I wish it actually worked.
For certain things, under certain conditions, it sort of can.
For many others, it does not. (see previous examples).
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police e-bike crackdown
- Thread starter raylo32
- Start date
For certain things, under certain conditions, it sort of can.
For many others, it does not. (see previous examples).
LeoSuperMoin
New-ish here
age limits need to be done different.
Austria has for a long time had an age limit on normal bicycles.
14 or under are only allowed to drive with an adult present and not alone.
The exception is if they do the "Fahrradführerschein" which is a bicycle license.
You have a theoretical and practical exam. This is done at 12 years old.
The Theory is about 120 Question about basic road rules and the praxis exam is a course around the neighbourhood around the school to see if you stop at stop signs, give way and a few other things.
As long as you drive with an adult present there is no age limit.
pedelecs and ebikes up to 25kph are considered bicycles so kids are allowed to ride them.
with the new laws now pedelecs (only pedal assist) will still be treated the same as bicycles.
ebikes (with throttle till 25kph) will be 15 and older (exemption for escooter which will be 14 and older)
s-pedelecs (throttle till 25kph and pas until 45kph) will stay the same. moped license (15 and older) + registration + insurance
registration and insurance for s pedelecs is under 50€ per year.
there is also gonna be a change requiring a helmet on ebikes and escooters until 18 years old.
pedelecs and bicycles are until 16 years old.
i feel like these laws a change for the better since it teaches kids how to ride a bicycle/pedelec.
starting to learn on a ebike (throttle) is more like learning a moped
TPEHAK
Regular
Teach kids? Kids are more skillful than adults. Kids can teach you
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LeoSuperMoin
New-ish here
If like in this example kids know how to ride and they are old enough they can get a moped/motorcycle license.
If they aren't old enough then they can limit their riding to private property.
Knowing how to ride a motorcycle and knowing traffic laws to actually ride on the streets are 2 different skills.
I feel like moped (50kph) at 15 is just fine
motorcycles at 16 is also fine after getting your license
what isn't fine is having 10-15 years olds on 100kph surrons without license registration and insurance driving around without knowing basic traffic laws.
The onus would be on their parents in a case like that.
offGridDownUnder
Power poster
You should be embarrassed to suggest that kids can teach you consideration for others, which is what is being discussed.
TPEHAK
Regular
No, we were talking about learning bicycles and e-bikes with throttle. We did not talk about consideration for others. Consideration for others is not related to a specific vehicle controls.
offGridDownUnder
Power poster
The thread is 'police e-bike crackdown'. This is definitely what I and others are talking about.
There isn't a problem due to any lack of technical skill. The problem is due to the poor approach taken by society to granting access to powered vehicles. This poor approach includes absent parenting, refusing to frame the problem as being about personal responsibility, refusal to admit that personal responsibility is about maturity, refusal to admit that supposed 'adults' are not themselves taking responsibility for their own actions. There are other aspects to list, but this points at the real problem and it's source.
Whether children can be technically capable doesn't decide why they cause trouble for others, and the same isn't the reason 'adults' cause trouble for others.
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I do have sympathy with the kids on Surrons in some sense, in that the e-motos they are riding are providing (or seem to provide) the freedom the automobile promises, and that decades of auto-oriented development patterns in many places have made hard or impossible to get on human power alone.
It's just that an actual-factual Class 2 or Class 1 would manage to do it similarly well in any urban setting and most suburban ones, and leave less room for bad behavior (though still some).
My preferred enforcement would involve tighter laws around the term "ebike", making it a form of fraud to advertise or sell something as an "electric bicycle" that doesn't fit into the three-class system and cracking down on calling things "ebikes" that aren't street-legal. Alas, that doesn't seem to be the way enforcement will be going.
It's just that an actual-factual Class 2 or Class 1 would manage to do it similarly well in any urban setting and most suburban ones, and leave less room for bad behavior (though still some).
My preferred enforcement would involve tighter laws around the term "ebike", making it a form of fraud to advertise or sell something as an "electric bicycle" that doesn't fit into the three-class system and cracking down on calling things "ebikes" that aren't street-legal. Alas, that doesn't seem to be the way enforcement will be going.
FrontWheel
New here
I'm UK-based and find the laws revolving around e-bikes ill-thought-out.
"what isn't fine is having 10-15 years olds on 100kph surrons without license registration and insurance driving around without knowing basic traffic laws."
I totally agree, but what the authorities in the UK have done is tarred all ebike users with the same brush, these laws need a massive overhaul. In my case & many others I find this degrading.
I've had a full bike licence for 45-50yrs, I can buy a motorbike that can do 200mph, but ebike wise I'm limited to 15mph....!!!
In my opinion the way forward, as mentioned above, will be to have bike licences for e-bikes that are over the 15 mph limit along with the relevant insurance.
I've written to my local MP about this, but as usual you get a muted response; it's certainly not liebours top priority, so the problem will go on.
"what isn't fine is having 10-15 years olds on 100kph surrons without license registration and insurance driving around without knowing basic traffic laws."
I totally agree, but what the authorities in the UK have done is tarred all ebike users with the same brush, these laws need a massive overhaul. In my case & many others I find this degrading.
I've had a full bike licence for 45-50yrs, I can buy a motorbike that can do 200mph, but ebike wise I'm limited to 15mph....!!!
In my opinion the way forward, as mentioned above, will be to have bike licences for e-bikes that are over the 15 mph limit along with the relevant insurance.
I've written to my local MP about this, but as usual you get a muted response; it's certainly not liebours top priority, so the problem will go on.
OlderGiantFan
Regular
Riding an e-bike in rural Australia, especially at 1am, makes all this an interesting thought experiment 
offGridDownUnder
Power poster
Another thought. We have subsidised petrol vehicles for many years, deliberately to cause social change, and then also to avoid a backlash and get re-elected.
In the same way, it's completely legitimate to bring in laws against those development patterns, to bring back local, economically diverse towns which do operate on human scale. When I first migrated, there were small stores, called 'dairies' I could walk to. They carried what people would want on a day-to-day basis, including some fresh vegetables. They charged more than the largest big-box grocery stores, but if you add in the savings from not owning a car, then they did not cost more.
There is no reason we can't decide to push our way of living in this direction. It's our world, and we can do this if we want to.
We will get blowback from some parasites, but given what we are learning about the effects of social media, climate change, the trend towards 'tech bros', we already can see very good reasons to interrupt the way we are living now and force it to change.
We're already subsidising the wrong parties. Let's subsidise the right ones. If life is soulless, let's change it.
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Oh, I quite agree. One of the things I like most about electric bicycles as a technology is the potential to bridge the world we have - with its often wildly inadequate development patterns and infrastructure - with the world we deserve, which will after all take time to build.
It's that reason that I find the inadequacy of ebike definitions and the drift of the term 'ebike' to mean 'electric motorcycle' so frustrating. I think there's a real positive case to be made for a low-speed, low-power, light-weight motorized vehicle with lower regulations and fewer barriers to access as a part of moving away from the automobile, but the e-motos are a huge threat to that.
aroundqube
Regular
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2012
- Messages
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TAKE ACTION to SAVE Low-Speed E-Bikes & STOP S4834/A6235 - Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia
URGENT Reach Out to Your NJ Legislators! TAKE ACTION to SAVE Low-Speed E-Bikes & STOP S4834/A6235 UPDATE: The proposed bill requiring registration and a license to ride ANY e-bike in NJ, including low-speed e-bikes that go under 20 mph, and it could be signed into law as soon as Monday...
bicyclecoalition.org
Moretorque
Regular
The ancient Gestapo.
offGridDownUnder
Power poster
If, say, you and I buy a car together, you can't sell it without my agreement. You don't own it. I don't own it. WE own it, and only WE as WE get to decide what to do with it. We can agree. You (or I) can't impose - that's theft.
Public roads are not your roads. They are the Public's roads, acting as the Public, in whatever way the Public decides to manage them, per the agreement of the members of the Public. You don't get to decide on your own, although you are a part of the Public, you are only a PART of the Public. The Public owns, and the Public decides.
If you don't like being a member of a society, leave. As long as you want to hang around and enjoy the benefits, you are answerable to the society. Stop being a thief - if it's not yours, it's not yours. If it's Ours, then it's Ours.
It does, of course, really suck for those of us who purchased something in under one set of laws and used it in good faith under those laws and now find a threat of enforcement scrutiny, fines, or even confiscation based on a new, changed set of laws. That said, it sucks for literally everyone who is the target of such regulations, which is why the failure of our community and industry to push for stronger delineation around the definition of a bicycle in a way that would protect low-speed, low-power vehicles is such a shame.
offGridDownUnder
Power poster
I am in this situation as well now. I'm looking into short-term and long-term solutions.
Long term, my approach is to be involved in education and legislation. I'm presuming the majority can be reasonable as I consider myself to be reasonable. I don't like being imposed upon, so I'll also try to find other ways to get the agreement of my fellows.
I do accept reasonable imposition - not always the clearest standard, but the concept is real enough, and often attainable. It involves reasoning about the issue, itself dependent on correct information. People who act as if they own the Public road are clearly not dealing with reality - on private property, you are on your own. Of course.
In some cases, the damage involved is so great that imposition is readily agreeable - pedophilia, drunk driving are examples.
I chafe at penalties against ebike use when the same penalties are not laid against automobile users. I would happily support confiscation and destruction of automobiles used contrary to the agreement of the license, as well as loss of that license.
After all, the license holder gave their own word to all of us when they signed their name. If their own word is no good, we should accept that.
I'm sorry to hear it! I am also looking at solutions to possible restrictions on my end, and rather regretting getting the Photon instead of the cheaper and much weaker TSDZ2b kit.
Something I fear may be an issue on sites like this in particular is that both those pushing regulation - well-conceived or not - and some prominent opponents both have a degree of incentive to target the DIY space especially. I've already seen at least one advocacy organization take the stance that an ebike with a "race" and a "street" mode isn't and shouldn't be legal no matter how it's used, which would make illegal not just CYC but Grin and really any open kit that isn't sincerely and profoundly limited by thermal dissipation. Bosch et al have no incentive to advocate for anything other than the closing of the industry.
Sure, and it has been baffling me all this thread how many people genuinely don't seem to understand that public basis for laws exists. At the risk of being political, it seems many people - especially many of my fellow Americans - really, sincerely don't believe there is such a thing as society. It's very strange.
Amen. As always the car gets special treatment.
Moretorque
Regular
I know, the Illuminati decides it all for us whether we like it or not. looks like WW 3 or 4 incoming to thin the herd. The USA is gonna be the Gestapo/Nazi's. Fortunately for us we have god's children to decide all this for us since were too stupid to make our own decisions.
@ Moretorque:
Please be aware this thread is in the EBike General Discussion forum. Your last post of approx. 55 words contains several socially/personally/triggering phrases:
This style of post better belongs in the Off Topic Discussions section, and even there, the section rules state:"This area may contain offensive posts or controversial topics.Hot topic items like religion and politics can be discussed only if they are objective and respectful."
Suggest you minimize the use of trigger phrases.
Please be aware this thread is in the EBike General Discussion forum. Your last post of approx. 55 words contains several socially/personally/triggering phrases:
- "Illuminati"
- "WW 3 or 4"
- "thin the herd"
- "Gestapo/Nazi's"
- "god's children"
This style of post better belongs in the Off Topic Discussions section, and even there, the section rules state:"This area may contain offensive posts or controversial topics.Hot topic items like religion and politics can be discussed only if they are objective and respectful."
Suggest you minimize the use of trigger phrases.
offGridDownUnder
Power poster
No. You choose every moment of every day what you do. You are responsible for that choice.
If I come into your house, I follow your rules, or I leave. It's your house.
If you come onto our roads, you follow our rules. They are our roads.
Build your own roads, on your own land, and you can use them as you wish.
Don't pretend that you own what you don't own. You can talk to us about different ideas, and if you convince enough of us, we'll change our rules - that's called Democracy. Democracy involves admitting that the decisions are made together.
RunForTheHills
Regular
This is why the United States isn't a direct democracy. It is a constitutional federal republic governed by a constitution. What you are describing is what James Madison called “the tyranny of the majority.” Where a majority can dictate to the minority how things will be and suppress the basic rights rights of minorities.
offGridDownUnder
Power poster
'can' does not equal 'do'. My 'rights' end where yours begin - my rights do not give me permission to endanger you or suppress your life. You'll try to turn that around and say I'm agreeing with you, but I'm not. You do not have unlimited 'right' to interfere with my life, and that means we negotiate what the limits are. And then we keep our agreements.
We do this by passing laws, so that the limits are visible to all and enforceable. To the extent that this enforcement is corrupt, the remedy is for the citizens to remedy the corruption - not for you to claim license to ignore the common decision expressed in the law.
Did you sign your Driver's License? In that case, we already have your freely given word on your road use. You are free to advance suggestions of change to the road rules, but as long as you hold that license, you are obligated by your own word to keep the current terms - that's what you said.
Your 'rights' do not mean you may do as you wish against anyone at anytime. The rest of us will shut you down in self-defense, and we are correct to do so, to protect ourselves and our families and our society.
RunForTheHills
Regular
You clearly have a rigid black and white thought pattern, so I won't waste too much more time arguing with you. I will say this: laws can have different interpretations depending on the circumstances. There are gray areas where law enforcement may choose not to write you a ticket. Such as speeding up over the speed limit to avoid a collision or speeding to get an injured person to the hospital to save their life. There are laws that are passed that are eventually ruled unconstitutional because they violate basic rights protected by the constitution. There is human error. Unless you are absolutely perfect in obeying every law ever written yourself, perhaps you should tone it down a notch.
