I’m all for getting rid of those damn e-scooters. For a couple of reasons. Speed and lack of the riders wearing any protection(no helmet, no pads, nothing). Where I live we have rental e-scooters and people leave them EVERYWHERE…even in the river…
I ride a private e-scooter, and ride responsibly (helmet, turn signals, ride well below bike speed, etc.).
Rentals are the problem, and so are jackasses. But don’t punish people like me.
I knew years ago that e-bikes and e-scooters will be helped or hurt by the people riding them. And now we see what happens when people aren’t riding on them responsibly. Sucks big time.
I second this. I also have an eScooter and I don’t have to rely on a very poor public transport schedule, and the electricity bills from charging it at home are cheaper than a monthly ticket
Oh I know there are some who have smarts and ride them with caution and protection. It’s the jackasses for sure that have tainted my view on them. I see a lot of idiots where I am zipping around not caring about those around them.
It’s the jackasses for sure that have tainted my view on them. I see a lot of idiots where I am zipping around not caring about those around them.
It’s because there’s almost no barrier to entry. Unlike a bike, which requires years of riding to even get fit enough to sustain high speed, anyone can get on an e-scooter and go as fast as the max speed allows. Provided they stay balanced, there’s nothing else to it. And that’s problematic when you’ve got a rider who lacks experience or simply doesn’t care about others.
But the way I see it, these same people would be jackasses in cars, so even though it’s awful, it’s like the lesser of two evils.
I’m not even sure how society can solve this problem without heavy regulation (which doesn’t impact those who are willing to be jackasses), heavy restrictions (see previous point), or forcing people to drive large vehicles because it’s more convenient.
There’s currently no legal mechanism to punish offenders, so everyone gets shafted.
I’d like to add to this thread (coz I rarely see this mentioned.) The rental scooter system encourages shitty riding. I only recently tried it on vacation for convenience and you pay per minute, not distance. And it’s kinda expensive. So users are financially motivated to run risks (speed, cut traffic, run reds etc.) in order to save money. I was pretty horrified to find this out, but it made sense of all the shitty riding I had seen prior.
Don’t cars get left everywhere too? For Henry’s and stuff, then need to educate people and provide easy access to helmets, not ban then
I saw someone take out two people on a rental scooter the other day. She was hauling ass down a hill, no helmet, and pretty much ran into a crowd. She was probably late teens, no helmet or pads, and apparently no awareness.
Here it’s them riding on the sidewalk and almost (or actually) hitting someone as they step out a door.
Best part about the rental e-scooters here is they have helmets attached to each one. I think I’ve seen them woren once or twice and we’ve had them here for a few years now.
I’d be leery of community helmets for a whole host of reasons, but I’d probably also bring my old folding bike instead of renting something.
What’s the issue with fat tire bikes? If I change my wheels & tires to skinnier options, that saves like 2kg weight. Is there something im missing?
Maybe they just consider fatbikes as a synonym to electric fatbikes now, but from the debates I’ve seen, it’s specifically electric fatbikes, e-scooters and LEV (Light eletric vehicles), due to their heavier weight and faster acceleration provided by the electric motor
Perhaps they should mention it directly as e-fatbikes or something, like e-scooter, ebike, etc
Whether fatbike means electrified or not doesn’t matter. Switching an ebike from 26x4.0 wheels/tires to 27.5x 2.5 results in a negligible weight difference.
Are they talking about banning all ebikes regardless of tire size, and just referring to them as fatbikes?
I visited Europe recently and 90% of the fat bikes I saw there were the illegally high powered kind. So I dont think they have a problem with the tyre size, just that the majority of those bikes are not suited to bike lanes. Unfortunate association.
When I was in Copenhagen there were even petrol scooters using the bike lanes and overtaking cyclists within the lane. Sketchy shit.
When I was in Copenhagen there were even petrol scooters using the bike lanes and overtaking cyclists within the lane
in Antwerp, AFAIK that’s legal (with low speed limits)… could be the same in Copenhagen?
Yeah, maybe. Was surprising to see, but no one I saw really seemed to care, so yeah, could be legal~
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen someone jam their skinny tires on a group ride, I’d have 10-15 cents. Not a ton, but skinny tires get eaten by tram tracks and cracks in concrete panels that make up roads here. Unfortunately, one of them was not okay. She seriously rung her bell, even with a half face helmet on, and ended up being hospitalized. :P
Anything under 2in wide in a city setting is a no go, especially with legacy storm drains being a bike-unfriendly width too.
In the Netherlands basically all fatbikes are electric ones. Young adults/teens ride them and also hack the software so they go much faster.
In the Netherlands an ebike should only work when you actively use the pedals and should go 25 km/h or slower.
Otherwise it’s a scooter with different rules (license plate, scooter driver license, insurance, etc).
Many kids (and even some adults) turn them into a scooter, ride the bicycle roads and cause accidents.
I think they are referring to electric fat bikes?
Wjy not ban cars ?
Seems a little odd that they’re targeting non-electric fatbikes since they’re slower than something like a roadbike. Never heard of anyone hauling ass on a sidewalk and smashing into someone with a Surly Moonlander.
Sadly, the original source article is: 1) paywalled, and 2) in Dutch, but it wasn’t immediately obvious to me if the linked article is using “fatbike” in reference only to electric fatbikes. That would certainly make more sense, since the quotations primarily seem concerned with speed. And as you said, acoustic fatbikes are not fast. It could be a translation issue.
The only mention of size/mass being an issue seems to be for large cargo ebikes, which I imagine is referring to boxy delivery vehicles that crowd out the bike paths. Eg UPS, DHL, Amazon parcel ebikes.
At least that’s what I would think is what’s happening. Considering how many people in Dutch cities rely on the bike infrastructure, it would make sense to designate more space for bike-adjacent transport by taking space from the road (as in, automobile lanes).
I would hope that if municipalities are empowered to prohibit motor-assisted ebikes from the existing bike network, then they should also have to carry the obligation to build a secondary network of hard infrastructure using space from roads that have traffic speeds above 30 kph.
The demand for electric bikes is clearly there; it is infeasible and illogical to make them disappear by a mere prohibition. The demand for parcel delivery bikes is there, and prohibiting them would only exacerbate automobile traffic. Hence, the Dutch should do what they’ve always done: build their way out.
It’s about electric fatbikes and e-scooters, due to their heavier weight and faster acceleration provided by higher pedal assistance, as referenced here:
The original article only mentions “large” cargo bikes, which I think you are in the right direction. It also mentions a letter being sent to the next road safety debate, but I could not find it to confirm if there was a definition to it
I think by fatbike they mean something like this?
I’ve heard local refer this as fatbike right here in lemmy, so it might be this.
Am also wonder why they want to eject cargobike to the road, i thought cargobike is very much a dutch tradition.
