The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition weighed in with a pointed response, arguing that the state should be making it easier, not harder, to own and use e-bikes. Their senior organizer echoed the sentiment shared by many riders: the real confusion and danger comes from people not being able to tell the difference between a legal e-bike and an electric moped, not from the bikes themselves.
Brett Thurber, co-owner of a San Francisco e-bike shop, raised a practical industry concern about AB 1557. Restricting California’s speed limits below what manufacturers currently build for the U.S. market could push companies to skip California customers entirely, shrinking the supply available to local shops and consumers.
My city just installed 15mph speed limits. I welcome regulation and citations for speeding e-bikes at 25-30mph. It’s for safety.
Funny how there’s vocal outcry when “rules for thee, not for me” breaks down.
How do non ebike cyclists know their speed? It’s easy to go above 15 mph on a push bike. And most push bikes don’t have speedometers
Any smartphone made in the past couple decades can track GPS and calculate speed. Easy enough.
I can cycle without a motor faster than 15mph, when cycling you don’t even know your speed.
Here they just go by if you are going faster than is safe for the conditions, it isn’t a specific speed but doing 25 in a busy street with pedestrians is probably considered dangerous. Would be illegal and almost certainly unenforced. Then again, cars speeding is rarely enforced either.