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Electric Bicycles Surging In Popularity
gollum123 writes "An accidental transportation upheaval began in China, where an estimated 120 million electric bicycles now hum along the roads, up from a few thousand in the 1990s. They are replacing traditional bikes and motorcycles at a rapid clip and, in many cases, allowing people to put off the switch to cars. The booming Chinese electric-bike industry is spurring worldwide interest and impressive sales in India, Europe, and the US. China is exporting many bikes, and Western manufacturers are also copying the Chinese trend to produce models of their own. From virtually nothing a decade ago, electric bikes have become an $11 billion global industry. In the Netherlands, a third of the money spent on bicycles last year went to electric-powered models. Industry experts predict similar growth elsewhere in Europe, especially in Germany, France, and Italy, as rising interest in cycling coincides with an aging population. India had virtually no sales until two years ago, but its nascent market is fast expanding and could eclipse Europe's in the next year. In China, electric bicycles have evolved into bigger machines that resemble Vespa scooters. These larger models are causing headaches for global transportation planners. They cannot decide whether to embrace them as a green form of transportation, or ban them as a safety hazard. Some cities are studying the halfway measure of banning them from bicycle lanes while permitting them on streets."
Ah, yes, the transportation planner, one of the modern evils, who uses dubious logic to impose brain-dead transportation priorities that do wonders to destroy the planet...
I'm a careful driver but many cyclists I come across make it hard not to run over them, what with driving through every gap between cars they can fit into regardless of the lanes, going through a car or a pedestrian green light, whichever comes first, and acting like jerks every time a car fails to signal or otherwise violates some traffic rule while they themselves almost completely ignore every single one of them.
Oh, I'm sure you are not one of those, but since you are generalizing I thought I'd join in.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I've seen that in other countries. Amsterdam has a lot of bicycles which look like they are about to disintegrate into component atoms due to the rust damage any minute.
The reason for this is that here in the US, bikes are somewhat a style thing. If you are doing road, you have to have the $7000 carbon fiber frame [1] with Dura-Ace or Super Record, or you will be viewed as an amateur. Similar with a mountain biker coming up to a Cat 1 with anything but XTR or X.0 will be viewed as a hack and told to replace their Huffy with something racable. If you are touring, you must have the latest custom made Vanilla bike, or you will be viewed as someone who got a DWI. Even the hipsters "require" a fairly high-zoot frame for their fixies. A lot of Americans view something like the stereotypical Flying Pigeon from China as a joke.
[1]: Of course, we all know how fragile CF is... if you don't have a torque wrench and crank a tad too much adjusting your seatpost, expect the thing to break and have a jagged spear pointed right at your bum. However, since CF is light and cool looking, it is the style now... even though a CF bike frame has to be thrown in the trash if it gets even the slightest gouge or crack.
Some cities are studying the halfway measure of banning them from bicycle lanes while permitting them on streets
It's simple, really. Bicycle lanes exist to protect bicycles which travel slower than the rest of traffic. If you're assisted by an electric motor, there is less of a speed differential with traffic, but now you'll be a hazard to all the bicyclists yourself, since you'll be traveling much faster than them.
I can't wait for the first dooring of a moped rider in a bike lane- maybe drivers will start to take "look in your mirror before you fling open your door" seriously because it'll be in their best interests, both in terms of personal safety and damage to their car; a couple hundred pounds of metal and rider will at the very least bend that door pretty far forward, I'm guessing.
As someone who has been doored, it REALLY sucks getting doored because some stupid asshole can't take 2 seconds to look in their mirror before they open their door. The worst part isn't flying over your handlebars, or getting your hand permanently fucked up from getting pinched between the handlebar and edge of the car door at +10MPH with 150lb of momentum. The worst part is hitting the door and having that throw you right into the traffic lane and get hit/run over by a car, truck, or bus. It's not the door itself that kills bicyclists- it's getting hit/run over by the traffic that was just behind them. Yet another reason why bicycle lanes in the US, which are sandwiched between parked cars and traffic, are almost worse than nothing at all. In Europe and elsewhere, bike lanes are completely separated and often run nowhere near the road- they're a separate network.
Also, there is a special place in hell for all the hipster retards riding their 70's-era mopeds (Puchs seem to be the most popular.) In our part of town, there's at least a couple of them zipping around in their tight black jeans and flannel shirts, leaving a contrail of blue smoke which is so bad to ride behind and breathe, one has to pull over and wait a minute or two for it to dissipate. They're putting out 50 times the pollution of the SUV next to them, just to save money on gas and look cool.
Please help metamoderate.
Where I live, 95% of all drivers are very good regarding cyclists. There is 4.9% that are idiots. And then there is the 0.1% that are out there to kill/maim/etc. a cyclist for using a road. You know, on purpose. These people should be jailed for a long time.
Traffic laws needs to change in the US and Canada. In more friendly jurisdictions a car/bike collision automatically means that the car driver is at fault unless it can be proven otherwise. And if you think about it, that really makes sense. Anytime a cyclist or a motorcycle rider gets hit by a car, they are the ones that lose. Therefore, it is generally the inattentiveness and downright criminal actions of the driver that results in a crash.
Netherlands has a much larger bicycle population than anywhere in US/Canada, yet per capita collision rates are much lower. The reason is precisely laws that favour cyclists, not cages.
I like this news very much.
Although I'm not a huge fan of bicycle riding myself, it's good to see people able to find inexpensive and efficient transportation. It won't work where I live (not urbanized enough), but it's an excellent solution for big cities, which is where most of the fossil fuels get burned anyway.
If you had actually read the article, you'll notice that most of the "electric" bikes here in the US are actually pedal/motor hybrids, which turn off and on at will.
For my 5-mile commute into work, I'd love to ride every day, but I can't afford to be arrive sweaty and take a shower there daily (in warmer months I try to go 2-3x a week)... now, if I could use a hybrid and cut down the effort so I only got a light glaze of sweat, I'd try to bike much more often... if I don't bike, I pretty much have to drive as I live in suburbia.
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This is perfectly legal, although of course the cyclist may want to make his intentions clear to avoid getting hit.
The problem is that when drivers ignore the traffic laws around cyclists, it's a threat to the cyclist's life. People tend to get testy when other people are acting like they want to kill them.
Find free books.
I ride a motorbike (and at times a pushbike) on the road, and have learned one thing very well.
It is the job of the more at-risk to protect themselves!
Anything else is just a stupid unrealistic dream.
Reality is that I must avoid cars pulling in front of me, cutting me off, and at times trying to drive through me when I am stationary. This is life.
Every day (I commute through an area of main road loved by cyclists) I see them 'downhilling' down a lethal bit of road - not to commut but for fun, and high speed (often above the speed limit), taking wide corners, and without the ability to quickly stop. I have seen several very serious accidents there, however I have never seen a car-on-car accident there as it is a safe bit of road, the usual accident is a bike into the back of a car, or once into the front when taking a corner WAY too wide.
The road is not a playground, it is there for transportation, and it is dangerous. Many drivers are borderline incompetent, so you must weight up the risks, and make some serious decisions.
Along those lines, you might find the "vehicular cycling" school of technique worth promoting; it teaches consistency and communication in how one drives one's bicycle (not just through hand signals and the like, but also things like positioning within one's lane to indicate future intent); classes are offered throughout the US by the League of American Bicyclists.
It would also be awesome if people acknowledged that there's more than one subgroup of cyclists, and that some of them treat the roads differently than others.
When was the last time you read "Freight train killed my motorist"?
We all know that cars are bigger than bikes, but that doesn't mean that bikers are freed of responsibility in all cases.
The thing is, guilt-tripping people like that doesn't actually work. If it did, PETA would have long since prevaled I wouldn't still be eating 5 pounds of cow every week. All stunts like that do is undermine your credibility by indicating to people that you are not willing to have a rational discussion, but instead need to resort to emotional arguments.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Okay, I bike everyday, in Canada. Whether snow, ice, or -40 Celsius. I hate this just as much as you. Because I stop, and I follow all the laws to the best of my ability -- little useless bell (voice is much louder) on my handlebars and all. Here's one I also follow: the speed-limit. However, pretty much every automobile driver I meet does not follow the speed limit. So, it's not like motorists are somehow more law-abiding than cyclists -- because almost 100% of motorists break the speed limit. There's this one road I go down -- 30kph speed limit, and yet every car behind me always seems to catch up and pass me rather quickly when I'm going along at 30kph. In fact, I would say that most are going 50kph. That's more than 66% over the speed limit. Is every motorist continuously late for work or something? And in 50kph zones, it seems that 70kph or greater is the norm amongst motorists. On the highway you would be as lucky as a lottery-winner to see someone cruising not more than 90kph, the speed limit.
And cars seem to have trouble with stop-signs as well. They slow-down for them, but as for a complete stop -- that's a rarity. They seem to like to just crawl through them at 1 to upward of 5 kph.
Really the only group of motorists with which I'm continually impressed are the school-bus drivers.
But I've been semi-facetious so far. This is how it actually is: The motorist thinks on the highway: "Well, this highway is still safe at 100kph. It's only 10kph over the speed limit and visibility and conditions are fine. So even though it is breaking law, I'll do it." If he actually thought that he would get into an accident, he wouldn't do it. This is what the cyclist is thinking at the stop-sign: "No one else is coming, so, if I just go through, it will be fine. So even though it is breaking the law, I'll do it." If he actually thought that he would get into an accident, he wouldn't do it.
There are no showers at the office so I just take it easy on the way to work to avoid getting sweaty.
And there, in a nutshell, is why many commuters like the idea of an electric assisted bike.