Forum menu
Could this be a trojan horse by the anti-cycling lobby?
Get lots of inexperienced cyclists riding around at 20mph, quite quickly get a load of injuries of both cyclists and pedestrians.
Solution? A test, license and registration plate for *all* bikes.
Didn't realise that until recently you couldn't ride them in Northern Ireland without insurance etc. They didn't adopt the UK legislation.
Personally I don't have an issue with the current boundary between electric bikes and S-pedelecs. Just odd we used kph rather than mph in UK legislation.
Out of interest had a look at some S-pedelecs. Would be very interested in what happens when you turn up at you local MOT testing centre with one! Some of the brakes are interesting - have switches for brake lights and they cut the motor when you put on the brakes.
https://twitter.com/NicholaMallon/status/1260162770177265665?s=20
They didn’t adopt the
UKGB legislation
FTFY
Just odd we used kph rather than mph in UK legislation.
Maybe because the metric system is the legal system of measurement in the UK?
Could this be a trojan horse by the anti-cycling lobby?
Get lots of inexperienced cyclists riding around at 20mph, quite quickly get a load of injuries of both cyclists and pedestrians.
Solution? A test, license and registration plate for *all* bikes.
Funnily enough, my 17 year old made that point when we were talking about it
Solution? A test, license and registration plate for *all* bikes.
It has certainly worked for cars, which are now totally accident free.
E bikes are great my 75 year old mother inlaw has replaced quite a number of car trips with hers.It's been a very positive thing to get her back out on two wheels, But it's the pilot in control and how it's ridden. You can legislate for stupidity and by keeping the limit at 15 MPH it keeps the none thinking from causing more carnage. Judging how may people think is fine to hustle my ten year old daughter on a blue route whilst shredding on a electric mopeds is quite amazing, Assist should be no more than 10 MPH in a blue route situation. It really has taken the pleasure out of going for a ride with my daughter as the number of close silly passes is quite alarming.
Good to see the petition has only reached just over a quarter of the way to 10k signatures...hopefully it'll fall way short and save some daft arguments for and against.
I've ridden in the bike lanes in Amsterdam where they allow mopeds in them and found that horrible (and my wife who's a lot less experience on a bike than me really hated it so we ended up locking the bikes up and walking instead). So I'd very much be against this unless the bikes were registered, insured and ridden on-road rather than in the bike lanes.
I think the solution is to improve the technology so that ebike motors are less draggy once disengaged so the rider can push on past 15.5mph under 100% human power input to their heart's content.
100% would not support this petition - 15.5mph is plenty and is a good speed where the current legislation (no licence, no mot, no insurance (though this is for fools)) has a chance of being maintained.
99% of commuters and recreational cyclists are totally fine with that speed. If that's not you buy an electric moped and a licence. Don't attempt to ruin it for the majority.
I was passed on my faux-commute (along a Tarmaced bridleway) yesterday by a fat knacker on an old MTB with a derestricted conversion kit going at a fair lick, must have been pushing 25mph; I wouldn't have liked to see him have to stop quick-sharp!
I’ve ridden in the bike lanes in Amsterdam where they allow mopeds in them and found that horrible
I'm pretty sure it's not allowed, just ****s not following rule 1.
I’m pretty sure it’s not allowed, just **** not following rule 1.
They are allowed in a lot of the bike lanes sadly - some peds limited to 30mph and some only allow peds limited to 20mph (and folks don't need to wear helmets on those). Lots of people ignoring the rules as well though.
100% would not support this petition – 15.5mph is plenty and is a good speed where the current legislation (no licence, no mot, no insurance (though this is for fools)) has a chance of being maintained.
99% of commuters and recreational cyclists are totally fine with that speed. If that’s not you buy an electric moped and a licence. Don’t attempt to ruin it for the majority.
i agree, especially for urban commuting with large numbers of other cyclists using the same infrastructure. unlike cars there is no way of enforcing or having speed limits unless you go down the camera and registration route. and even then as cars and motorists have shown they ignore them.
15mph is fine when the average urban commuting speed is 13mph, if you want to go faster then pedal harder.
They are allowed in a lot of the bike lanes sadly
I don't know the history, so I'm guessing a bit here. But I imagine it goes back to the days of when mopeds had pedals, the type of which are still relatively common in some parts on the continent.
Which is pertinent to this topic since that's exactly where we're at now. Power assisted bicycles are nothing new.
Definitely the cut out limit needs to be changed. 15.5mph is a bit lame. Just because you can travel at full speed doesn't mean you do all the time. The sustrans lanes round my end are always full of walkers and dogs, so you just slow up. On the road its a different matter. Signed
Is there a counter-petition?
If you want an ebike that can do 30mph assisted then what you really want is an electric motorbike, which already exist.
I'm not sure anyone is asking for 30 mph.
20 mph would be enough for me.
15.5mph is plenty and is a good speed where the current legislation (no licence, no mot, no insurance
So I should get a licence, mot, and insurance if I take my non-e-bike past 15.5 mph?
If it's unassisted, yes.
I've never understood why ebikes don't have a drop in power as you get faster? I'd like the limit to be 20mph but so that over 15mph the assist would drop to the lowest setting, eco or whatever, and then cut off at 20mph,no one really needs more than 20mph but to get a sudden cut off at a lower speed then most people can do on a normal bike seems odd. Surely it would be easy to set up the firmware to work like this as we can manually adjust the power anyway and the limit is governed by speed. Idiots ride normal bikes too!
Reading these comments it seems like people just want to go fast without having to put the work in. If you want to go faster just spin those legs more. It's pedal assist not pedal for you. If you want to go faster just get a motorbike.
Nice to see the same old tired anti eBike comments coming out. Yawn.
There is a feeling amongst eMTBers that 15.5mph is too slow and ruins the flow of decent single track. They claim they can go faster on their lighter clockwork bikes. They consider that their only current option is to derestrict the bike which with current technology generally means doubling the speed that assist is available. Most are also in agreement that a small increase to 20mph would make all the difference.
I don’t agree with any of this and think they need to find some better trails to ride. For example, in the Forest of Dean I know of only one trail where a higher assist limit would help me; Countdown. I don’t notice the limit on any of the other trails I ride there. I haven’t chipped my eBike and don’t intend to. I don’t ride the marked trail centre stuff often either, but when I do I, and everyone I ride with, is courteous to non eBikers, especially kids but I do accept that dicks will be dicks.
The chances that the majority of signees will actually commute on their eBikes is probably quite small.
Apparently a 30mph moped isn't safe, but a 15.5mph commuter on the same road is?....
The poll was started by one of the above group, not a commuter.
I agree @Doomanic. I've never had an issue with the current assist limit, but it being 15.5mph (25kph) suggests it was adopted without too much thought in the UK, and I would be surprised if 4.5mph is going to result in some of the carnage described above. Interesting though that in the US where the limit is 500W/20mph friends are getting fed up because many of the shared trails are banning them. I assume because the trail conflict is too great?
Apparently a 30mph moped isn’t safe, but a 15.5mph commuter on the same road is?…
Do you see many mopeds on shared use paths ?
As I said the mechanism to have an electric moped on the road exists you just cannot have your cake and eat it so it restricts you to the roads - shared use paths and many trails (most of Scotland where we don't have *off road roads* would be out of order.
'Trail use' - however you define that exactly - isn't relevant for your average commuter who may use a combination of public roads, dedicated cycle lanes, bridleways and combined use paths.
There is definitely a conversation to be had about what performance parameters are appropriate for defining a restricted e-bike. The current 15.5 mph limit seems to have been arrived at quite arbitrarily.
There is already enough friction over inconsiderate cyclists on shared use paths (regardless of motive power) without giving the anti cycling lobby more ammunition.
I've had near misses from oblivious e-bikers both on trails (slog uphill at Llandegla where one was slaloming round everyone) and when on a shared path with my daughter (suddenly finding someone zipping between us) and IMO it's only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed by one given the weight of them. More speed is not the answer, 15.5mph is plenty fast enough for assistance.
There is a feeling amongst eMTBers that 15.5mph is too slow and ruins the flow of decent single track. They claim they can go faster on their lighter clockwork bikes.
If you can go 15.5mph on singletrack then their singletrack is crap or not singletrack.
If you go to 20mph then someone will want 25mph.
Plus as said above, there's nothing stopping you going at 25mph, just pedal quicker.
IMO it’s only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed by one given the weight of them
assume you mean the weight of the stereotypical user, becasue a few extra kilos on the bike is going to make sod all difference in a cyclist to pedestrian impact.
The current 15.5 mph limit seems to have been arrived at quite arbitrarily.
Something I realised today, it would be a PITA if we had different rules to the EU. You'd end up with a bike that you couldn't legally ride on holiday in France for example.
The current 15.5 mph limit seems to have been arrived at quite arbitrarily.
I don't think it's arbitrary. It's about the speed that many people on bicycles will travel at until they get to a hill. I don't think the original intention was to enable people to ride faster, it was to enable them to ride at the same speed uphill as they would on the flat. So brakes, etc, don't need any improvement. Actual cyclists (so the assumption goes) rather than just people on bikes, will ride faster than 15.5mph but they did that before eBikes and will know about bikes and know whether they need to improve their brakes for the riding they do (as many people here actually do).
I’ve signed it and I don’t even have an ebike. I’ve not seen many people get hit by bikes full stop.
Plus whenever the topic of motorbikes speeding comes up everyone says it’s safe and they are not the problem.
I’ve ridden in the bike lanes in Amsterdam where they allow mopeds in them and found that horrible (and my wife who’s a lot less experience on a bike than me really hated it so we ended up locking the bikes up and walking instead). So I’d very much be against this unless the bikes were registered, insured and ridden on-road rather than in the bike lanes.
Alternatively, my wife (who's only been biking for a couple of years now) absolutely loved cycling in Holland, and if you asked her she probably doesn't even recall mopeds, petrol or electric, in the same space as us (they were!)
Even on the 3 occasions we left The Hague during rush hour, it all just worked.
Folk always cite non cyclists, councils, government etc as reasons we can't be like the Dutch infrastructure-wise, but even some cyclists here are so ingrained in how we've always done it, they're as much of an issue.
assume you mean the weight of the stereotypical user, becasue a few extra kilos on the bike is going to make sod all difference in a cyclist to pedestrian impact.
A fair point. My beef is more concerning people who use them without consideration, which they do. Existing cyclists do this but it takes effort, when you make it effortless you make it a bigger problem.
My off the cuff opion is that 20mph is a bit high.
Recently, I think I’ve managed my first two Strava Gran Fondos (100Km+) in under four hours having tried them for ~3 years, on routes with 66-70 feet per mile, ~16.9mph average with Normal Power of ~215W (~2.7W/Kg).
I think 15.5mph cut off is a little low, especially if you ride flatter routes. Something like 17/18mph might be better, although that means mixed bike/ebike groups are going to further splintered up inclines.
It sounds a bit nit picky but I actually agree with this.
17 or 18mph max "feels" about right from my non assisted commuting days.
As to the the comments about bikes turning into electric motorbikes, if a significant proportion of the population starting commuting on electric bikes with a low barrier to entry in the terms of cost and equipment then I'm absolutely for it. Cost benefit analysis seems good to me. Cars also kill people, I've heard.
if a significant proportion of the population starting commuting on electric bikes with a low barrier to entry in the terms of cost and equipment then I’m absolutely for it.
Thinks most would agree but not sure the limited speed of 15.5mph is the thing putting them off is it?
This is something that vexes me about shared-use paths/bridleways; walkers and dog-walkers know to expect cyclists yet many treat the path as their own private park letting their dog lead (if the dog is even on a lead) cross the path, kids to run around or they all insist on walking three-abreast.
Would you walk down a quiet country lane three-abreast expecting cars to honk and wait for you to move to the side?
Some walkers are totally passive-aggressive and just won't move even.
There are plenty of paths near me that bikes aren't allowed on. If you find cyclists such an annoyance then feel free to walk on them only.
Is walking single-file on one side of a shared-use path (left preferably) too much to ask?
Would you walk down a quiet country lane three-abreast expecting cars to honk and wait for you to move to the side?
They would, they do and they dislike having any concern for traffic be that cars bikes tractors or hgvs. There are lots of "I've got the right to be here so screw you" types everywhere, they're not limited to single use paths or anything else, they're just the same % of ignorant people you find in cars or on bikes.
Is walking single-file on one side of a shared-use path (left preferably) too much to ask?
And yes, for the same reason it's too much to ask that people on bikes don't ride primary, only use cycle lanes when one is provided and so on.
Shared use, shared space etc, everyone gets to use it equitably, I struggle with the fact my 6 year old niece understands how to share but grown adults seem to find it hard to comprehend.
Alternatively, my wife (who’s only been biking for a couple of years now) absolutely loved cycling in Holland, and if you asked her she probably doesn’t even recall mopeds, petrol or electric, in the same space as us (they were!)
On the outskirts of Amsterdam it was fine as the cycle paths were pretty quiet, but near the centre it was horrible - one of the worst cities I've ridden a bike in which was a surprise.
Mopeds used to be allowed on bike lanes in Amsterdam. But they were banned last year. Probably still allowed in most other parts of the Netherlands.
https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/living/latest-news/archive/bike-path-ban-for-mopeds
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/04/unwelcome-guests-moped-riders-protest-as-amsterdam-drives-them-from-bike-lanes
Quite happy with the power and speed of mine, it’s an assisted push bike Not a moped.
I've an eBullitt cargo bike. Whilst the motor working up to 30kmh would be nice, it's not necessary. I usually trot along at 28kmh anyways, but the motor giving you a kick from the lights is great.
Ebikes only really make sense for commuting and getting about town. They don't belong on trails, imo.
Here in Germany there is again a growing sentiment of anti mtb mostly thanks to ebikes, or rather those that ride them.
And yes, for the same reason it’s too much to ask that people on bikes don’t ride primary, only use cycle lanes when one is provided and so on.
Shared use, shared space etc, everyone gets to use it equitably, I struggle with the fact my 6 year old niece understands how to share but grown adults seem to find it hard to comprehend.
My point about the shared-use paths is that as a cyclist I wouldn't ride two or three-abreast and expect pedestrians to get out of my way so why are pedestrians doing the same? It's completely reasonable to my mind to expect cyclists to need to overtake ergo pedestrians should walk in single-file unless the path is particularly wide.
Before you talk about cyclists riding primary on roads, consider that primary means only taking up one lane; the motorist as full use of the other lane to overtake. These pedestrians are effectively taking up 'both sides of the roads' of the shared-use paths.