Trial of 12mph bike lane speed limit grinds gears of Dutch cyclists
(www.theguardian.com)
EuropeThe place where I live has a speed limit for bike streets, so entire streets that are designated for biking only, of 30 km/h. Maybe annoying to some, but if you think that 30 plus 30 equals 60 when two people approach each other, I mean that can do some serious damage. Most people I see driving bikes regularly travel only 15 km/h anyway.
Funniest thing though is, even if I drive 50 with my bike on a normal road, cars will still overtake me out of principle, even though that's exactly the posted speed limit. And speed limits apply to bikes here as well.
For context, this is the place they're testing the 20km/h speed limit at. There's no reasonable explanation to go faster than 20 km/h there anyway, regardless of legal limits.
That's rather important context.
The problem would then only be if they take a test made in a specific place with narrow paths and much traffic and apply it to all bikes everywhere.
If you want bikers to slow down then you need to do the same thing you do to cars. Traffic calming features. Because as a biker I'm going to go as fast as I'm able to safely in order to maintain my rhythm and not waste energy. Don't give me a straight path 500 meters long and expect me to putter along at running pace. That makes little sense.
What is 20mph in sane units?
What is 20mph in sane units?
Around 32 km/h.
Limiting cyclists to 12mph is like forcing people to crawl. It's going to make cycling practically useless for transportation and exercise.
Seriously, I have to make a sustained conscious effort to ride under 12mph, it just feels unnatural, and I'm a fat out of shape old guy.
City roads are for transportation, not exercise. And 20 km/h is a little on the slow side, but hardly "useless" for transportation.
Ok, we can play that game. You are no longer allowed to drive anywhere faster than 12mph.
20 km/hr*, we don't use miles
Thank you. I was wondering what it meant
Last year, an estimated 80,900 cyclists ended up in A&E departments after accidents, and cyclist deaths rose 14% to 281.
If you dont take into account growth of cycling over all then this number is largely meaningless. If cycling grew by 14% too then accidents didnt actually increase in a way that matters for traffic safety.
In the Netherlands the issue is, from my understanding, that people are cycling increasingly late in life.
Elderly people cycling was always a common thing. But now that e-bikes are commonplace, elderly people are able to keep cycling for much longer than they would have been able to without the assistance of an e-bike.
When an elderly person falls or otherwise gets into an accident, they are far more likely to get severly injured and/or die than when that happens to someone younger.
All 80k are old people too, this is a fake law
12 mph = 20 km/h or kph
A woman told the programme: “This is all about cyclists on motorised bicycles, so I should think you would do something about motorised cyclists. Make a rule for them and not for all cyclists.”
+1
Half of the issue is that many motorised bicycles go faster than the 25 km/h they're allowed to, anyway, plus all the old people who don't have the reflexes, eyesight etc. anymore to safely control a 25 km/h vehicle on a bicycle path. It's very rare that people that go fast on regular bicycles are a serious issue.
“This is all about cyclists on motorised bicycles
I don't think so. I regularly go 25 km/h on my normal bike without trying. 35 km/h if I try. And it's not a racing bike in any way, it's a regular used 300€ bicycle
People like you have existed in NL for decades, it's clearly e-bikes that inspired this speed limit experiment.
E-bikes already aren't allowed to go faster than 25km/h.
E-bikes are allowed to go faster than 25 km/h, it's just that the motor has to stop helping beyond that speed. Important difference.
I don't think that a general 20 km/h speed limit is the best choice. Maybe add tiers based on the type of path. Bike lanes on roads and bike paths without immediately adjacent foot paths could go pretty fast, bike paths separated from foot paths only by a line on the ground a bit slower, and shared foot/bike paths even slower. Maybe something like 30/20/15 km/h.
Before someone comments "but bike lanes on roads are also immediately adjacent to foot paths": Yes, but so are roads without bike paths and cars are allowed 30 or even 50 km/h on those. It's generally understood that roads are dangerous and need special consideration so I'd be willing to allow 30 km/h on bike lanes.
There doesn't need to be a new rule for motorized bikes on bike lanes because there are already very clear rules. Max 25 km/h, not allowed to have autonomous support, max 250W, manufacturer has an obligation to prevent tampering.
Those rules are legislative in the whole of the EU.
The issue is with the enforcement of the rules. Not only in the streets, but also at the importer.
The issue is also with how the rules are written.
The max 250W refer to continuous motor power over 30 minutes.
Here's how that is measured to determine if a motor is legal:
- The motor has a temperature of 25+/-5°C at the start of the test.
- It is then supplied with the power the manufacturer says is closest to its maximum continuous power.
- The power at the crank is measured and its average must not exceed 250W during the test.
- After 30 minutes, the motor must not have warmed up by more than 20K.
So a manufacturer can have their motor tested at 250W and passed, even though it can supply 1000W peak power.
And all they need to do (legally, mind you) to supply 1000W continuously is add some cooling fins.
You are correct that the power of 250W is not very strictly defined in the standards. However, for the maximum speed there is a clear specification or 25 km/h with a maximum tolerance of 10%.
Regarding the power, yes it's true that the bike standard EN15194 allows for some creativity to boost the power (not the speed) and many ebike systems do this. However, it seems that lately this is getting out of hand with some system manufacturers offering motors with more than 1000W of peak power. This raises the question if the way the standard describes it, might be modified in the future to better align the product with the vehicle class. The whole epac vehicle class was initially meant to help people who need pedal support to cycle. The epac class was intentionally created and classified as a bike instead of a motor vehicle to promote public mobility and health. And you could make an argument that a 1000W electric bike abuses that class for a different purpose.
The movement to tighten the regulation is already underway.
And it has a good chance of succeeding, since Bosch is greasing palms to get it passed.
Of course they'll design their proposal in a way that'll also shut out their Chinese competition.
All of europe flat? I didnt think 250 would be enough help to make it up hills
I cycled up The Hill in Torino this morning. Definitely not flat, I can tell you. Strava estimates an average of 155W over 25 minutes for a leisurely 10km/h. Add another 100W and some pedaling to offset the heavier bike, and you're going up quite fast enough.
They're only capped at an average of 250W over 30 minutes.
Peak output is in the 800-1000W range, and the duration is only limited by heat.
There is no way for a manufacturer to completely prevent tampering. There should be a fine if you're caught bypassing safety guards.
For manufacturers, there is a difference between making something hard to tamper with, and not preventing it at all.
For instance, you can speed up a Bosch equipped bike but you need to install an add-on module from a controversial third party that messes with the CAN bus data.
Whilst on some Chinese import, you can just set the maximum speed in the display of the bike.
If it’s not designed to go faster, tampering with it wouldn’t do anything. The problem is these bikes are built for the fastest market and kneecapped, instead of having its own new model.
This is all about cyclists on motorised bicycles,
When I used to bike daily I would routinely hit almost 30 km/h. Today being older and wiser, I don't see why that should be allowed in city bikelanes. We have many narrow bikelanes where there is only barely room for passing, on such lanes 20 km/h absolutely sound like a good idea for all, including people in good shape on race bikes and small mopeds that are allowed in the bikelanes.
Fair, roadracers and the like can certainly get fast enough to become a nuisance. The bike lane in the article looks fairly wide, though.
The bike lane in the article looks fairly wide, though.
Not all bikelanes are like that.
You can have more than one speed limit. e.g. 20 for narrow lanes, 25 for wide lanes.
I'm trying to get places on my bike. If the lane doesn't allow for speed I'm driving. (Maybe transit) time matter and half again faster is a big deal on a bike. I
We all want to go fast, so do cars, but there are limits for safety, and for children and elderly those fast bikes are a hazard. My own 89 year old father was hospitalized for a week, because a fast biker hit his arm, maybe even without noticing, because he just continued as if nothing had happened.
Where I live city bikelanes are typically narrow, because the roads weren't designed for them originally. Narrow lanes and high speed is clearly a problem for vulnerable users of bike lanes, and can be an outright terror.
So just don't be inconsiderate of other users of the bikelane, because it can have dire consequences for others than yourself.
That said I know slow bicycles can be extremely annoying too when they don't make room for one to pass safely.
I’m rarely ever going below 21 kmh average (!) on my 16km commute. Of course I am going slow where it’s necessary and dangerous and try to be as responsible as possible. Nobody wants to get hurt. But using 20 km/h speed limits beyond local hot spots would be very unrealistic given a road bike easily reaches 40+ kmh on flat terrain without a mandatory speed gauge. And the latter is also a crucial obstacle. How should speed limits be enforced when people are not forced to mow their speed? And if they are not, what’s a number on a sign worth? I am guessing not much.
While I agree that a 20 km/h limit is too strict on a good bicycle path, no one should be doing 40 km/h on a path that's shared with people going 10-15 km/h. Where I live, most roadracers just drive on the road.
Cycling on the road is not allowed in most cases in the Netherlands, if a bike path exists. Bike paths are usually signed with a round blue sign, which means the bikepath is mandatory for all cyclists.
For once the Italians have a reasonable rule that using bike lanes is mandatory only if they are not shared with pedestrians. Now to get the them to stop walking on the separated bike paths...
Same in Germany but I agree nonetheless. Where there’s people, one (including me) should drive responsibly. It’s no different from car driving. We don’t speed in a narrow alley either.
Ha, that reminds me of the other day when a cyclist drove by and set off the speed camera in a 30km/h zone. Dude was zooming.
On flat terrain, 40 kmh are no problem for a road bike. Downhill, one reaches 60 without much difficulty.
Beyond the possibility of crashing, the fact that car drivers underestimate cyclists’ speed is actually quite a danger.
I haven't been able to bike for years because of health problems but my daily commute on a bad day with uphill in both directions was over 20 km/h on my old manual iron horse refurbished with internal gears.
It would be like putting a speed limit on promenades that you can only leisurely stroll and not even do a brisk walk.
That said, I think 20km/h sounds reasonable for e-scooters.
As a Dutchman, I'm not a fan of this proposed speed limit.
My natural speed at which I comfortably cycle is around 25 km/h, which is perfectly safe if you pay attention and slow down when it is necessary in order not to hinder your fellow road users. The issue is people who cycle recklessly without keeping other cyclists in mind, in my opinion.
Enforcement is the key. And we already have reckless road usage laws.
I much prefer the Belgian method, where they set a recommended speed limit with signs of 25 km/h on the bikepath. You can cycle faster, but that's at your own risk.
Edit: E-scooters are not normally road legal on Dutch roads, so you don't see many of them.
Technically there is a path for a manufacturer to get an e-scooter tested for compliance, making them road legal. But virtually no manufacturers go through that process, making them defacto illegal (with some rare exceptions here and there)
To be honest 20 km/h sounds like a reasonable limit. But considering small mopeds here are allowed to drive 30 km/h in bike lanes, it just doesn't seem like reasonable at all.
IDK if Netherlands have small mopeds that are allowed in bicycle lanes that can drive 30 or faster, but if they have, I don't really see a rational argument why bicycles should have stricter rules?
But for more fragile bicyclists the faster traffic from e-bikes or mopeds are absolutely a danger. My own 89 year old father has been hit by passing fast traffic in the bike lane a few times resulting in him crashing, one time resulting in a week long hospital stay.
It is only lucky that he didn't break anything, effectively terminating his life as a healthy senior citizen.
Honestly 20km/h seems kinda slow. As a kid I'd do 20-25, and these days most European countries have a 25km/h limit on e-bikes. So 20km/h seems just low enough to be a hindrene.
Ultimately it depends on the bicycle lane or road though, just like for cars. There a huge difference between a crowded narrow inner-city cycle lane with immediate adjacent houses and other things obstructing vision, compared to a suburban cycle path with less traffic and completely unobstructed vision
In the Netherlands there are two kinds of mopeds.
- Blue plates, which are (should be) capped at 25 km/h.
They generally go where cyclists go (with the exception of Amsterdam where they have to go on the road) and are effectively treated as motorized bicycles. - Yellow plates, which are (should be) capped at 45 km/h.
They are supposed to go on the road, unless signs indicate otherwise. If they are on a shared bike/moped path (which is mostly found in rural areas) then the speed limit is 30 km/h in cities and 40 km/h outside cities.
There really shouldn't be 30 km/h motorized vehicles on bicycle lanes. That's the speed limit for cars on many city roads, which are usually much wider.
