To be honest 20 km/h sounds like a reasonable limit. But considering small mopeds here are allowed to drive 30 km/h in bike lanes, it just doesn’t seem like reasonable at all.
IDK if Netherlands have small mopeds that are allowed in bicycle lanes that can drive 30 or faster, but if they have, I don’t really see a rational argument why bicycles should have stricter rules?
But for more fragile bicyclists the faster traffic from e-bikes or mopeds are absolutely a danger. My own 89 year old father has been hit by passing fast traffic in the bike lane a few times resulting in him crashing, one time resulting in a week long hospital stay.
It is only lucky that he didn’t break anything, effectively terminating his life as a healthy senior citizen.
Honestly 20km/h seems kinda slow. As a kid I’d do 20-25, and these days most European countries have a 25km/h limit on e-bikes. So 20km/h seems just low enough to be a hindrene.
Ultimately it depends on the bicycle lane or road though, just like for cars. There a huge difference between a crowded narrow inner-city cycle lane with immediate adjacent houses and other things obstructing vision, compared to a suburban cycle path with less traffic and completely unobstructed vision
There really shouldn’t be 30 km/h motorized vehicles on bicycle lanes. That’s the speed limit for cars on many city roads, which are usually much wider.
Blue plates, which are (should be) capped at 25 km/h.
They generally go where cyclists go (with the exception of Amsterdam where they have to go on the road) and are effectively treated as motorized bicycles.
Yellow plates, which are (should be) capped at 45 km/h.
They are supposed to go on the road, unless signs indicate otherwise. If they are on a shared bike/moped path (which is mostly found in rural areas) then the speed limit is 30 km/h in cities and 40 km/h outside cities.
To be honest 20 km/h sounds like a reasonable limit. But considering small mopeds here are allowed to drive 30 km/h in bike lanes, it just doesn’t seem like reasonable at all.
IDK if Netherlands have small mopeds that are allowed in bicycle lanes that can drive 30 or faster, but if they have, I don’t really see a rational argument why bicycles should have stricter rules?
But for more fragile bicyclists the faster traffic from e-bikes or mopeds are absolutely a danger. My own 89 year old father has been hit by passing fast traffic in the bike lane a few times resulting in him crashing, one time resulting in a week long hospital stay.
It is only lucky that he didn’t break anything, effectively terminating his life as a healthy senior citizen.
Honestly 20km/h seems kinda slow. As a kid I’d do 20-25, and these days most European countries have a 25km/h limit on e-bikes. So 20km/h seems just low enough to be a hindrene.
Ultimately it depends on the bicycle lane or road though, just like for cars. There a huge difference between a crowded narrow inner-city cycle lane with immediate adjacent houses and other things obstructing vision, compared to a suburban cycle path with less traffic and completely unobstructed vision
There really shouldn’t be 30 km/h motorized vehicles on bicycle lanes. That’s the speed limit for cars on many city roads, which are usually much wider.
I agree, especially not with how crowded bike lanes often are in for instance Copenhagen.
In the Netherlands there are two kinds of mopeds.
They generally go where cyclists go (with the exception of Amsterdam where they have to go on the road) and are effectively treated as motorized bicycles.
They are supposed to go on the road, unless signs indicate otherwise. If they are on a shared bike/moped path (which is mostly found in rural areas) then the speed limit is 30 km/h in cities and 40 km/h outside cities.
OK that’s much like here in Denmark, except the small ones are allowed to go 30.