How much of this is the bicycle, and how much of this is that it enables less conscientious people to go more miles at otherwise normal cycling speeds? The e- part is limited to speeds most people can reach on a normal bicycle unless they modify it.
/r/IdiotsInCars is a monument to how ineffective permitting is for this purpose. The people rear-ending pedestrians on sidewalks at 20MPH might be the same people who never miss their off ramp.
> The e- part is limited to speeds that most people can reach on a normal bicycle.
Maybe.
There are regulations, but the wording is generally such that the bike cannot be sold with a speed capability greater than X. So the bikes ship from the factory with a firmware setting for the max speed of X. But as soon as people buy the bike they go into the bike settings (!) and change it to whatever higher speed that they want.
Whenever crashes happen these settings need to be examined and they need to be part of the liability determination.
Also, how much of this riding in pedestrian areas is because all resources and area has been assigned to cars? Instead of being angry at cyclists, I often wish more people saw that it shouldn't be a fight between "soft road users", but instead a fight against cars limiting where people can move themselves.
/r/IdiotsInCars is a monument to how ineffective permitting is for this purpose. The people rear-ending pedestrians on sidewalks at 20MPH might be the same people who never miss their off ramp.