Someone gets killed by a car, so they restrict e-bikes.
(Title shamelessly stolen from this comment [https://lemmy.world/comment/8432905] in the crossposted [email protected] [/c/[email protected]] thread.)
Umm that’s not exactly what they’re saying.
It would update a 27-year-old law to create three new classes of electric bikes based on the type of motor and how fast they can go.
Hell the ACTUAL statute is just defining what a e-bike is. You can see it here: olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2024r1/…/HB4103
It does say class 1 can be operated by anyone, but 2 and 3 can be limited to 16 and older.
That being said it does limit the top speed of an e-bike to 28 miles an hour, I assume above that it’s now a motocycle, and honestly, that might be a good thing, because at that speed they no will come out of no where (hell at 20-30 miles an hour they still will)
This is hardly as bad as the title.
The braking characteristics are not all that different from a normal bike to an ebike
That’s the point. That’s what makes them dangerous.
And: If cyclists only did 28 meters per hour, they would actually be quite safe :-)
It is not the brakes as such, but braking, which has a number of factors. One key factor is friction between wheel and surface. Your brakes might bring your wheels to a quick standstill, but that might not stop the bike.
And the 28mph stem from the point that there are electric bikes that go up to that speed.
Yes, locking up your wheels is bad. The same is true on a car. It is good that on small mechanical systems with feedback, it is easy to not lock up the tires.
On top of that, many ebikes have regenerative breaking, which makes it easy to maintain a good speed.
grue