"He served a purely cloacal purpose" is gonna be with me the rest of my days.

So NYT is intentionally muddying the waters with the headline and the article imo. Focus should be on the horrendous rates of death from motor vehicle crashes, but if this limits regular people from riding e-bikes they aren't mad about it. Kinda annoying tbh

Also it's, again, *already* dangerous for children riding bikes (analog or electric) in cities because of cars. Even if kids are injuring themselves on e-motos +110% year over year, it's gonna be decades until they catch up to kids dying from cars hitting them on their bikes.

But think of the CHILDREN (on e-bikes)!

imo I would be comfortable with my kid riding an e-bike at 12 with no throttle at 15mph/24kph. Helps going up hills, and allows them autonomy to get places without me driving them.

You could prevent thousands of deaths - A far more meaningful number than banning e-bikes - by simply limiting automobile speed in cities to 30km/h. So if the impetus is "protecting the youth", there's no better law to sign than "cars now go 30km/h max in cities".

My lukewarm take is that Illegal and hacked bikes are not good lol. Class 1 e-bikes are good, they are appropriately speed restricted, but (spicy take) cars should also contain the same restrictions.

No one ever talks seriously about putting a ceiling on car speed. Ever.

Unless you live under a rock, you've seen a throttle e-bike. My hot take is that throttle e-bikes are just okay. Not evil, not great. Somewhere in the middle. I think they are safer than cars, better for the planet but prefer pedal assist.

I've seen a few replies saying "Read the article" so... I read the article. TLDR: Surron-type throttle e-motorbikes ridden by 16 year olds might be dangerous.

Okay.

(bUt ArE wE sUrE eBikEs iN GeNeRaL aRe SaFe??) 🙄

Notice that the above article seems to hit the NYT trifecta of Moral Panic: young white woman, harmed by leftwing cultural signal, and SHE'S FIGHTING BACK.

it's a big club and you ain't in it

Rachel Gilmore.. welcome to the war on cars 🫡

Do.. you have a ticket?