this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023

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micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility

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Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!

"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.

micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"

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Cops Are Now Using E-Bikes To Chase Illegal E-Bikers (insideevs.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If I escape with clown shoes and a pogo stick, are the cops going to chase me in the same manner? Asking for a friend

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

There's really only one way to find out. Be sure to report back to us!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'd prefer it. Meet crime where it's at, you know?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with an E-Bike is a good guy with an E-bike.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

But instead they gave the e-bikes to the police.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

You’re telling me I gotta do the work of stopping all these cops?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But are fat tire bikes the best option? Or are they chasing bad guys in snow and sand? 😂

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, you see, they look cool.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At least you'll know that they're coming! LOL

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thum-thum-thum-thum-thum

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Wuwuwuwuwuwuwwwuwuwuuw

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

So I outrun fat cops on bikes with my bike instead of fat cops on foot. Not really a problem since those fucks don't know how to ride a bike over anything but the flattest straightest roads.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Bike cops are a different breed

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They'll just deploy the hose cops.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYivyUfarws

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

So I outrun fat cops

Sure you do

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's a Fast and Furious movie in here somewhere...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I could get behind that. Me and my... family....

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Unsurprisingly, the authorities have taken notice of this, and are now making use of e-bikes to catch crooks on e-bikes. Talk about fighting fire with fire.

But e-bikes aren't the fire..?

[+] [email protected] -6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I hope it works - there's a real need for enforcement. In NYC I constantly see e-bikes driving on sidewalks, going the wrong way on one-way streets, and running red lights. They're a real threat to pedestrians, and the police aren't able to do anything about it. I was happy when e-bikes were legalized here, but now I would vote to ban them again unless something changes.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While we're talking about vehicles where almost no one follows the traffic laws, let's ban cars, too!
(speed limits, safe passing and following distance, indicating on turns, staying off the phone, staying off bike paths, using the horn only in emergencies, coming to a complete stop at stop signs...)

[+] [email protected] -7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The two situations are not really comparable.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, they are. All traffic users disregard traffic rules, which increases the danger for others.
The groups only differ in which traffic rules they like to ignore and which other group of traffic users they endanger by doing so.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Cities aren't built around e-bikes and the e-bike adoption rate, availability and all those things aren't on par with cars. It's just not the same. Unless you simplify it to "they're used to move around".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To say that laws should apply more to e-bikes because cities are designed for cars is both wrong and dangerous. You realize that the bike came before the car, right? That cities actually were built around bikes, horses, and ..ugh.. walking, long before the assembly line was even a twinkle in young Ford's eye?

The poster is saying that if you are going to call out the operators of one for gross negligence, then the other should be called out as well. It is a very comparable situation and pretending that because cars are more ubiquitous, they should somehow be less restricted is a leap in logic that is rather ludicrous.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't think they're saying that. They're hoping e-bikes get banned because of the issues they cause. Cars, regular bicycles and whatnot are sorta a lost cause at this point, they're so crucial and numerous that it'd be really hard to ban them. So you have to deal them in other ways. Not so much for e-bikes which are new and nowhere near as numerous, so could feasibly be banned without as much issues.

It's all well and good to consider them all equal and want to treat them as such, from a fairness point of view. But there's big differences between them and in reality you'd have to take that into account and work with those differences. Even if it means being more lenient to one method.

Unless we're talking about just pure hypothetical or fantasy scenario. Then it's fine, don't have to care about the differences then. But it's good to keep things somewhat grounded imo.

The poster is saying that if you are going to call out the operators of one for gross negligence, then the other should be called out as well.

By all means. I'm just saying it's not the same, for the (imo) obvious and well, now mentioned reasons.

pretending that because cars are more ubiquitous, they should somehow be less restricted is a leap in logic that is rather ludicrous.

Don't know what you mean with less restricted. I don't care if you ban all vehicles. I'm not advocating for some policy. Just saying it was a bad comparison because of the big differences.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, I'm simplifying it to "If you want to use rule-breaking as reason to ban a class of vehicle, you have to apply it to all vehicles".

Or even shorter: "Don't ban e-bikes for bullshit reasons"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"If you want to use rule-breaking as reason to ban a class of vehicle, you have to apply it to all vehicles".

But you don't have to. And you wouldn't treat everything the same since they aren't the same. It's like saying when designing traffic routes, you have to treat every class of vehicle the same. Of course you wouldn't, you'd consider prevalence, design goals, feasibility, need, all kinds of things.

Simplifying too much is a bad thing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But you don’t have to.

But the comment I answered at the beginning of this chain did.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

They're applying it to e-bikes. They said nothing about being an universal policy that affects any other vehicles the exact same way.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Driving on sidewalks because there are no bicycle lanes preventing you from being crushed to death by an emotional support truck.

Going the wrong way on one-way streets because it hardly matters on a bicycle since one-way streets were created for cars specifically.

Running red lights because solely cars can ride the Green Wave, bicyclists have to stop at significantly more traffic lights.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I live in NYC too. I get that there are a lot of delivery workers zipping around on e-bikes. And yeah, it’s a little annoying and dangerous.

But I’m in WAY more danger and am way more consistently shocked by the stupidity of car drivers in this city. Blatantly running red lights, speeding, going up one way streets (in my neighborhood it happens plenty), doing real stupid shit where they shouldn’t/don’t have the time nor space…just because we’ve for some reason grown to think of cars as inevitable, we ignore just how insane the space we’ve sacrificed to them is. Think of how much public space is dedicated to cars. It’s like we live in a car’s world.

In the city! Barely anyone truly needs cars here. And somehow people decide to sit through hours of traffic to not take the train. And they block bike lanes because they’re running errands and double park, the trucks have to squeeze through and then THEY block the bike lanes—or even the walking lanes! The car situation in the city is off the fuckin wall. The e-bike situation by comparison is fuckin nothin.