De-restricted e bikes - bit naughty, or an issue?

But I suspect you'd have little problem with those 'not so fit and strong' piloting a car at 70mph? It doesnt take much fitness or strength to ride an ebike. Those that crash are largely a danger to themselves. I think there are more than enough barriers to people using healthy and low-polluting transport so I think these should be made as easily available as possible. Any potential safety costs will be far outweighed by reduced health system burden. I do think there should be a 10 mph speed limit on shared paths

As an e-bike rider I would like to add my two Peneth!

Most of the negative comments I have read  allude to "Homemade" electric bikes where a donor bike, often with inadequate brakes and tyres, is "Hybridised" using a hub motor and battery pack easily and cheaply available on line, can be tinkered with, and is just about as unsafe as unsafe can be. 

My bikes, like the vast majority, were bought from a bicycle shop, don’t have  throttles so can’t move above a walking pace without input from the pedals, which also give the electric assistance that stops at 25kph (15.5mph,) and have hydraulic disc brakes that are more than adequate to stop them. I also have seen some of the YouTube vids showing mad max and his mates on homemade ebikes, but most of the crazy cycle videos, especially in London, are of conventional  bikes probably propelled by mad max's not so distant analogue cousins, and as for using shared paths the inconsiderate idiots are all out there whatever they are riding, it’s not the bike, it’s the rider!

The idea that these bikes are restricted gives the wrong impression as they can go as fast as you can pedal them, and if I (70 year old) can pedal my e-road bike past this 15.5mph cut off, often up to 20mph for short distances, then a younger fitter person could make it go much faster quite legally!

Out in the real world 99% of roadies are riding at 20mph+ so pass me easily until we come to a hill which is where the e-bike is worth its money and allows an old man to think that maybe he is not so old after all, but I do have to content with derisive, sometimes abusive, comments from the "no pain no gain" brigade who seem to think that if you can’t ride a "proper" bike you shouldn’t be allowed to ride one at all. Another bonus is that I can ride out with my son without him having to stop and wait for me at the top of each rise.

With regards to fitness, the bike won’t move without effort from me and a two hour ride will give me a max HR in the mid 160's and an average approaching 140 so anyone who thinks there is no effort involved or fitness gain is clearly misinformed. 

I started cycling to keep fit when I retired but found the hills I am surrounded by took away all the pleasure, but then I became part of the ebike revolution and I now cycle 2500 miles every year and hope to continue for many years to come!

Not sure how i feel about them being de-restricted, but they must be a hoot to ride!

Just the other week, i was turing onto a fav strava segment and knew i'd have a good tailwind. it's about 2 miles long, a slight rise, then flat, then gentle 3-4% descent to a T junction on a main road. So my mate and i go for it - complete heads down, stem chewing effort, only for an old guy on an e-mountain bike to come serenly past us... we were doing around 22-25mph on the gentle rise, so i hunkered down even more and got on his wheel. (well, I tried to!). It took the entire length of the segment to catch him and pass him at 37mph - I honestly don't think I could have gone any faster...didn't get the KOM, but was 3rd fastest behind 2 pros, so i was pretty chuffed!

Anyway, when we then chatted with the guy on the e-bike he said it had 400W...and 100% assistance with no limits...imagine that on a proper road bike?? WOW!!!

Im all for e-bikes that have to be pedalled but dont agree with the speed restriction

15.5mph is just too slow when most peoples average speed is around that, a 20mph max would be much better

You get idiots on e-bikes just like you get idiots on normal bikes, motorbikes, cars, mobility scooter users and even on foot (too busy looking at their phone)

I use 2 shared paths that are 3 and 4 miles long and i pass people on e-bikes, kids on bikes, older people on retro bikes, hybrid users and roadies, 9 times out of 10 its the roadies who ride like dicks, not bothering to slow down when passing children, not warning people as they zoom up from behind passing within an inch and shouting at people, weaving in and out and generally just being dicks

I know not all roadies are like that (im one) but the majority i see are

Some intresting facts in the link below

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dft.gov.uk/consul...

As some who commutes fairly slowly in, de restricted e-bikes, electric stateboards and the odd roadie all tend, to be going too fast for the bike path, and pass too close, even if there is space to pass wide.

e bikes do tend to have fairly terrible brakes, sometimes disconnected! This said all 3 are a mild annoyance my commute is largely off road so cars aren’t a concern for most part.

Re: "This smacks of nimbyism to me (Not in my back yard)"......For those of us with a particular type of access to our property could this be amended to: 'nimbPism'.... Not In My Back Passage....(If Ginnel & Snicket are names for side passages what are the name(s) for rear access? - no sniggering at the back)

This smacks of nimbyism to me (Not in my back yard)

I don't think there's any need for a restriction on the ebikes. I regularly pass 50 mph on my bicycle under my power and that of gravity  and occasionally 60 mph on the flat. I'm regularly over 30 mph under my own steam. An ebike is simply someone on a bike going at similar speeds as the rest of us attain, but for larger amounts of time. The likely damage to them and others in the event of an off is pretty much the same as for a bike. I certainly don't want registration, licence plates etc on my bike just because I go faster for longer than other people.

I absolutely think that there should be a 10 mph speed limit on shared use paths. I think it is dangerous to mix 2 (or more) modes of traffic which might have a 10x average speed differential.  Pavement for < 10 mph, Road for > 10 mph. 

Out today in the car and passed someone on a country road - no pavements - on an electric scooter.

Where I passed them, there aren't any pavements for at least a couple of miles in any direction, so doing pretty well on a single charge.

The only problem I see with derestrited eBikes is that, in my neck of the woods, they are ridden by complete bellends, with no regard for their own safety, nor that of other road users. As has been said above, they seem to be for people who want to go motorbike-fast, but don’t want to bother with all that pesky and costly training, licensing and insurance.

There’s a bloke who rides one along Bishopsgate who I’ve seen quite a few times while nipping out for lunch. He’s doing 60km/h in total silence, slap bang in the middle of a zombie-ped zone. Not pedalling, not stopping at red lights, not slowing down for hazards. I only hope that when he has his Big One, he doesn’t hurt someone else.

I recently saw someone in a bikelane here in Barcelona doing 35km/h on one of these e-unicycles.

I am not sure how I feel about it, except that was slipsteaming him.

Personally I wouldn't ride that fast on one myself.

Perfectly legal in Norway, as soon as you've had it inspected and registered by the roads authority, fitted the supplied licence plate, paid your compulsory insurance, put on your moped/motorcycle helmet, and stay off the shared use, and cycle lanes. 
It's a electric moped you see, so needs registered as one.
We had one of these "illegal" e-bikes a few months ago, spotted by traffic on the road alongside which was doing 60-70km/h being passed by the bike. He hit another cyclist and they other party ended up with a broken neck. He was given a (short) jail term, huge fine and points on his driving licence. The e-bike on testing was found to be capable of over 100km/h without pedalling. Around a 4KW motor if I recall correctly.

On the continent there are faster pedelecs ("S-Pedelecs") - as reviewed on the Road sister site a while back: http://ebiketips.road.cc/content/advice/advice/buying-and-riding-an-s-pe...

So there are various questions.  At the moment a legal pedelec must a) only provide assistance when the rider is pedalling (assisted walking modes excepted), b) only provide assistance up to 25kph, c) only provide a maximum of 250W assistance at any time.

In my view a) is the most important part.  If you're not pedalling, it's not an e-bike it's an electric motorbike and you shouldn't be on a 'human-powered' path.  I personally think that the 25kph is a little restrictive and 30 or 35 kph might still be OK, but given almost all cycle paths are shared space in this country it's not that critical.  Likewise I don't see any reason not to have a 350W or 500W 'assistance' while still keeping conditions a) and b) in place - yes, you'll get to the limit faster, you might buzz up big hills without effort, but isn't it the point that e-bikes help people choose not to use their cars and the better they do that, the better?

Fundamentally - common sense applies and enforcement should follow the harm.  You cause the accident, you are liable for the damages caused, whatever you're riding.  I was nearly wiped out a couple of weeks back on that path by a mother coming the other swinging out without warning as she looked behind her at her kids; there are incompetents everywhere on foot, on bikes and in cars.

One of those guys on youtube with a hopped up ebike is a bellend. He's got the reactions of a slug and will die fairly soon if he carries on wanging about as if he's on a motorbike. Seriously, on one vid he posted his braking reaction would be slow doing 10-15mph. Doing more than twice that it was almost accident time.

Sadly ebikes don't seem to be attracting the most skilled of bike handlers (probably because the attraction is being a lazy bastard, not actually being good at anything) though I have seen some dude who could wheelie till his battery died.

Couple of extra points - derestricted e-bikes are really, super dangerous. If one of them hits you at 30mph you're gonna get badly hurt. Car bodies are smooth & designed to crumple in a collision but even so your chance of surviving being hit by one aren't great. Bikes don't crumple (I know, I've crashed all of mine at one time or another) & have sharp bits sticking out. Go figure.

Also, the kinetic energy of a collision - in effect, the power that goes into you if you're hit by something - increases in proportion to the square of the speed. A bike travelling at 30mph will do 4 times the damage of a bike doing 15mph, & 16 times the damage of one doing 7.5mph.

In the event of a collision there's not even any comeback. The riders aren't insured (even if they think they are, they're breaking the law riding a derestricted bike & the insurance won't pay up) & I'm betting they wouldn't be able to stump up a few hundred thou for an accident victim who's suffered a broken neck as a result of their stupidity.

Sadly, the police won't do anything about them until someone's been killed or very seriously injured. Which is likely to happen soon IMO.

Most of the e-bikes I seem to see are ridden by people who'd rather ride motorbikes but dont want the hassle of a test or being held to account. All the worst examples of bad cycling - red light jumping, not stopping at ped crossing, weaving about the lane, not looking and so on...at a much higher speed (do any of them stay restricted?)

I'd rather they be in cars rather than on the cycle path with me. Sorry, but thats the truth. In reality we're talking about london here - there've probably come from public transport rather than a car so I'd rather they go back to that.

And with the exception of one guy I saw a few years back it's not elderly people who are buying them...it's men in the mid 20's to 30's.

EDIT: I'm generalising...which is a bad thing. Not all are ridden like that...but honestly, it's rare to see one ridden at 15mph or below. If they're willing to break the law by derestricting them...then they are also probably willing to break the highway code too.

Make them hard to derestrict and they'll have my full support.

Think I've seen the guy you mean, I think he's an Airbus Engineer. Yes I'm pretty sure his bike can do 35mph+. He sometimes goes along with a mate who has a similar one. They dont even have to pedal.

I was on my road bike a year or so ago, head down, doing 26mph on the ring road stretch going up to Sainsburys (empty at 6:30am) and he absolutely blew me into the weeds, and vanished into the distance. It is crazy fast.

The continental ones are called e-pedelecs - you can make them legal in the UK but you need a motorcycle license, mot, insurance, numberplates, etc.

Dead simple to de-restrict them, and also remove the 3mph limit when you're not pedalling.

I'm less bothered about their legality and more concerned with how many collisions they are responsible for. After all, plenty of cars are legal and yet can cause devastating injuries/death, so I'd go with a harm reduction philosophy.

My concerns with them on shared use paths is that (in my mind) e-bike riders are likely to be less experienced than a typical fast cyclist and may be going quicker than they can react/control and thus cause incidents. However, collisions are going to be bad for the e-bike rider and they are unlikely to continue taking risks when they've left a lot of skin on the tarmac, so I reckon the riders will end up being more careful.

In short, I'd much rather see people on e-bikes than in cars, so I'm quite happy to turn a blind eye to whether they are going too fast (sounds like a challenge to keep up with them - maybe hang off their rear wheel and double up on the injury risks).

Anti-cycling lobby? They don't seem to use much logic, so I couldn't care less about what new thing they're bleating about.

I don't personally care, as long as they are on the road.

In my simple view, as you say, a derestricted e bike is an electric motorbike, and has no place on a cycle path.