New Legal Speed Limit: What should it be?

[georgehenry]

QUOTEI feel a little more is needed but 20 could be a bit much around people to be honest. I do feel the current limit is just below what is ideal for most.

Maybe there could be new rules that allow higher speeds on roads but keep the current limit on cycle paths and near people.[/QUOTE]

The thing is that 15 mph could easily be too much around people too.

Whatever the legal limit you need to ride with due care and attention for other people.

With only the slightest gradient in your favour a legal ebike with the motor not assisting can reach 20 mph plus very easily indeed. So a legal ebike travelling at 20 mph requires the rider to use their common sense as to whether this speed is reasonable for the situation they find themselves in.

If you are riding on a road and a pedestrian steps in front of you without looking and is hit by you, it is in all likelihood not your fault.

If you are riding on a path that allows cyclists and pedestrians to mix then whatever the legal speed you need to be riding slow enough to avoid hitting a pedestrian.

I use a bell and get a very good reaction from pedestrians I am approaching from the rear and the interaction between us as I pass them is positive and pleasant. Just as it should be, and my initial approach on a downhill gradient could be 20 mph+ quite easily.

So if there was a 20 mph limit, that speed could be very appropriate on a road commuting to work but 10 mph could be too much approaching a supermarket where you might expect a lot of people to be milling about.

The assistance speed is one thing and the appropriate speed is another.

 

[Nefarious]

People suggesting different assist thresholds for different situations (not speed limits) need to think about the feasibility of such a scheme. How would the bike know what threshold to apply??

 

[Benjahmin]

The highest national speed limit is 70mph. Yet you can go out and buy a perfectly legal family saloon that's capable of 125mph. (Don't even get started on 'legal' motorbikes.) How come? If the same assist limiting were applied to vehicles then none would be capable of exceeding 70mph.
Just askin'.
So we're not talking speed limit here, as has been pointed out, that's up to the riders judgement. We're talking assist limitation.

 

[Mehmet Comek]

I picked 30 mph but 20 sounds fine around town I guess. 15~ mph range seems a tad slow even for an e-bike. I'd like to see an increase in the speed limit as well. I rarely see an e-bike owner who is irresponsible enough to endanger another person's life like motorcycle and car owners.

 

[flecc]

People suggesting different assist thresholds for different situations (not speed limits) need to think about the feasibility of such a scheme. How would the bike know what threshold to apply??

AI.
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[mike killay]

The highest national speed limit is 70mph. Yet you can go out and buy a perfectly legal family saloon that's capable of 125mph. (Don't even get started on 'legal' motorbikes.) How come? If the same assist limiting were applied to vehicles then none would be capable of exceeding 70mph.
Just askin'.
So we're not talking speed limit here, as has been pointed out, that's up to the riders judgement. We're talking assist limitation.

I would not be at all surprised to see all motor vehicles fitted with 70mph limiters in the future.
What is almost certain to come is automatic limiting via speed limit signs emitting some sort of radio command.

 

[Nefarious]

I would not be at all surprised to see all motor vehicles fitted with 70mph limiters in the future.
What is almost certain to come is automatic limiting via speed limit signs emitting some sort of radio command.

Hmm hopefully they will increase the limits first! Once we are all in autonomous vehicles, we probably will have very little left to control

 

[mags2]

But those higher speeds on roads cannot happen without bureaucracy you wouldn't welcome.

See this post

And this post

Is all that hassle really what you want?
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Yeah on second thought maybe it should just be left alone.

 

[flecc]

So we're not talking speed limit here, as has been pointed out, that's up to the riders judgement. We're talking assist limitation.

But there's more than one instance of this, it affects motor vehicles too. Mopeds have been limited by restriction to 30 mph, the current law saying 28 mph, but drop into neutral downhill and you'll easily double that or more depending on the hill.

So that's also assist limited, despite it being legally termed a speed limit.
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[flecc]

Here's one for a laugh, the reason for the 15.5 mph (25kph) cut-off given by the MD of a major pedelec importer. To spare him embarrassment I won't divulge who:

"At speeds over 25km/h, the engine completely ceases its support in order to avoid any friction that might impair power transfer."
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[mags2]

Is it true you can get an extra 10% and be ok?

 

[Gubbins]

Is it true you can get an extra 10% and be ok?

There is a new divice on the market that allows one to set their own assist limit so in theory a limit of 15.5 + 10% could be set but the problem is that for those who want to go faster then a 10% or even 20% increase would never be enough..

 

[flecc]

Is it true you can get an extra 10% and be ok?

The DfT have confirmed that the usual 10% tolerance applies to the assist limit, just as it does to all UK speed limits. The origin of the tolerance was to take care of minor variations in speed indicating devices like speedometers.

The police have always operated in this way, generally only taking action when a speed is near to or over 10 mph above the limit applying.

With pedelecs they have the added difficulty that their speed detection radars can't measure cycling speeds accurately enough, since the radar reflection really needs to come from a hard surface travelling at the vehicle speed. Trying to bounce a signal from soft clothing or a person is not ideal, the rider or clothing surface could be moving forward or backward on the bike at the moment of reflection, giving a faster or slower readout.

The alternative of following with a car is hardly practical for detecting the difference between 15.5 mph and 17 mph. Their car speedos are like ours, marked in far greater divisions than half a mile per hour.
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[Nefarious]

Measuring the speed of a bike has no relevance to the assist limit set, unless the police have some dark magic to detect whether the motor is working!

 

[Nefarious]

Is it true you can get an extra 10% and be ok?

If you adjust the assist limit to take advantage of the extra 10%, you are making the assumption that the limiter is already set accurately (or too low). That's why the 10% exists - to allow for tolerance in the controls and the detection

 

[Gubbins]

If you adjust the assist limit to take advantage of the extra 10%, you are making the assumption that the limiter is already set accurately (or too low). That's why the 10% exists - to allow for tolerance in the controls and the detection

Yes, for that you need to measure your true speed. I have long suspected that my bosch bike speedo is a bit Happy so decided to try and test it.. Not so easy, but I tried anyway. I used a Garmin head unit calibrated with a Garmin wheel speed sensor to compare with and found that when my Bosch intuvia was showing 16mph and the assistance had just stopped my Garmin was showing 15mph. During the calibration process my Garmin used wheel revolutions and GPS over distance to come up with an exact wheel size and a true speed that was not based purely on GPS, or at least that's how I understand the theory. I tried this over some distance and it was fairly consistent and also noticed a difference in the recorded miles which showed the Intuvia recording a slightly longer ride than the Garmin, and this difference grew with the milage so after 20 miles I was more than a mile up!
Delving into Ituvia settings I found that I could change the wheel size up or down by 5% so carefully measured the wheel and made some adjustments the results of which were confusing to say the least.. I Made another change and the cutoff moved up to 16.5mph and with glee I thought I had cracked it but no, at 16.5mph the Garmin still showed 15mph so with some disappointment and time on my hands I messed with it every few miles or so until the two were reasonably in sync and finally decided that the cutoff has nothing to do with the Intuvia displayed speed and accepted that my cutoff was a little short of what it should be and left it at that.

 

[flecc]

All car speedometers are designed to read low, that's long been accepted, and that's by around 10%. Bo doubt the makers think of that as a safety factor for owners, helping them to avoid accidentally exceeding limits.
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[Gubbins]

All car speedometers are designed to read low, that's long been accepted, and that's by around 10%. Bo doubt the makers think of that as a safety factor for owners, helping them to avoid accidentally exceeding limits.
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Do you mean read high? My cut off was actually 14.5 to 15mph when the speedo showed 15.5 to 16mph.

 

[flecc]

Do you mean read high? My cut off was actually 14.5 to 15mph when the speedo showed 15.5 to 16mph.

Yes, I should have said high.
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[Gubbins]

Yes, I should have said high.
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Not often I can pull you for a mistake.... Think I will pour myself a drink... Well I would but i am having a dry September..