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”.
This is about electric ones, that are registered as bicycles but can go 45 km/h.
You can buy one of these for around 1k, and it’s a long button press to reconfigure it from the legal 25 km/h, assistance only, no throttle, “EU legal” configuration to the 45 km/h, throttle active “US legal” config.
The fuck is this monstrosity. Ugly AF
Honestly wouldn’t mind getting one if I could have it registered as a motorcycle, its cheaper than any other low power motorcycle I can find and it’s electric!