This week the cities of Danville, San Ramon, & Dublin ticketed dozens of "unsafe" youth ebike riders in a crackdown effort. Meanwhile, these cities have each built zero protected bikeway projects to date, ten years after they were legalized in California. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lmG... - ThreadSky

prinzrob.bsky.social • 12 days ago

This week the cities of Danville, San Ramon, & Dublin ticketed dozens of "unsafe" youth ebike riders in a crackdown effort. Meanwhile, these cities have each built zero protected bikeway projects to date, ten years after they were legalized in California.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lmGIv1srUM

Comments

stevewithag.bsky.social•11 days ago

I have this crazy idea. What if we didn't find new and stupid ways to harass children? What if we did almost anything instead of that?

trains.bsky.social•11 days ago

Defund the police and fund bike lanes(among many other actually useful public resources)

cselby.bsky.social•11 days ago

Yeah, my theory is that if kids are mostly riding in the street they want to be able to keep up with traffic cause it feels safer. It doesn't feel safe to be riding 10mph in an unprotected bike lane

prinzrob.bsky.social•11 days ago

Or at least if the cities expect the kids to respect the law around ebike speeds, then the cities should respect the kids by providing appropriate infrastructure. And that doesn’t mean just a few multi-use trails that don’t serve most transportation needs.

prinzrob.bsky.social•12 days ago

San Ramon has yet to build any of the dozen protected bikeways from their 2018 bike plan update. Danville updated their bike plan but included zero protected bikeway recommendations. Dublin had one project fully designed for implementation last year but then decided to cancel the bikeway protection.

prinzrob.bsky.social•11 days ago

I agree that the proliferation of non-compliant e-devices isn't good, though the crackdown is needed on the manufacturers & retailers selling the devices. Local jurisdictions that can't bother to build adequate bikeways but still find time to write ebike tickets can miss me with that.

prinzrob.bsky.social•11 days ago

The news piece claims an explosion in ebike-related incidents. But per the TIMS database there were zero severe injury bike crashes in Dublin 2018-22, 3 in 2023 of which 1 was cyclist fault, & 2 in 2024 w 1 cyclist fault. 1 of these 5 crashes involved an ebike. There have been no fatal bike crashes.

prinzrob.bsky.social•11 days ago

In comparison, over the same 2018-2024 timeline there were 8 people killed in crashes in Dublin, 6 of them in cars and 2 as pedestrians. In one of the pedestrian crashes the driver was charged w misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter, & in the 2nd w DUI.

burke.bsky.social•11 days ago

And the parents buying them.

aboutdave.bsky.social•11 days ago

The focus on the presence or absence of a throttle is extremely dumb. A bike with a pedal sensor set to max assistance acts just like a throttle (but with less precise control). I actually think removing the throttle increases the risk.

burke.bsky.social•11 days ago

A lot of these kids are going 20-25mph on the trail FWIW, the problem is it’s an arms race, one kid gets a bike without the 20mph speed governor and then they all want one

burke.bsky.social•11 days ago

Or on the paths in public parks. I don’t think this is unsafe and I’m pretty sympathetic to kids wanting to ride bikes but this has been coming

prinzrob.bsky.social•11 days ago

Like I said, the crackdown needs to be on the device manufacturers & retailers. A few days of enforcement doesn't actually make progress on overall safety goals, & serves to distract from higher priority issues including a glaring omission of adequate on-street infrastructure.

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