“Ban e-bikes”

The short of it is that UL certified batteries seem safe (the Citi bike batteries haven’t burned, as far as they know). The problems are higher for non certified batteries, used batteries, and rebuilt ones. People buy non certified ones because they fit more energy in them at the expense of safety tech.

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r/fuckebikes

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That six deaths referred specifically to the battery fires. Cars are, at least, required to have license plates and drivers to be licensed and insured. You can identify someone, you can claim against their insurance for damage or injury. If ebike riders hit someone or cause damage somewhere, you're out of luck when they zoom off. Death stats you may be able to find, but accident stats, no.

One change could be to require license plates and insurance, with deliberate consideration and planning to make sure it happens in a way that minimizes cost and harm. Maybe inspections for the batteries if they don't ban the unapproved ones. But banning the non certified batteries would work fine with license plates and insurance.

A ebike fire in a large multi-family apartment even non-combustible type building vs a car, hmm...? Let's not get head ourselves with that at times toxic and non-sensical anti-car rhetoric my guy. People are asshole drivers regardless on a bike or in a vehicle.

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> You can identify someone, you can claim against their insurance for damage or injury.

The first thing wrong with this is that fake and obscured plates are at epidemic levels in the city. I could walk down the block and find 5 right now before I got to the nearest bodega. These guys could mow down pre-schoolers at a crosswalk and get away with it if they kept going.

The second thing is that insurance is motivated at meth-head levels of single minded focus to make the problem go away as soon as possible and as cheaply as possible, and will almost NEVER go beyond the police report in assigning blame or forcing compensation. So you're dependent in your payout, on whatever bored cops show up that day, and that's ONLY IF the vehicle aggressor sticks around.

The clear and specific way to solve the battery issue is to ban non-UL batteries, and have random checkpoints at which all EVs are inspected and impounded if found to have fakes.

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Cars drivers at least you can sue for liability for injuries, death, and property damage due to insurance and license plates identifying the car. I know there are responsible e riders but the large amount of bad ones and bad delivery ones don't give me much sympathy with their hit and runs.

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Always get UL listed products!!! They are there for a reason ...

Heart disease kills WAY more people than cars, let’s ban sugar and fat instead. Always gotta focus on the higher number when we’re talking about an unrelated issue!

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One of those assholes has a significantly higher likelihood of killing you.

E-Bikes will need safety regulations like cars & motorcycles.

They are motorized vehicles, just because they use electric doesn't mean they are not motorized.

I also believe they should have registrations like other motorized vehicles.

Yeah, batteries need to be regulated. Its not that complicated. These articles need to start focusing on why our government hasn't regulated or enforced regulations on it.

The batteries are swappable, and likely if you have an inspection mechanism people will just bring a valid battery, and swap it for a bad battery at some point.

Even if you could tie it, you can require registration, but what is the enforcement mechanism? There are already packs of dirt bikes that roam the streets all summer that are unregistered vehicles. The police are discouraged from giving chase because of the high risk of death.

people buy non certified and rebuilt ones because they’re dirt cheap. new high Wh 48V+ batteries are north of $500…

like anything it's usually a few bad apples that ruin things for everyone else. My friends elderly mom got hit by a car. Lawyer got her 60k plus hospital bills. If e vehicles are required to be insured it could also lead to the delivery services requiring only licensed vehicles be used and employers held liable or bikes confiscated for being unlicensed. Fake license plates is part of the general NYC police indifference which is impacting all crime levels but eventually politicians will get police to make this a priority again, I long island there are crack downs on fake paper plates from time to time. Unfortunately in the US only major fear of consequences motivate the bad actors

The NYTimes has an article today regarding battery fires: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/nyregion/lithium-ion-battery-fires.html?smid=url-share

Gotta love the delivery worker advocate arguing that other devices use lithium -ion batteries too, so the City shouldn't try to regulate them.

I had a E-bike store move in down the street to my apartment some 2 years ago. It burnt down last year - the fire was so hot that it melted/deformed the building.

While I'm sympathetic to delivery drivers, their job existed prior to the invention of E-bikes, they can manage with reasonable regulation.

The state needs to actively regulate E-bikes. They are covered under the VTL as it stands. I'm afraid there's going to need to be a fire with terrible consequences before the government does anything, though.

Yeah, if they regulate the batteries, then the ranges will decrease. The delivery apps will adapt their algorithms, or prices will increase slightly. That all seems okay to me.

Given the number of e-bikes that zip around pedestrian spaces, we 100% need this for the inevitable crashes. Anytime I run over the qboro bridge from queens into Manhattan I feel like I’m playing frogger to avoid getting killed by an e-bike because they do NOT pay attention to the line dividing the bike path from the pedestrian path. I’m constantly pointing at the bike lane and yelling at them to get out of our lane and into theirs.

The QBB desperately needs another lane for bikes and peds. I guess ideally you'd have three:

1. Peds
2. Non-motorized bikes
3. Powered vehicles incl. scooters (ICE & electric) and e-bikes. Anything motorized but not car or light truck. Maybe even motorcycles.

Enforcement probably has to come at a higher level than e-bike owners. Regulations on production, imports, retailers, logistics...basically make it more difficult and expensive to get an illegal non-UL battery than a legit one. Would help if there was movement on this in most states or even federally.

There is an EZ answer.... All restaurants and apps can only use certified safe and regularly inspected batteries. The onus should be on business that depend on deliveries to ensure their batteries aren't dangerous . Any restrictions on the riders are uneforcable, since 90% are undocumented.

Don't worry. We are moving at the speed of government to fix this!