Do electric bikes save lives?

Here in Vancouver there have been a couple of high profile cycling deaths; last year a lady fell under a bus trying to get around a pedestrian, another person was killed by a truck on a busy street. I've been commuting on a regular mountain bike, rain or shine for about 3 years before getting my motor kit, and in that time I wiped out only three times. I can say with reasonable certainty that the only cause for my falls was because I was tired.
There's a dude lives near me, works near me, in way better shape than me, rides every day about 50 km. I saw him the other afternoon at a stop light on a really hot day, and when it turned green he wobbled pretty good before straightening out. I thought, It's the wobble that gets ya. I think about the lady who got crushed by the bus. Was she tired out? Would an inexpensive electric motor have given her a quick boost to avoid tragedy? All I know is I haven't wiped out once since I got my motor. Not even close.
So in conclusion, we need to make electric biking more mainstream. Right now people think we're a bunch of crackpots, wiring up a bunch of D cells to a weed whacker bolted onto a stumpjumper. They need to find out that it's not horribly expensive to electrify your bike, and that unobtrusive systems like the BBS02 are available. Of course there will always be cycling purists who would never sully their rides, and more power to them, but the bottom line is an electric bike can get you home safely, which is all that matters in the end.

All bicycles are inherently radically safer.

It's the cars/trucks/busses that do the murdering.

I actually think that people are the danger. Whenever someone skips a safety rule or a practice because they think it's never gone happen to them, they are assuming the risk. And this usually put others in risk too. And shit usually happens when you skip those safety tips. If everyone followed traffic rules hardly, no human fault accidents would ever happen, because the traffic laws are made in a way that even if someone fails, other drivers are going to be in the right position to avoid the accident. So, what I do is simple, even though I have the preference, I use to stop/slow down, because I'm in a bike and I'm unprotected. There's no dangerous ways of transportation, there are dangerous people.

TheSlogger said:

So in conclusion, we need to make electric biking more mainstream. Right now people think we're a bunch of crackpots, wiring up a bunch of D cells to a weed whacker bolted onto a stumpjumper. They need to find out that it's not horribly expensive to electrify your bike, and that unobtrusive systems like the BBS02 are available. Of course there will always be cycling purists who would never sully their rides, and more power to them, but the bottom line is an electric bike can get you home safely, which is all that matters in the end.

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All for that happening. But eBikes are going mainstream. It seems every major bike maker is jumping into the market now. I'm of the opinion here in the hilly home city that there needs to be more bikes, electric or not, on the road before our City will invest in becoming bike friendly, meaning marked bike lines criss-crossing the City. eBikes help the ordinary rider deal with the hills, so more of them means just that. And yea, it will be safer. But we don't have critical mass yet.

TheSlogger said:

I thought, It's the wobble that gets ya.

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Avoiding the unstable dynamics of pedal takeoffs has to be safer.

There's no single panacea which will make you invincible. Sure, do what you can to improve odds here & there but no one "thing" is gonna save your ass in a tricky situation.

Brother Luke is 100% correct - it's the cars/trucks/buses murdering people which is the problem. Not bikes with or without motors.

This is a real problem, ( the car and truck drivers) and it doesn't go away with a motor. However,,

IMO the single most important safety improvement a motor can make, is you can decide to take the safer, but much longer way to your destination. No more avoiding that hill, or taking a short cut on that 6 lane road.

But you have to actually do that. And in some places there is no avoiding a bridge or underpass that's a half mile of death zone.

Bottom line, if you get right crossed, left crossed, or hit from behind, you allowed it. Never trust a single one of em. Mirrors help, but you also just have to ride like every car will door you, or right cross you. If you can't dismount or lay it down at 20-30 mph, you better learn how or ride slower. You might have to dive for your life someday when somebody is passing you with a wheel in the bike lane.

All this still applied if your bike does 45 mph and takes the lane. You better know what to do when you get left crossed, or be ready and able to thread the needle when a car coming from behind never sees you and wants to park in your spot at the light. I watched a guy on a Harley get sandwiched like that at a light a few years ago. Very hard to see it happen. But the idiot on the Harley was not eyeballing that car behind him, he trusted it. Big mistake. A bike or even a large Harley can somewhat blend in with the car in front, and never be seen by the next car that comes along.

In general, that's the problem. Ride like you are invisible, because a lot of the time, you are. Try to be visible, my whole shirts and coats wardrobe is now all yellow.

The speed and acceleration of an ebike definitely makes for a safer ride in traffic IMO. Slugging up a steep hill at 8mph on a hot day is both unpleasant and risky, as 30mph traffic impatiently and inconsiderately squeezes past. The same hill at an assisted 20mph is much safer, as you're exposed to the situation for a much shorter length of time and the traffic is more patient as you're not holding them up too much.

I do agree that more cycles and fewer cars can only help things. It would ease congestion, reduce average traffic speed and there would be a greater chance that the remaining car drivers would also be cyclists at other times, making them more sympathetic and courteous.

Well, for myself, having the power to GTFOOTW of drivers doing things they shouldn't has probably saved my life a couple of times. :lol: I couldn't have done it by pedal power, so....


Also, having hte motor to do at least most (and usually all) of the work for me has kept me from heatstroke probably hundreds of times.


I'm not sure how else it might have saved lives, but at least those two.

In my traffic engineering course last semester, I wrote a term paper about autonomous vehicles (e.g. Google car). I found a source (maybe two sources) that estimated 92% of accidents in vehicles are caused by human error. I would say that bikers are generally more aware of their surroundings. It's pretty hard to text and bike, or drink and bike, or eat a pizza and bike.

I've seen hundreds or even many thousands of oblivious people on bikes. Same people that if walking stroll out into traffic just as stupidly.

Some are life long bikers, with a 200 mile a week lifetime average. Sometimes a "lycra" grinding away is the most oblivious rider of all. But generally the worst offender is a college student, riding a bike again freshman year. Always riding with one hand on the bars, the other holding the phone.

But on a bike, you can use your eyes and ears, if you aren't watching breaking bad on your phone while you ride.

Paying attention is critical. I take a different view of our Etrikes "saving our lives". No way I can go 20 miles on a trike including a 1.5 mile 5% hill at the end of the ride without assist. With assist my wife and I can do a regular 20 miles 4-5 days a week and still be able to walk and breathe at the end. Yes we are sore, but at 69 I expect to be. They are definitely "life saving" in my book.
otherDoc

trav said:

In my traffic engineering course last semester, I wrote a term paper about autonomous vehicles (e.g. Google car). I found a source (maybe two sources) that estimated 92% of accidents in vehicles are caused by human error. I would say that bikers are generally more aware of their surroundings. It's pretty hard to text and bike, or drink and bike, or eat a pizza and bike.

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LMAO - You may want a better school. Shall I post up some Queensbridge bike path video? It's all right there every trip - idiots on their phone weaving back & forth without a care in the world. Really? It's so important they can't wait a few minutes or just pull over?

`COURSE they are! (They have exercise built-in as an option. Seems to me the cars I last owned didn't EVen HAVE pedals.) Ya know how much folks spend these daze on "weight loss clinics", etc? Or that are disabled and or killed due to being overweight?

Saving life is an illusion. No one ever saved any, since every life in history has ended in death.

I know that life has a better quality once you accepted that it will end, and stop worrying about how and when.

Yah. Watt he said above. It's a timing thing.

Ykick said:

LMAO - You may want a better school. Shall I post up some Queensbridge bike path video? It's all right there every trip - idiots on their phone weaving back & forth without a care in the world. Really? It's so important they can't wait a few minutes or just pull over?

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Please post some! We don't have bike paths here. I see people on normal bikes with their phones out all the time, but I haven't ever seen one on an electric bike with their phone out. I don't get it either, people should just pull over and take care of their business before they hop on a bike or drive a car.

trav said:

I would say that bikers are generally more aware of their surroundings.

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Not here, or anywhere else I've ridden.

Now, there *are* some that are a lot more aware than others, and many of them are "lycra" types that ride hard and fast, or ride all the time, but the average person I see riding bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, skateboards, etc., is no more aware than the pedestrians or car/truck drivers are, and they do the same things, like trying to eat, put on makeup, drink, text or talk on phones, etc., regardless of what they're riding or operating.

I'd venture to say that for at least a good part of them, maybe even the most part, people regardless of who or where they are or what they are doing are concentrating far more on what they are themselves "enjoying" or "thinking about", than what they are actually doing or what else is going on around them.

gogo said:

TheSlogger said:

I thought, It's the wobble that gets ya.

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Avoiding the unstable dynamics of pedal takeoffs has to be safer.

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And the amount of time spent in the intersection is greatly reduced. Also, getting out in front of traffic before you get through the intersection makes things MUCH safer for all traffic

trav said:

In my traffic engineering course last semester, I wrote a term paper about autonomous vehicles (e.g. Google car). I found a source (maybe two sources) that estimated 92% of accidents in vehicles are caused by human error. I would say that bikers are generally more aware of their surroundings. It's pretty hard to text and bike, or drink and bike, or eat a pizza and bike.

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Are the autonomous cars going to be able to see ebikers better than human drivers? Hopefully the human is paying attention still and can override if they fell a dangerous situation is about to occur that a car cannot fully anticipate as fast as a human.

cal3thousand said:

trav said:

Are the autonomous cars going to be able to see ebikers better than human drivers? Hopefully the human is paying attention still and can override if they fell a dangerous situation is about to occur that a car cannot fully anticipate as fast as a human.

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From the research that I found, autonomous vehicles have better response time than human drivers when they encounter objects in the road that should not be there. Originally, I had the same thoughts as you. However, when you take into account that the average human reaction time is around 0.2 to 0.25 seconds, and also that humans can really only process stimuli one at a time, it makes sense that a computer would be able to create a safer environment than a human driver. Think about how many processes a computer can handle all at once. Coupled with the ability to crunch the numbers, autonomous vehicles have a pretty good shot at reducing accidents and fatalities resulting from vehicular crashes.

Keep in mind that the only time a google car has caused an accident was at a time where a driver had overridden the automated navigation system.

trav said:

cal3thousand said:

trav said:

Are the autonomous cars going to be able to see ebikers better than human drivers? Hopefully the human is paying attention still and can override if they fell a dangerous situation is about to occur that a car cannot fully anticipate as fast as a human.

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From the research that I found, autonomous vehicles have better response time than human drivers when they encounter objects in the road that should not be there. Originally, I had the same thoughts as you. However, when you take into account that the average human reaction time is around 0.75 seconds, and also that humans can really only process stimuli one at a time, it makes sense that a computer would be able to create a safer environment than a human driver. Think about how many processes a computer can handle all at once. Coupled with the ability to crunch the numbers, autonomous vehicles have a pretty good shot at reducing accidents and fatalities resulting from vehicular crashes.

Keep in mind that the only time a google car has caused an accident was at a time where a driver had overridden the automated navigation system.

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I understand that a machine will have a better reaction time than a human, but humans have the ability to anticipate situations and predict the behavior of other humans etc better than robots.

What I am wondering is that even with ultra fast reaction times, if some accident avoidance is not just about reacting, but proactively scanning and predicting danger? Many times, I can predict how a car is going to behave based on the previous 'body language' of the vehicle. I'm not sure robots can effective do this.

cal3thousand said:

I understand that a machine will have a better reaction time than a human, but humans have the ability to anticipate situations and predict the behavior of other humans etc better than robots.

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That is putting waaay more faith in the average idiot than I am willing.

Car free city"s FTW!

Maybe the question is Do electric bikes injure and kill as many plant and animals (some of them human) as the horseless carriage powered by gasoline or diseasal-powered (sp?) motors?