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.
People on pedelecs typically do not break a sweat, unless they are exceeding the assisted speed, since so little effort is needed to be put in, in order to get 250w of help.
Breaking inertia on a pedelec, despite them not having a throttle, is very easy, since the 250w of assistance. Also, wouldn’t you be closer to half an hour than an hour if you’re frequently riding at 20 mph?
I thought this kind of thing was only repeated by anti-transit/anti-cycling infrastructure people, but here we are. I’m not sure what makes you think a 9 mile commute would be an impossibility in Europe - that’s the distance I used to commute back where I lived before, and I live in Europe.
If you’re insisting that you’re going to switch to a car if you can’t have a throttle on your ebike, that’s your decision to make.
Not just a throttle but at least 20 mph allowable. Realistically the more time it takes out of my day the less likely I am to do it. I used myself as an illustration, the point wasn’t about me, its to point out that regulations that cause people to walk away from biking make us all less safe. Your supporting regulation on ideological grounds while ignoring the likelihood of negative real world outcomes. If your goal is to make society safer, this accomplishes the opposite.