Yeah, the issue isn’t the light motorcycles/mopeds/etc.
A thing which has a motor and where the human delivers less than 30% of the power at max speed is a light motorcycle. The reason for that is with more power you need a heavier battery and a much heavier frame with better brakes. You need a solid helmet which again makes it impractical to pedal at power because it becomes hot. At 40 km/h, it becomes to chill in the winter and at 45 km/h or so, you really need protective clothing because otherwise in a fall, the asfalt will strip your skin off. At that point it is very clearly becoming a motorcycle. You have lost thr technical sweet spot of a bicycle at that point. There have been many attempts to blur that line (guess what the name “Mofa” comes from or “Moped” or why these things have pedals which nobody uses).
And we have motor-powered bikes since a long time - over 75 years -, and regulations have evolved out of need. Traditinally, the motor was a combustion engine - but that’s the only difference and it is totally irrelevant for traffic safety.
That’s not totally correct. Here in Germany we have so called “Mofas” which translates to “motorized bicycle”. Those are different from eBikes and heavily regulated. There are age limits, drivers licence, insurance requirements, regulations where you are allowed to drive and so on. And yes, they are also restricted to 25km/h. Why are there this heavy regulations which are not in place for our pedelecs? The reason is plain racism in combination with “old people hate young people”. Those Mofas were popular with young migrant workers back in the 50s and 60s. And therefore they were regulated as fuck. You will see stuff like this with modern eScooters where the whole class will be restricted because they are popular with younger people.
What I wanted to say was exactly this: There is a rule in place that basically created artificial differences between the same thing. A 25km/h vehicle with a motor and pedals is heavily restricted, another one is totally free. Which makes no sense.
Those Mofas were popular with young migrant workers back in the 50s and 60s. And therefore they were regulated as fuck.
I don’t believe that. I was going to secondary school in Germany in the late seventies / early eighties and they were very popular with white middle class teenagers and apprentices younger than 18 years old. And they were regulated because of tons of serious accidents. Migrant workers would not earn very well and they would use a bike. Young students or workers would much more likely light motorcycles - in the seventies, the motorcycle industry worked very hard to both make them more affordable, and to work around regulations for motor bikes which had much higher safety requirements.
In addition, in 1965 mofas where exempted from requiring a drivers licence. Before, as of 1960, a mofa was considedered a moped and did require a proper class 5 (today: class AM) drivers license.
A thing which has a motor and where the human delivers less than 30% of the power at max speed is a light motorcycle. The reason for that is with more power you need a heavier battery and a much heavier frame with better brakes. You need a solid helmet which again makes it impractical to pedal at power because it becomes hot. At 40 km/h, it becomes to chill in the winter and at 45 km/h or so, you really need protective clothing because otherwise in a fall, the asfalt will strip your skin off. At that point it is very clearly becoming a motorcycle. You have lost thr technical sweet spot of a bicycle at that point. There have been many attempts to blur that line (guess what the name “Mofa” comes from or “Moped” or why these things have pedals which nobody uses).
And we have motor-powered bikes since a long time - over 75 years -, and regulations have evolved out of need. Traditinally, the motor was a combustion engine - but that’s the only difference and it is totally irrelevant for traffic safety.
That’s not totally correct. Here in Germany we have so called “Mofas” which translates to “motorized bicycle”. Those are different from eBikes and heavily regulated. There are age limits, drivers licence, insurance requirements, regulations where you are allowed to drive and so on. And yes, they are also restricted to 25km/h. Why are there this heavy regulations which are not in place for our pedelecs? The reason is plain racism in combination with “old people hate young people”. Those Mofas were popular with young migrant workers back in the 50s and 60s. And therefore they were regulated as fuck. You will see stuff like this with modern eScooters where the whole class will be restricted because they are popular with younger people.
What I wanted to say was exactly this: There is a rule in place that basically created artificial differences between the same thing. A 25km/h vehicle with a motor and pedals is heavily restricted, another one is totally free. Which makes no sense.
I don’t believe that. I was going to secondary school in Germany in the late seventies / early eighties and they were very popular with white middle class teenagers and apprentices younger than 18 years old. And they were regulated because of tons of serious accidents. Migrant workers would not earn very well and they would use a bike. Young students or workers would much more likely light motorcycles - in the seventies, the motorcycle industry worked very hard to both make them more affordable, and to work around regulations for motor bikes which had much higher safety requirements.
In addition, in 1965 mofas where exempted from requiring a drivers licence. Before, as of 1960, a mofa was considedered a moped and did require a proper class 5 (today: class AM) drivers license.