Kit Bashir1d ago

A rant about electric bicycles:

* For e-bikes to be viable car replacements they need cargo-carrying and hill-climb capacity. The practicality test for an e-bike is to carry four bags of grocieries, or a child.

* The 250W and 20km/h limit for unlicensed bicycles is *far* too low. Human cyclists comfortably exceed this in both power and speed leading to e-bikes holding up traffic. When. I ride the bikeways, human-powered traffic cruises at around 35 km/h.

* The "you must pedal or the motor stops" requirement is some Calvinist bullshit.

* The perl-clutching "but the children" scare in the news about "unlicensed motorbikes" HAS to be some kind of car-industry astroturfing. From what I can see on the bikeways, commuter e-bikes and scooters are HOT items and anyone with a head can see a dent in vehicle sales coming. Users LOVE this emerging mobility sector.

* I work in an industrial area with zero public transport service. I observe large numbers of workers riding scooters in the direction of the nearest train station.

* If governments *really* want to stick to the 250w 25km/h bullshit for "bicycles" then we need URGENT legislation to create a vehicle class for say 1000W 45km/h vehicles. The Australia post electric delivery tricycles are a worked example of the practicality of this class; I don't hear *anyone* having a meltdown about "dangerous monster tricycles on our footpaths".

#MicroMobility #ebikes #solarpunk

ETA: absurd panic-fueled legislation from the fossil-fuel captured Literal Nazi Party: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-24/queensland-ebike-escooter-ban-children-licence-reforms/106487910

E-bike and e-scooter riders to require a licence in Qld under proposed laws

A raft of new rules around the use of e-mobility devices will be ushered in after the Queensland government accepted the recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry.

Show threadLindsay Holmwood18h ago

@Unixbigot Agree with most of what you've said.

On the "but the children" and 20km/h limit points:

My brother in law is a speech pathologist at a public rehab hospital, and 25% of their beds are consistently filled by e-bike riders.

2 years ago, it was 0%.

We don't have enough data on if accident rates have actually increased, or we just have more riders. Also pretty reasonable hypothesis: more bike riders mean we're seeing a clearer picture of how unsafe our road infrastructure actually is for cyclists. Either way, speed-at-time-of-accident is definitely a big factor in recovery outcomes.

Speed limiting will reduce severity of accidents, but it's just treating a symptom.

No politician wants to stick their neck out to spend money on cyclists, so limiting speeds is a great way to turn a systemic problem into a "personal responsibility" problem.

Show threadHolgerPieta
@auxesis @Unixbigot Also e-bikes change the bike rider demographics from young and fit (or at least fit) and riding for years to everyone able to afford an e-bike.
Which, of course, is just another way of saying that traffic is hostile to and dangerous for bike riders, if you need to be young and fit and trained to survive.
10:18amWeb
Show threadLindsay Holmwood15h ago

@HolgerPieta @Unixbigot exactly.

When e-bikes first became available here in Australia his patients were entirely males under 30.

Now they look like a regular cross section of society.