The safety organisation VeiligheidNL estimates that 5,000 fatbike riders are treated in A&E [ i.e Accident & Emergency] departments each year, on the basis of a recent sample of hospitals. “And we also see that especially these young people aged from 12 to 15 have the most accidents,” said the spokesperson Tom de Beus.
Now Amsterdam’s head of transport, Melanie van der Horst, has said “unorthodox measures” are needed and has announced that she will ban these heavy electric bikes from city parks, starting in the Vondelpark. Like the city of Enschede, which is also drawing up a city centre ban, she is acting on a stream of requests “begging me to ban the fatbikes”.
That was sadly exactly what I was expecting from the electric motorization of bicycles. It is a history that has repeated itself many times in the last 70 or 80 years since the first combustion engine mopeds.
The fact is that the human-powered bike is at a sweet spot of efficiency and safety. Once you go faster, you need a helmet, a heavier frame, wider tyres, better brakes, wider lanes, protective clothing, protection against cold, a heavier motor for propelling all the extra weight, and so on. The energy input from you the human dwindles.
It is not any more a bicycle.
You need a helmet on purely muscle-powered bicycles, too. A helmet saved both mine and my father’s life in accidents that would not had happened were we not riding bikes that moment.
A majority of bicycle accident fatalities could have been prevented with helmets.
Wear helmets. There are cool models, too, don’t try that excuse.
Yes, right.
But: A bike helmet won’t help you much if you have a collision at 50 km/h. If you go at moped / light motorcycle speed, you need a motorcycle helmet, too.
Yeah, obviously you need different helmets for different speeds. But the comment I responded to was worded like you wouldn’t need a helmet on bicycles at all.
most ebikes already go slower, or on par at max speed with an amateur/relatively fit cyclist. roughly 25 to 30kmph.
going after fat tire bikes specifically doesnt really make sense considering they offer more traction for stopping power. if they legally limit the speed it should be on par with elite level cyclists at most. which is about 50 to 60kmph. depending on the area. nobody wants to wipe out and hurt themselves or somebody else.
this is a way for them to add tickets and licensing for people who wish to circumvent owning a vehicle or taking public transit. which the government and corporations directly benefit from financially.
i just dont see the point besides fear mongering in a place where virtuallly everyone has a bike, and cycling accidents are less lethal than vehicular ones. it just seems like an unfair represention of statistics to prop up a bottom line that only serves to extract wealth from the poor, less well off, environementally or financially concious.
if parents dont want their kids to take those risks, then dont buy them an ebike. buy them a regular one, or tell them to take public tranist if they cant offer it themselves.
they always use children as a way to shoe in control with fear tactics.
as an bike/ebike rider. i have a bike that can go about 45kmph and never go over 25 personally, as that feels like a safe speed in my city with the infrastructure and crossings that we have. every incident that has happened to me has come from vehicles doing illegal turns, crossings, or not looking where traffic is coming from before pulling out into the street.
if anything they should focus on getting more people to ride bikes/ebikes, and offering safety courses for those who wish to own ebikes. free of charge.
if they want to regulate them, regulate braking power vs speed potential. and helmets. and create separated concrete barrier bike lanes with covers for weather and wind to avoid ice buildup and snow. fat tire bikes are nearly a necessity for cyclists in colder climate.
They are talking about banning fat “bikes” not fat tire bikes. They are basically electric motorcycles disguised as an e-bike.
Like this one:
There is already regulation and they should be speed limited. But these bikes are designed to unlock the limit very easily.
every ebike can be unlocked with relative ease. theres nothing any law can do to stop that from happening unless they ban imports of everything below 250 watts and even then people will still be able to modify the bikes. they even tried it with CANbus, but at the end of the day its a motor, a controller, a throttle or pedal assist, and a battery. you simply cannot stop anyone from modding even completely subpar or top tier bikes from going over the limit. which is limited by the batteries power, and motor/controllers ability to hold a charge. to even try doing so would require powers that reach way into other markets. caps on capacitors, batteries, PCB board controls, motors, etc.
this isnt about bikes. its about brown people and visible minorities riding them en mass and europeans wanting to bring the hammer down on them so they are forced to buy cars, use public transit,become more susceptible to random checks by police, and/or be kicked out of the country for breaking a new law. as well as finding a new way to limit or regulate other related electronics markets, and milk them for more money.
its amsterdam for pity’s sake. quite literally one of the most racist/xenophobic places in europe, despite the fine architecture, rich history and culture. of course they are going to want a way to stop check people using a slower mode of transport that circumvents traditional charges for transportation. its happening all over europe as well.
its rediculous and everyone who disagrees is either chronically online, completely unaware of anything deeper than a scary headline that dictates their beliefs for them. knows nothing about electronics, bikes, ebikes, general safety, race relations, or DOES know these things, but underneath it all supports it because they are also bigoted and/or drive a car/take public transit and dont like cycling of any kind if others are doing it and it even remotely inconveniences them.
they will start with banning a visibly common iteration of cheap ebikes, but at the end of the day, unless they ban every form of it, and install checkpoints to ensure that nobody has them. theres simply no other way to get rid of them. and to do that would be fuhuckin stupid.
we can all lie to another and say its not due to xenophobia, racism, or general support for luxuries such as cars and public transit, and the taxation and fees that come with them, and i dare say a police state. but at the end of the day this is just another way for governments and corporations to use fear to impliment more control over emerging technologies and markets. especially on human mobility.
its a damn bike, and its a shit tier one that goes slower than most entry level ebikes unless you swap the controller and battery. and you, again, can do that with literally any and every ebike. its actually a stupidly simple process in most cases.
in a world where we can drive a death wagon at 150+ kmph that virtually guarantees death or significant injury for passengers and anyone it comes into contact with. which also drastically pollutes the environement in comparison, we should limiting cars not dinky ebikes from temu that poor people and immigrants prefer to ride. if anything we should be pushing more people into riding bikes of all types.
its a dumb idea. and anyone who disagrees is at the very least grossly misinformed on the wider issues, i dont blame them, just the media thats controlled by people who like to control people.
no offense. im not writing this in anger to you, or anyone in particular, its purely based on my experience as a person who had made a point of riding bikes in spite of owning vehicles, simply because of the glaringly obvious issues that are caused by cars, and that are answered by bikes/ebikes.
downvote away y’all, i know its controvercial, but the ones who get it are the ones im talkin’ to. everyone else can either take the time to understand it, or kick rocks.
fuck cars, fuck the government, fuck the system. and fuck climate change.