I agree that the points you make about ebikes are valid. What might be added is that they increase average speed while reducing peak speeds.I'm assuming that it will be cycling in general that will be covered. If they start by differentiating, they would have to cover all manner of bikes.
My guess is that it will be all about the serviceability of the bikes with bells and lights being compulsory. Helmets and hi-vis clothing advised everywhere, but perhaps compulsory in built up areas. Towns and cities. We'll know when they let us know I suppose. I do hope that someone with some common sense is involved on that committee.
As for ebikes being dangerous. I've been promoting them as being the exact opposite to unsafe. Not many have bothered putting up an argument against the statement below;-
A very important point for consideration is that ebikes in general actually bring about many safety advantages due to their differing riding style when compared to regular bikes. That riding style is achieved through the motor support and weight.
Often strong, fast, regular bike riding brings about an inevitable fatigue that decreases spatial awareness of the riders surroundings. After a time, lots of 'head down' or 'up off the seat' riding effort eventually brings about a tunnel vision effect. This is particularly the case when continually attempting to gain speed just before an oncoming uphill gradient. Or, when carrying your hard earned speed acquired through a blind bend.
With ebikes, gaining or losing speed is no longer an issue. Rider reaction is improved through not experiencing as much physical fatigue, or overly strenuous riding to gain that speed, or to achieve uphill range speed. No speed or gradient penalties are gained through stop, start braking and acceleration on an ebike. They change the need to rush to get ahead, and on a heavy ebike the brakes need to be good at all times. There's no getting away with that.
Fitness isn't an issue on an ebike. So reading the road further ahead becomes possible and, after a while, second nature. There's no comparable wobble effect brought about by slow uphill struggles, and therefore spatial awareness is enhanced. There's also no longer a need to take the most linear, easiest path of least resistance. You can take the harder path without risk.
All these positive ebiking attributes generally make ebiking a much safer experience all round.
And, if all else fails, there's always the walk mode.
Rides illegal machine - kills pedestrian & blames her........
- Thread starter oldtom
- Start date
I must agree that he had no brake singular as required by law .. It manifestly was not attached to the front wheel which is the requirement in law. However pedals directly attached to the front wheel are allowed as meeting the legal requirement as per fleccs original quoting of the act, so leg muscle power alone is deemed to be sufficient. If other traffic on the roadway and note the name the roadway was travelling at similar speeds were they not all equally at fault and why were prosecutations not also taken against them if speed was the criterion?. Indeed would The local authority not have been in breach of its public responsibility and have reduced The allowed speed, if it had expert opinion that 20 mph was a dangerous speed. The burden of proof for dangerous driving is less severe than for wilful and furious as there is no requirement for any injury to have occurred.
It is for these reasons why I still contend that the verdict was incorrect , and that the prosecution was vindictive.
The unfortunate woman was not entitled, as I understand it to have been off the pavement and on the roadway at that time and place.
I frequently ride a fixed wheel bike at my local velodrome and they take a lot of stopping. I'm quite a strong cyclist and it easily takes 1/3 lap to stop the bike due to the high gearing. A direct drive onto the front wheel, like an infants tricycle, would be easier to stop due to the lower gearing. Anyway, in this case the pedals were not attached to the front wheel, so that point is irrelevant under the given circumstances.
Other traffic travelling at the same speed would not be equally at fault because those vehicles will be equipped with brakes allowing them to stop more quickly than the bike in question. Speed alone is not the deciding factor, it has to be considered in combination with other factors, such as the person with responsibility for control knew that he had no legal or effective braking system.
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A 1.5 metre plant bed? Bloody luxury mate. Some of the ones I see don't even have a white line. Even at my leisurely 12-14mph these get a bit hairy.
This will make you jealous then. On the left behind the railings there's a thick hedge with a two lane tram track hidden behind it, then the pedestrian and cyclepath you see with a wide shrub and grass separator to the road. The road is a four lane urban dual carriageway with a green central reservation including crash barriers. Beyond that on the far side is a reservation strip separating a two lane service road with a pavement that's in front of the housing. That's eleven lanes altogether for all forms of traffic. And it's in London, England. Unfortunately a little way northwards the cycle and footpath facility disappears into a narrow and incredibly steep bottleneck due to an old building that our obsession with history won't allow to be knocked down. Southwards the good facility continues though, including a pair of rapid acting Toucan crossings to bypass a roundabout when cycling or walking.
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D
Deleted member 4366
Guest
The problem is that every fact is taken out of context and most of the people judging are doing so from an irrelevant frame of reference.
The guy was a professional dispatch cyclist and a very experienced fixie rider. These guys have legs of iron and they can do things that we can't imagine. Would you ride through London traffic without a front brake? Of course not, but this guy did it all the time. We think he was a nutter to do so, but he and many of the other dispatch riders do it all the time because they know that they can control their bikes safely.
Most of the people judging, including the jury, got the impression that he had plenty of time to shout two warnings at the woman, but still couldn't stop. I doubt that that's how it was. I still think that he never intended to stop. Instead, he was trying to steer around her to preserve his momentum. He wrongly assumed that she would look up, see his approach and avoid putting herself on a collision course. Most likely, as always happens, she looked up too late, panicked and stepped the wrong way, so even if he had a brake, he wouldn't have had time to use it. Yes, he was guilty of not taking the safest option when he first spotted her, but that's easy to say when you can see the result. We make judgements like that all the time. Some go more on the side of safety and others take more risk. I'm forced to make many of these judgements every time I ride on a designated cycle path. I have very good brakes. Sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't. I often shout at people when I'm approaching, sometimes twice or more.
If the guy had jumped a red light and been stopped by a policeman the other side, who noticed his missing front brake, what would the policeman have done? Would the guy be sent to jail for two years? What are the police doing with all the other cyclists with no front brake that they're presumably now checking. Should they send them all to jail?
There was another incident recently where a guy on a powerful motorbike was doing wheelies and other minor stunts on the motorway. He was in perfect control and there was nobody in any danger. Let's face it, any of us that have had such a motorbike have done wheelies on it. You can't help it on some, especially if you're carrying a passenger. That guy also went to jail, yet the guys that break into you house, steal your car or bash you up when you're walking back from the pub don't go to jail. I guess he was charged with dangerous driving, but I didn't see anything dangerous. What was his actual offence then - I guess it was making the Youtube video.
I feel really sorry for that cyclist when he's in jail with the drug dealers and the guys that stabbed people. What'r you in for then?"
"I rode my bike without a front brake".
That should strike terror into all the bad guys!
Two pedestrians have been killed in cycling collisions. That's sad, but we need to keep things in perspective. How many were killed by cars in the same time? How many people were killed by collisions when playing rugby or football in the same period? How many kids drowned in local rivers and ponds?
Have a look at this, then think about where and when you would have stopped:
The guy was a professional dispatch cyclist and a very experienced fixie rider. These guys have legs of iron and they can do things that we can't imagine. Would you ride through London traffic without a front brake? Of course not, but this guy did it all the time. We think he was a nutter to do so, but he and many of the other dispatch riders do it all the time because they know that they can control their bikes safely.
Most of the people judging, including the jury, got the impression that he had plenty of time to shout two warnings at the woman, but still couldn't stop. I doubt that that's how it was. I still think that he never intended to stop. Instead, he was trying to steer around her to preserve his momentum. He wrongly assumed that she would look up, see his approach and avoid putting herself on a collision course. Most likely, as always happens, she looked up too late, panicked and stepped the wrong way, so even if he had a brake, he wouldn't have had time to use it. Yes, he was guilty of not taking the safest option when he first spotted her, but that's easy to say when you can see the result. We make judgements like that all the time. Some go more on the side of safety and others take more risk. I'm forced to make many of these judgements every time I ride on a designated cycle path. I have very good brakes. Sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't. I often shout at people when I'm approaching, sometimes twice or more.
If the guy had jumped a red light and been stopped by a policeman the other side, who noticed his missing front brake, what would the policeman have done? Would the guy be sent to jail for two years? What are the police doing with all the other cyclists with no front brake that they're presumably now checking. Should they send them all to jail?
There was another incident recently where a guy on a powerful motorbike was doing wheelies and other minor stunts on the motorway. He was in perfect control and there was nobody in any danger. Let's face it, any of us that have had such a motorbike have done wheelies on it. You can't help it on some, especially if you're carrying a passenger. That guy also went to jail, yet the guys that break into you house, steal your car or bash you up when you're walking back from the pub don't go to jail. I guess he was charged with dangerous driving, but I didn't see anything dangerous. What was his actual offence then - I guess it was making the Youtube video.
I feel really sorry for that cyclist when he's in jail with the drug dealers and the guys that stabbed people. What'r you in for then?"
"I rode my bike without a front brake".
That should strike terror into all the bad guys!
Two pedestrians have been killed in cycling collisions. That's sad, but we need to keep things in perspective. How many were killed by cars in the same time? How many people were killed by collisions when playing rugby or football in the same period? How many kids drowned in local rivers and ponds?
Have a look at this, then think about where and when you would have stopped:
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The dispatch rider may have been very experienced and "Skilled" but the inescapable fact is that he collided with a pedestrian and that collision resulted in a death. The other fact is that the bike had no brakes and it was the riders decision to ride that bike in an area which was densely populated with pedestrians. It's ok saying that the deceased woman should have looked where she was walking, but people don't, we all have momentary lapses in concentration and we all have a responsibility to mitigate the effects. Anyone of us on here will make mistakes, errors, misjudge things and do something without thinking.
If that bike had been equipped with brakes, it would have collided with the pedestrian at a lower speed than what it did. Iron legs or not, properly working brakes are always better at reducing speed than trying to slow a track bike down using legs alone.
I agree that the death has influenced the sentence and as I have said before, the outcome is a roll of the dice and should not be a sentencing factor. The sentence should be based on the fact that the rider chose to ride a bike with no legal braking mechanism whatsoever at a potentially lethal speed, in a densely populated area and in close proximity to pedestrians. This was an act of recklessness by the cyclist who displayed no regard for anything other than himself and his own vanity as a "fixie" rider. The recklessness exhibited had potentially lethal, consequences (unfortunately in this case, those potential consequences came to fruition). It is the reckless behaviour which the sentence should be based around.
The same is going to happen when a high speed eBike hits and kills someone. This will happen at some point in the future as their use increases.
That's very noble of you. I suspect that had it been one of your loved ones who had been killed, you would have been outside the court spitting at the prison van and screaming obscenities as the defendant was driven past.
D
Deleted member 4366
Guest
that's not a fact. We don't know whether he would have attempted to use the brakes. I think not because I judge from my perspective, where I only tend to use the brakes as a last resort, moreso when I'm on my road bike.
have a look at this everybody. To us, it looks frightening. Note the emergency stop that the guy does at 1:53. Along the course, they must do all sorts of other extreme braking too.
That's a fair point and is exactly the reason why justice is supposed to be blind. Otherwise it is just vengeance. Actually in this matter I probably would not have been spitting etc I can speak from some personal experience in that a car misdriven by a young man mounted a pavement and broke the femur of my wife some years ago. We deliberately avoided any of the court case and allowed due process to take its course.
The two extracts I've quoted show what is wrong. Those despatch riders don't do what they do safely, they put their priority over everyone else's safety. They often have minor contacts with people and vehicles and they routinely scare people with the suddeness of their arrival and actions. That's especially true when they do the illegal and thus unexpected, like suddenly crossing red lights and taking to pavements at speed, skimming close to pedestrians.
At the very least it's thoroughly bad road manners and they are every bit as thoughtless as the jay-walking pedestrians. The difference is that their thoughtlessness is at speeds that can seriously injure and kill.
Pedestrians are a special case among road users, requiring greater levels of care and consideration. They include the young and vulnerable, the elderly or disabled with impaired physical functions and the mentally impaired, and some of those conditions are not readily detectable. In addition walking is such a fundamentally automatic function that it lends itself to preoccupation with other things more than any other form of locomotion, increasing the likelyhood of doing something unwise. Cyclists having a small visual profile and being silent are especially likely to suffer from such mistakes.
So like any road user, cyclists should conduct themselves in a manner best able to cope with any eventuality. It's important in fact and in law that every class of road user is reasonably able to stop in time to avoid collision with anything suddenly confronting them. The law makes little allowance for the mistakes of others as a defence, whether we agree with that or not. Those who cause death on the roads will suffer the legal consequences.
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I think you are dredging the bottom of the excuses barrel with the, "we don't know if he would have used the brakes" thing. That's on a par with, maybe the woman committed suicide by "fixie", we will never know, so no one is to blame.
It is a fact that a track bike cannot be slowed using pedal resistance alone as quickly as a bike equipped with fully functioning brakes.
The video is frightening and their activity is highly dangerous particularly to themselves. The only consolation is that automobile traffic in Manhattan is very sluggish. And they do a slow down at pedestrian crossing. Note the discipline of the pedestrians ... no jaywalking.
Alliston being a courier is barely relevant, and in any case his claimed employment has been called strongly into question.
Seems he worked for a few days as a courier, despite telling the jury he had done the job for eight months.
http://road.cc/content/news/229482-charlie-alliston-potentially-facing-perjury-charge-over-claim-he-worked-courier
Seems he worked for a few days as a courier, despite telling the jury he had done the job for eight months.
http://road.cc/content/news/229482-charlie-alliston-potentially-facing-perjury-charge-over-claim-he-worked-courier
Yes, that's a great video showing how stupid pedestrians can be. And then you can watch one of hundreds like this, showing just how stupid the cyclists are:
The problem is the human factor. We are erratic, unpredictable and prone to making errors. This is compounded by a small element sincerely believing that they are in possession of superior skills which set them apart others, thus licensing themselves to behave recklessly. The best drivers, riders, pilots etc are those who recognise their own and others vulnerability in making errors.
As far as transport is concerned, the sooner we are taken out of the decision making process by machines, the better.
Autonomous bikes ! Oooo goody goody
Defensive driving/riding is the only way to go, as any surviving motorcyclist knows very well.
Defensive driving/riding is the only way to go, as any surviving motorcyclist knows very well.