Last September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law SB-1271, which redefines and adds to several electric bicycle regulations in…
Last September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law SB-1271, which redefines and adds to several electric bicycle regulations in…
I see where you’re coming from, but we also need to consider the mass of these vehicles, not just their speed. Person+bike at 50km/h vs pedestrian at rest means a roughly 1:1 split on the inertia after impact, and a pedestrian accelerated to 25km/h. Car at 50km/h vs person+bike at rest is a 1:10 or 1:20 split in inertia after impact, and rider accelerated to very nearly 50km/h.
IMO sharing a space with pedestrians is the lesser harm outcome if we cannot provide safe infrastructure which separates such vehicles from both cars and pedestrians.
In the Netherlands we have quite good infrastructure for bikes, but e-bikes/scooters going >25kph really fuck up the safety.
I’m with OP, if you want to go that fast you should be in the road.
It’s not all about the impact. It’s also about the chance or impact. If you’re going at that speed on pedestrian zones, you’ll eventually hit someone, or be very close to doing so. Pedestrians go in any direction, and can change at any time in an instant. If you go fast, no matter how fast your reflexes are, they won’t be fast enough to brake in time on pedestrian zones.
The roads not being safe for non-cars is not the problem for pedestrians. Use the bike lane in those cases.