicycle deaths per passenger mile. Estimating bicycle traffic miles is harder and the numbers less definite. But on a per mile basis bicycles are somewhere between three and ten times as likely to result in a death than cars. Even the worst case is far batter than for motorcycles traveling normally with traffic.
So, pick yer poison. Ride with traffic at speed and live with the very high risk or ride at a lower bicycle-like speeds with reduced overall risk but a handfull of other compromises.