That's what e-bikes and mopeds bring to my city. The infrastructures is designed for pedestrians, cars, and mass transit. Bicycles are being retrofitted. It's completely NOT designed for dozens of oddball vehicles which are coming up. The people riding them aren't as competent as cyclists (which isn't a very high bar) and cause unsafe situations all the time.
That's my city. Yours might be different. I've been to cities where these worked great, and loved them. Here, they're pure evil and a menace.
TL;DR: This needs planning, infrastructure changes, and regulation. With that, this might be the solution. Without that, a lot of cities will be in trouble.
The statistic you cite show exactly what one would expect: Bicycles are less safe than cars. Mopeds and e-bikes are mixed in with bicycles, so it's impossible to tell how safe or unsafe those are. It's important to look at the statistics per trip or per mile traveled, rather than absolute numbers.
Cars are around 20 injury/total collisions per 10,000,000 trips. Bicycles (which includes mopeds and e-bikes) are about 10x that, at around 15 injury collisions per 1,000,000 trips.
My city doesn't release similar statistics, but I suspect they'd be worse. Does your city enforce traffic rules for e-bikes? Mine doesn't. They run red lights and are a menace. At the same time, they don't take the same skill as riding a bicycle, so there are many idiots out there. I would guess they're about 10x less safe than bicycles in turn (here).
As a footnote, your trucks are crazy scary. Do you know why? They outnumber all other vehicles _in absolute numbers_ for collisions, despite being a tiny portion of the trips.
> The statistic you cite show exactly what one would expect: Bicycles are less safe than cars
Let's place the blame on the people at fault of those injuries, not on the victims. Otherwise we would believe that schoolchildren are dangerous because of all those mass shootings.
So, who kills whom? Cars cause the vast majority of the injuries and deaths. Yes, pedestrians and cyclists are the ones dying, but only because car drivers are killing them. Replace cars with lighter vehicles and both pedestrian end cyclist deaths would plummet.
How many people are injured or killed by bikes or mopeds? You called them a "menace", but how many people have they killed in the past five years, and how does it compare to cars? Who is the actual menace, the schoolchildren or the shooters?
The problem in my city is that the people at fault are generally:
- Idiots on new-age vehicles (especially those one-wheeled things)
- Idiots who park on the stop on the side of the road with emergency blinkers (hi, Amazon delivery drivers)
- Idiots who stop in the middle of an intersection
All of those cause unsafe driving, as other drivers are forced to maneuver around things the roads and traffic weren't designed for.
My goal isn't to assign blame, though. My goal is to make sure as few people die as possible. Personally, I'd also usually rather risk death than a crippling injury. If I die, that sucks. If I'm a quadriplegic for the rest of my life, that sounds a lot worse. I'm not sure why you're okay with cyclists dying.
As points of data:
- I once crashed a car on a highway. My only accident, in many years of driving. The car was totaled. No one was injured. It was pretty amazing.
- I've injured myself seriously on bicycles several times, despite far fewer miles commuted and being much more careful. Only one of those involved a car. One involved a pothole, and the most serious one, a hidden metal plate.
Having an engineered metal cage around you does wonders for safety.
I stopped seriously commuting on my bicycle when I had a child. The risk wasn't worth it. I'd start again if the city were designed for it, but I'd want dedicated bicycle arteries -- bikeways without cars, pedestrians, or idiots on one-wheels. I'd be okay with ebikes and scooters IF there were some ways to keep idiots off (traffic enforcement, licensing, or whatever). In the city I was born, somehow people seem able to handle ebikes, scooters, and mopeds safely. In the city I live in, they somehow can't.
> The problem in my city is that the people at fault are generally
How do you know? My city does publish statistics and theirs do not match your opinion.
> My goal isn't to assign blame, though. My goal is to make sure as few people die as possible
If you want fewer people killed, finding out who is killing them is an important first step. My city's statistics show that cars are at fault 70% to 80% of the time when they collide with a pedestrian or a cyclist. Not to mention the obvious fact that the car is the one physically doing the killing, as collisions between pedestrians are resolved with a "sorry" rather than a visit to the ER.
> I'm not sure why you're okay with cyclists dying
And here is where I stop this conversation, as you are obviously not acting in good faith. For the record, I am a cyclist and have not driven a car in my life. Just to underline how assissine your accusation is.
> How do you know? My city does publish statistics and theirs do not match your opinion.
How do you know the sun shines during the day? Because I live here. I see what causes unsafe conditions on roads.
And yes, although cities are different, by-and-large, the statistics published by your city DO match my opinion.
> Not to mention the obvious fact that the car is the one physically doing the killing, as collisions between pedestrians are resolved with a "sorry" rather than a visit to the ER.
Not so for bicycles, and even less so for new-age electric devices going 20-30MPH depending on jurisdiction.
My city has a 25MPH speed limit for cars (although most cars break it). For new-age electric vehicles, the speed (and injuries) are similar. However, drivers are licensed. Most one-wheels, mopeds, ebikes, and similar are driven by idiots without licenses or clear law enforcement.
That's what e-bikes and mopeds bring to my city. The infrastructures is designed for pedestrians, cars, and mass transit. Bicycles are being retrofitted. It's completely NOT designed for dozens of oddball vehicles which are coming up. The people riding them aren't as competent as cyclists (which isn't a very high bar) and cause unsafe situations all the time.
That's my city. Yours might be different. I've been to cities where these worked great, and loved them. Here, they're pure evil and a menace.
TL;DR: This needs planning, infrastructure changes, and regulation. With that, this might be the solution. Without that, a lot of cities will be in trouble.