One of the many reasons you don’t ride anything on the sidewalk is that you cross driveways and crosswalks too quickly to be seen by drivers. Even a standard bike should be ridden in the road, because 15 mph is fast enough to “come out of nowhere” and be hit by a car. All bikes are road vehicles.
Comment on Someone gets killed by a car, so they restrict e-bikes.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 6 months ago
They were riding it on a sidewalk, through a crosswalk and someone turned into them. Of course.
One caveat I’ll say is that depending on how fast they were going the laws should be that they should be with traffic, because if I’m driving and I look right I may not notice someone going 40+ mph on a sidewalk.
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Gigan@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I always ride on the side walk if there is one. I’d rather get hit by someone backing up at 5mph than someone going down the road at 50mph. And I’m always watching driveways for cars backing up.
grue@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’d rather get hit by someone backing up at 5mph than someone going down the road at 50mph.
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It’s not about cars backing out of residential driveways; it’s about cars turning onto side streets and it happens at a lot more than 5 MPH.
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Cyclists being rear-ended (at 50 MPH or otherwise) while riding in the street is much less likely to happen than them being t-boned while riding on the sidewalk. You have to factor the probability into the risk, not just the severity.
Gigan@lemmy.world 6 months ago
it’s about cars turning onto side streets and it happens at a lot more than 5 MPH. I have mirrors, so I check behind me for cars turning right and I can see oncoming traffic for cars turning left. You have to factor the probability into the risk, not just the severity My primary concern is the severity. I feel way less safe riding in the street. All it takes is a semi-truck swerving a few feet, a drunk driver not paying attention, or someone looking at their phone at the wrong moment and it’s game over for me. The stretch of my commute that I have to share the road with cars is the worst part and if I had to do that the whole way I simply wouldn’t cycle anymore.
The real problem is a lack of bike infrastructure, but until that is resolved I’m going to ride where I feel safe and that is as far away from cars as possible. And I’m not on an ebike, just a regular one. I only go 10-15 mph.
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scarabic@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You are less safe for this. You think otherwise, but you’re wrong. Sidewalk. Side. Walk.
Mr_Blott@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Pavement. Pave. Ment. Ment for paves
taiyang@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Seconded, but not on an ebike. And still use an abundance of caution when crossing the street (I’ll even dismount and walk if I think visibility is low). I try to minimize that by finding a bike path, but you can’t always live next to a bike path.
Witchfire@lemmy.world 6 months ago
In NYC, maniacs ride ebikes and mopeds on both the sidewalk and the street as it benefits them. Every time I walk my dog I have to dodge the fuckers going full speed down the sidewalk. And they always glare at the pedestrians line you’re the problem.
grue@lemmy.world 6 months ago
In other words, cyclists denied appropriate infrastructure are forced to use infrastructure for other transportation modes inappropriately.
But sure, blame the “maniacs” for having no other choice.
Witchfire@lemmy.world 6 months ago
There are bike lanes.
AA5B@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They also have a choice to follow the rules of the sidewalk they’re hopping on. Y’all are having this cars vs bikes thing and I’m happy for you but now you’re endangering pedestrians by getting onto pedestrian infrastructure without following pedestrian rules.
scarabic@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I hate cyclists that masquerade as pedestrians. It’s less safe for them and it’s less safe for everyone. Get your ass out into traffic and learn to take up some space. Ride defensively. Get yourself a rear view mirror. Pick the most bike friendly route. For fucks sake.
grue@lemmy.world 6 months ago
One caveat I’ll say is that depending on how fast they were going the laws should be that they should be with traffic, because if I’m driving and I look right I may not notice someone going 40+ mph on a sidewalk. But even then the law should be “Where do ebikes belong” officially
40mph is twice as fast as the max (motor assist) speed of a normal class 2 e-bike, but yeah, the real problem here is lack of proper bike infrastructure.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It is trivial to kit-build an e-bike that will do this. Hell, I have one myself, constructed out of a Warp DS2 frame.
But the difference is, I also have an M endorsement and I treat my monster bicycle as a motorcycle. The law doesn’t – that’s actually impossible in my state, so my bike falls in between a registrable motor vehicle and a bicycle. It also has turn signals, a car horn, a headlight, and working brake lights. But I also don’t ride it like a dickhead, and that includes paths set aside for non-fire-breathing bicycles, sidewalks, etc.
scarabic@lemmy.world 6 months ago
My city has amazing bike infrastructure: mixed use trails with no cars, bike lanes on all streets, tunnels and bridges over major thoroughfares (really it’s pretty insanely good and yes it’s in the US of fucking A).
People still ride on the sidewalks like morons. They ride the wrong direction in the bike lanes.
Bike infrastructure is essential but also not totally sufficient. You need a significant enough number of people using them that there is a culture for it and tribal sharing of knowledge around it.
Son_of_dad@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I once made a left turn through a gap in the crowd downtown, then out of the ongoing crowd zips out a bike the opposite way out of nowhere. He almost hit the side of my car and of course he got mad at me, even though he was on the sidewalk which is illegal in my city, and he was riding against traffic
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Someone going 40+ MPH is doing what amounts to riding a small motorcycle down a sidewalk. That’s no longer a “bicycle” thing. Imagine the howling and pearl-clutching we would be reading if someone were caught blasting, say, a Honda Grom down a sidewalk like this. Which is already illegal, for obvious reasons.
scarabic@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I own an ebike and I use it on the mixed use trails in my city. Mostly I have it because I often pull my kids on a trailer bike and we have hills in town.
I fear that my riding on these trails will soon be banned because people are out there driving stupidly fast on big knobby-tired motorcycles masquerading as “e-bikes.”
There are tons of Karens pushing strollers on these trails and any election now they’re going to ban my bike.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 6 months ago
So where exactly do you get the idea that motorcycles, apparently dirt bikes even, get mistaken for ebikes…?
scarabic@lemmy.world 6 months ago
There are lot of such toys on the market. They are electric. But they don’t resemble bikes in any way. I get the idea that they are mistaken for e-bikes when people ride them on our mixed use trails which are clearly marked for pedestrians and bikes only, not motor vehicles. People think anything electric is allowed. They are driving shit the same weight as a 125cc motorcycle in between pedestrians. And guess what? These vehicles go really fast so they are more dangerous than anything else on the trail, and they don’t mix into traffic well. The fools riding them are constantly weaving through passing everyone so that can GO FAST! WANNA GO FAST!
njordomir@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Sad, but in a lot of places unenforceable. My city can ban whatever they want, but they don’t have the manpower to wipe after they shit. :D
I hope the Karen’s leave you alone.
scarabic@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Unenforced is a little different than unenforceable.
Society is unfortunately still functioning where I live.
grue@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Just to be clear, “40+ MPH” is wildly inaccurate to the point of being a strawman argument. If the e-bike the kid was on was any sort of normal – and there’s nothing in either the article about the law or the article about the collision linked from it to indicate otherwise – then it was going no more than 20 MPH, tops.
Fondots@lemmy.world 6 months ago
40mph is probably a bit extreme, but “20mph, tops” is also pretty low
E bike laws, terminology, and manufacturers can be kind of a wild patchwork of nonsensical bullshit but a lot of states recognize, with some degree of regulation or restrictions, what have commonly come to be called class 3 e bikes, that can go up to 28mph, and in my shopping around I’ve seen plenty that advertise that speed or even higher.
There’s a lot of imported e bikes that play fast and loose with the regulations and their quality control, and I’m sure there’s a dedicated bunch of people tinkering with their bikes to make them go faster and remove built-in restrictions, so there’s probably a lot of people zooming around at 30+MPH
grue@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The vast majority of e-bikes (other than weird Chinese shit from ebay) are class 2.
EatATaco@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Let’s not downplay how fast 20mph is on the sidewalk. When you’re expecting people to be moving at 4mph, 5 times that is ridiculously fast.
Additionally, according to your article, they are capped at 28mph. Which is stupid fast on a sidewalk.
grue@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That’s class 3. The vast majority of e-bikes are class 2.