Are we riding too fast.

[MikeF]

Most cyclist rarely reach even urban 20mph limits that are apparently fine for motorised traffic so why should there be a different, lower limit on any road for human powered vehicles?

I regard myself as a slow cyclist; most other cyclists pass me on the road. However on many urban journeys I exceed 20mph at some point. I'm still overtaken by cars in the 20mph zone though.

I'm always surprised that people will walk along an urban pavement very close to motor traffic that is travelling at 20-30mph seemingly without any concern whatsoever. The pedestrian feels safe because the pavement is allocated to pedestrians and the carriageway to vehicles. Yet if a cyclist were to travel at that speed he/she would generally be regarded as travelling too fast because of a misconception of the speed of cycles.

[Vorpal]

Wasn't that young London man convicted of cycling furiously at between 12-18mph? if so do we now have a guideline of too fast?

I don't think so. For one things, 'too fast' is highly dependent on the conditions. For another thing, his conviction was due to his behaviour and the illegal condition of bis bike, more than his speed.

IMO, it borders on the ridiculous to suggest that 18 mph on the road on a bicycle is too fast, when motor vehicles on the same road go considerably faster. Are there circumstances when 18 mph is too fast? Of course there are, but they are likely to be similar for a pedal cyclists and a motorist. Approaching a(nother) vulnerable user is one of them.

My apologies. Alliston had denied causing bodily harm by “wanton and furious driving” but found guilty.

No need to apologise

[Cyril Haearn]

.....
My constructive suggestion: simpler lighter robust proper bikes that need less muscle energy, dynamos switched on downhill (reduces speed), to charge a battery to get uphill

...

I don't think that would work in practice. Have you done the maths?

Not 1:1, one would have to charge going down several hills to get up one I guess
Electric trains do it, bikes could do it too, maybe the system has not been invented yet

[Cyril Haearn]

So she can cycle at all, rather than to go fast, right?
That's right
She's an experienced cyclist who'd be robbed of her beloved cycling altogether if it weren't for the elec assist.
[guote]How fast do you go?

Not very,other than down hill.Gone to better homes are our Santana and Cannondale tandems which when we were both fit we could go fast on.
As well as being converted the Circe is low step over which also helps with her stiff joints,another side effect of Parkinsonism or the medication.
But all this is getting away from the fact that you seem to think anything that's motor driven or assisted needs slowing down,frankly I don't,so long as the driver/rider abides by the law.The fact that some don't is a policing issue.

Seem to think?

How fast do you go downhill (mph)?

I think electric assistance is ok if it helps people to cycle who otherwise could not

Cycling too fast down hill is a big problem, even for standard bikes. I much prefer riding up hill. I wish my bike could be fitted with a generator that governed the speed downhill to 30 kmh max and provided energy to make tea after

**Doubtless there will be more media reports about the e-bike menace, I shall translate and report back**

Motors going too fast is a big problem (anyone disagree?)

[Cyril Haearn]

There is nothing new about one user group sometimes going a bit too fast for the safety and comfort of another user group. Wherever you have people using different modes of transport on the same path/road, or employing different levels of fitness and urgency to human powered transport, you will have clashes. Fast cyclists can clash with slower cyclists. Joggers can clash with walkers. Disabled people on mobility scooters can clash with pedestrians. The only possible answer to all this is to educate people to be a bit more considerate towards each other.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these modes of transport, it is only inconsiderate use that gives us problems. A couple of days ago I watched an elderly man on a four wheel mobility scooter rush along a narrow footpath at what looked to me to be about 8mph, very close to garden gates. I'm pretty sure he should have had his scooter on a setting that makes that speed impossible. I am not opposed to mobility scooters. I think they are a wonderful advance that has allowed people who might otherwise be housebound to get about. But just like other modes of transport they need to be used with a bit of consideration.

This is not one of the big issues facing society. It is a relatively minor nuisance that in extreme circumstances can cause injury. A bit of perspective is required, unless one wishes to waste one's life fretting about anything and everything that is not as one would wish it.

You are right, this is very familiar, motors have been going too fast for years, now cyclists can do the same. We know all about motor crime and danger. You think speed is a minor issue? You really believe in 'education'? Diversity of opinion is good, you have strange opinions about some laws mind and being "educated" after being caught speeding did not help apparently

There is plenty that can be done about this problem, we can see it getting bigger and bigger, in Germany it is even worse, there are so many parallels to motor crime
The economy for instance, producing and selling unnecessary things. Ebikes the new lifestyle tanks? There is a difference there unfortunately, the lifestyle tanks get used a lot

[pwa]

There is nothing new about one user group sometimes going a bit too fast for the safety and comfort of another user group. Wherever you have people using different modes of transport on the same path/road, or employing different levels of fitness and urgency to human powered transport, you will have clashes. Fast cyclists can clash with slower cyclists. Joggers can clash with walkers. Disabled people on mobility scooters can clash with pedestrians. The only possible answer to all this is to educate people to be a bit more considerate towards each other.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these modes of transport, it is only inconsiderate use that gives us problems. A couple of days ago I watched an elderly man on a four wheel mobility scooter rush along a narrow footpath at what looked to me to be about 8mph, very close to garden gates. I'm pretty sure he should have had his scooter on a setting that makes that speed impossible. I am not opposed to mobility scooters. I think they are a wonderful advance that has allowed people who might otherwise be housebound to get about. But just like other modes of transport they need to be used with a bit of consideration.

This is not one of the big issues facing society. It is a relatively minor nuisance that in extreme circumstances can cause injury. A bit of perspective is required, unless one wishes to waste one's life fretting about anything and everything that is not as one would wish it.

You are right, this is very familiar, motors have been going too fast for years, now cyclists can do the same. We know all about motor crime and danger. You think speed is a minor issue? You really believe in 'education'? Diversity of opinion is good, you have strange opinions about some laws mind and being "educated" after being caught speeding did not help apparently

There is plenty that can be done about this problem, we can see it getting bigger and bigger, in Germany it is even worse, there are so many parallels to motor crime
The economy for instance, producing and selling unnecessary things. Ebikes the new lifestyle tanks? There is a difference there unfortunately, the lifestyle tanks get used a lot

Don't you think you might be getting a bit obsessive about traffic speed, to the detriment of the rest of your life? Having a go at me for having been on a Speed Awareness course (information I gave weeks ago and which you will now use as ammunition whenever you want to imply that you are better than me) is a bit wide of the mark when we are talking about bicycles and e-bikes going too fast, or not. My post was about that, and so was the rest of this thread. And that is why I stressed the need for perspective. Get a grip!

[MikeF]

.....
My constructive suggestion: simpler lighter robust proper bikes that need less muscle energy, dynamos switched on downhill (reduces speed), to charge a battery to get uphill

...

I don't think that would work in practice. Have you done the maths?

Not 1:1, one would have to charge going down several hills to get up one I guess
Electric trains do it, bikes could do it too, maybe the system has not been invented yet

Some may have regenerative braking.
But on a bicycle you could increase speed on the downhill and use the gained kinetic energy to climb the next hill or some of it at least. Energy wise that could be more effective.

[pwa]

I don't think that would work in practice. Have you done the maths?

Not 1:1, one would have to charge going down several hills to get up one I guess
Electric trains do it, bikes could do it too, maybe the system has not been invented yet

Some may have regenerative braking.
But on a bicycle you could increase speed on the downhill and use the gained kinetic energy to climb the next hill or some of it at least. Energy wise that could be more effective.

That's what folk have been doing since bicycles were invented. Reach the bottom of the next climb with as much speed as possible from the last descent so that you get part way up without too much effort. Keeping the momentum. There are limits to that in congested areas, but on the open road that is what most of us do.

[Cugel]

There is nothing new about one user group sometimes going a bit too fast for the safety and comfort of another user group. Wherever you have people using different modes of transport on the same path/road, or employing different levels of fitness and urgency to human powered transport, you will have clashes. Fast cyclists can clash with slower cyclists. Joggers can clash with walkers. Disabled people on mobility scooters can clash with pedestrians. The only possible answer to all this is to educate people to be a bit more considerate towards each other.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these modes of transport, it is only inconsiderate use that gives us problems. A couple of days ago I watched an elderly man on a four wheel mobility scooter rush along a narrow footpath at what looked to me to be about 8mph, very close to garden gates. I'm pretty sure he should have had his scooter on a setting that makes that speed impossible. I am not opposed to mobility scooters. I think they are a wonderful advance that has allowed people who might otherwise be housebound to get about. But just like other modes of transport they need to be used with a bit of consideration.

This is not one of the big issues facing society. It is a relatively minor nuisance that in extreme circumstances can cause injury. A bit of perspective is required, unless one wishes to waste one's life fretting about anything and everything that is not as one would wish it.

You are right, this is very familiar, motors have been going too fast for years, now cyclists can do the same. We know all about motor crime and danger. You think speed is a minor issue? You really believe in 'education'? Diversity of opinion is good, you have strange opinions about some laws mind and being "educated" after being caught speeding did not help apparently

There is plenty that can be done about this problem, we can see it getting bigger and bigger, in Germany it is even worse, there are so many parallels to motor crime
The economy for instance, producing and selling unnecessary things. Ebikes the new lifestyle tanks? There is a difference there unfortunately, the lifestyle tanks get used a lot

Don't you think you might be getting a bit obsessive about traffic speed, to the detriment of the rest of your life? Having a go at me for having been on a Speed Awareness course (information I gave weeks ago and which you will now use as ammunition whenever you want to imply that you are better than me) is a bit wide of the mark when we are talking about bicycles and e-bikes going too fast, or not. My post was about that, and so was the rest of this thread. And that is why I stressed the need for perspective. Get a grip!

Here is your blind spot. I quote you:

"There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these modes of transport, it is only inconsiderate use that gives us problems".

This is the old "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument for not disallowing all & sundry to have a gun. The fact is that various technologies encourage dangerous human use, of their nature. A car is a very obvious example, in that it kills well over 1 million each year worldwide and seriously maims many times that number. It does so because it encourages drivers to do the dangerous things with it. It has those capabilities and they are marketed as a very big part of the appeal.

Powerful electric bikes are similarly designed and marketed. And why should a mobility scooter, designed for the physically inept, be designed to do 10mph on the pavement? Isn't walking speed sufficient?

You suggest that we must merely make inconsiderate humans be considerate. Certainly this is one part of the road to improvement. I favour shaming them. But if you think that all humans can be somehow made considerate, especially when told every day by advertising that they should be inconsiderate (especially in a car) then you're naïve.

Car design (and perhaps that of vroomy electric bikes and mobility scooters) need to be revisited to remove a degree of their killer-maimer potential. Nothing can be completely safe but some technologies are designed to be dangerous just to cater to the baser instincts of we humans.

Cugel

[pwa]

Cugel,

We are not talking about guns, or even cars. We are talking about bicycles, e-bikes, and I introduced mobility scooters. Mobility scooters (correct me if I am wrong, anybody) have two settings for speed. One, for use on the road, allows a higher speed. 10mph or something like that. The old man in my example was wrongly using that setting on a pavement where he should have had it on the lower setting that allows a max of about 4mph. The machine was fine, it was the misuse that was wrong.

Do I think we can satisfactorily teach consideration to everyone? No. This is the real world and that will never happen. All we can do is educate and encourage people to use these potentially life enhancing machines in a better way. There will always be a few who don't listen, but I'm not going to worry about that too much.

[MikeF]

And why should a mobility scooter, designed for the physically inept, be designed to do 10mph on the pavement? Isn't walking speed sufficient?

Cugel

As far as I know they are designed for 8mph, and if so designed can be used on roads as well. Why should walking speed be sufficient for disabled people?

The problem with "consideration" is that one person's idea of that is not the same as another's, as is the case for "common sense".

[Vorpal]

And why should a mobility scooter, designed for the physically inept, be designed to do 10mph on the pavement?

They aren't they are legally limited to maximum 8 mph. And they can't even go that fast most places because of parked cars, bollards, anti-motorcycle barriers, narrow spaces, and the poor condition of the pavements.

I have seen them more on the road (where 10 mph might be a better speed) than on the pavement.

That said, in some cases, at least, it's one less person driving. I'd far rather see people doing dodgy stuff at 8 mph than 50!

[Cugel]

And why should a mobility scooter, designed for the physically inept, be designed to do 10mph on the pavement?

They aren't they are legally limited to maximum 8 mph. And they can't even go that fast most places because of parked cars, bollards, anti-motorcycle barriers, narrow spaces, and the poor condition of the pavements.

I have seen them more on the road (where 10 mph might be a better speed) than on the pavement.

That said, in some cases, at least, it's one less person driving. I'd far rather see people doing dodgy stuff at 8 mph than 50!

I feel that you lads have missed the point I was trying to make. That point is that technologies often afford the users the opportunity to be inconsiderate. Worse, in many cases they encourage or even demand that the user be inconsiderate.

It's just a matter of degree between a gun and a mobility scooter (or even a lawnmower). Their designs includes elements & aspects that allow those inconsiderate nuisances amongst us to amplify their annoying or even dangerous habits via the technology being used.

These designs are human made and so reflect human desires, wants and increased opportunities. Even that mobility scooter allows the inconsiderate user to charge along the pavements of the street where I live, with no thought for a child or granny coming out of a gate between the hedges. Must the children and grannies be provided with traffic lights; or admonished for jay-walking if they fail to peer anxiously around the hedge corner in case Mr Loon is coming full pelt in his ankle-smasher?

Certainly Mr Loon and his scooter are less lethal than a swivel-eyed Toad doing 40 in the 20 limit around the blind bend where there's a staggered junction. Certainly a fellow on a souped-up electric bike is less dangerous also. But they can still do serious damage with their technology when they are being inconsiderate.

Yes, there should be a balance between "how inherently dangerous is this technology" and "how much do we expect consideration by the user to reduce the potential damage the things can cause". Given the experience in Holland with super-charged electric bikes, there's a case to be made for stricter control of those. Perhaps electric scooters are not so terrible although I'd like to see ankle smashers prosecuted or otherwise discouraged from pavement racing.

Y'all will think me an extremist but I feel cars are so dangerous that I'd pass law to force the designers & manufacturers to restrict them to 30mph; and rigorously enforce a 10mph limit anywhere near pedestrians. I wouldn't do that for bicycles because bicycle damage on pedestrians is far less.

In short, design limitations and controls should reflect the risks (potential and historically-realised) of the technology involved. And whilst we should discourage irresponsible use, we have to recognise that humans are human and will not be responsible if allowed to get away with it - especially if cultural pressures (adverts and clarksonesque infantilism in the mass media) encourage them to do so.

Cugel

[reohn2]

Seem to think?

?

how fast do you go down hill(In mph)?

That all depends on conditions,traffic,road conditions,weather,etc.It's not an absolute for any given descent.

I think electric assistance is ok if it helps people to cycle who otherwise could not

That implies that your view of who should use elec assist bikes is a narrow one could you elaborate

Cycling too fast down hill is a big problem, even for standard bikes

Once again I'll invite you to define the term "big problem",does it endanger anyone,has there been many problems as a result,do you have statistical data to prove your claim or specific incidents proving it?

I much prefer riding up hill. I wish my bike could be fitted with a generator that governed the speed downhill to 30 kmh max and provided energy to make tea after

Your personal choice,which I don't share.

**Doubtless there will be more media reports about the e-bike menace, I shall translate and report back*

*
I hope you do,with some data to back up your claims

Motors going too fast is a big problem (anyone disagree?)

They can be but(and there always is one)it depends on what you call too fast,I refer you to a previous post were I claimed it wasn't speed but inappropriate speed ie 70mph on a motorway isn't a problem but it is in 30mph limit.
Story alert:- yesterday on the motorway I broke the speed limit by 10mph+,the circumstances were that I was in lane four at 70 overtaking 5 or six vehicles in lane 3,when my attention was drawn to a blues and twos motorcycle closing me down fast in my lane,to ensure the rider had clear passage I accelerated to possibly 85 temporarily,so I could pull over into lane 3 sooner rather than later that IMO is approriate speeding YVMD.

[Vorpal]

And why should a mobility scooter, designed for the physically inept, be designed to do 10mph on the pavement?

They aren't they are legally limited to maximum 8 mph. And they can't even go that fast most places because of parked cars, bollards, anti-motorcycle barriers, narrow spaces, and the poor condition of the pavements.

I have seen them more on the road (where 10 mph might be a better speed) than on the pavement.

That said, in some cases, at least, it's one less person driving. I'd far rather see people doing dodgy stuff at 8 mph than 50!

I feel that you lads have missed the point I was trying to make. That point is that technologies often afford the users the opportunity to be inconsiderate. Worse, in many cases they encourage or even demand that the user be inconsiderate.

I'm not a lad. That beside the point, technology does not change whether people are inconsiderate. There will *always* be a small minority of people who are inconsiderate. Some of them will find ways to be dangerously so.

It's just a matter of degree between a gun and a mobility scooter (or even a lawnmower). Their designs includes elements & aspects that allow those inconsiderate nuisances amongst us to amplify their annoying or even dangerous habits via the technology being used.

I do not accept that it is a matter of degree between a gun and a mobility scooter. A gun is designed to harm people and animals. A mobility scooter is designed as a mode of transport, and a relatively slow one at that. The likelihood of someone on a mobility scooter killing another person is tiny. I won't say that it is impossible, but I have never heard of it happening. Yes, they have some capability to do harm, but it's quite small compared to a gun or an automobile, and they serve a useful purpose.

If the UK had better facilities for vulnerable users, I doubt any mobility scooter users would be charging along a narrow pavement.

Given the experience in Holland with super-charged electric bikes, there's a case to be made for stricter control of those.

What experience? What case for stricter control, and where?

I wouldn't do that for bicycles because bicycle damage on pedestrians is far less.

The damage inflicted on pedestrians by mobility scooters is smaller, yet.

Honestly, I'd rather just say that personal transport has to change radically. Maybe it should weigh no more than 50 kilos, or something like that. There's no point in hauling around 2 tonnes of metal and plastic to carry 20 kilos of groceries, or a couple of kids home.

There will always be people who will argue that we *need* cars of some sort, to take elderly parents to the doctor, to do this or that. And yes, some vehicles probably are needed. To remove large personal transport, we need more companies to deliver and collect, and more doctors to visit their patients, and much better community and public transport, and help for elderly and disabled people so they don't become trapped in their homes. Plumbers, carpenters, electricians, and others still need to be able to take their tools with them. But there are ways to manage all of these things without making a two-car family into a measure of success.