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.
Since E-bikes are a substitute for far more dangerous vehicles (cars), it only makes sense to address this once the danger of cars has been adequately addressed. Which we are light years away from in CA.
Putting more burdens on cyclists will just make more people drive. And driving is so so so much more dangerous than even the worst e-bike, this this very clearly makes people less safe.
Except e-bikes operate in many places that cars do not. Cars being an issue isn’t an excuse for anarchy everywhere else. I’ve seen plenty of people on e-bikes driving 30+ km/h down a public pathway in a park; you won’t see a car anywhere within 300 feet of this but it’s a clear danger to those in the area.
And I’d hardly call a speed limit for a bike a “burden,” and e-bikes have operated in a nebulous zone as mentioned above, they are motor vehicles.
Even if you had to get a plate and follow a speed limit, there are still a million reasons why people should get out of cars and onto bikes (e- or otherwise) to move themselves around.
This doesn’t really address the logic of what you’re responding to though, and it clearly is a justification. If people are deterred from using ebikes for transportation and therefore use cars instead, then the resulting harm is whatever difference there is between injuries/deaths caused by an ebike and injury/death caused by a car over the same time period, it hardly matters for that where they are using them.
Whatever you call it, if there is an effect where a registration requirement results in more driving than otherwise, that has to be taken into account.
I thought you’re gonna say 50kmph easily with a twist of a throttle but alas, it’s only 30kmph, which can be achieved easily for a period of time by an average cyclist on a roadbike.
But i do agree ebike that can do more than 30kmph with a throttle are a danger to the pedestrians, it’s already a moped, which is something people doesn’t seems to realise.
I’d be more for California physically limiting the speed of every vehicle sold in the state to 70 mph.
E-bikes are not a substitute for cars, they are a substitute for bikes crossing further with cars on the venn diagram; some find convenience and acceptability in that overlap, while others do not. I never took my mountain car off a sweet jump on a dirt path, but I used to on my bike. (Yes, despite my stance, I do own a bike)
What you call a burden, are the rules of civilization we all (try) to adhere to. You may not like them, but the end of flagrant disregard and selfishness is, by far, not a burden.