Amsterdam testing system that can remotely slow e-bikes down
Amsterdam testing system that can remotely slow e-bikes down
Amsterdam is one of six European cities that will soon test a system that can remotely limit the speed of electric bicycles. Amsterdam’s traffic alderman, Melanie van der Horst, tested the system herself last week, NRC reports.
Alrighty,
So your system knows the exact situation and still is slowing down my bike, just at the moment I need to accelerate to avoid being overrun by that large truck heading into me.
How stupid are these folks? We've got rules, when people don't follow those rules, you fine them. Case closed.
No system to prevent a bike speeding, teach people to obey the law.
People in this thread clearly have never been to Amsterdam. We have protected bike lanes, and where there is mixed traffic, bikes have preference and are actually respected by larger vehicles.
On the other hand, there has been an increase in accidents due to electric bikes going too fast mixed with normal bikes and pedestrians.
I've been in so many close calls with e-scooter riding in sidewalks in my city. But it's always a specific kind of asshole that does that.
In my city, that specific kind of asshole is someone with multiple DUIs, since they can still legally ride an E-bike
I give this two weeks until a hacker bricks every ebike on their network.
Exactly this. Foolish ideas from someone behind a desk.
Nerds and hackers will win this easily.
Nerds and hackers will also win any battle in removing top speed limitations. The issue we're having right now is that non-techies also have easy access to 60 km/h death machines because they can just buy Chinesium fatbikes with 1kW motors and a preinstalled throttle.
If they start requiring helmets you'll see this fad die down real quick. As it's mostly children (or uncivilized adults) buying these to look cool and cause trouble.
to avoid being overrun by that large truck heading into me
lol, I'm guessing you've never ridden a bike in Amsterdam
You got me there... :-)
I live in Canada and seeing so many people riding around without helmets in Amsterdam felt weird until I realized how protected the cyclists are by the design of the road infrastructure. Cycling while sharing the road with a truck with no barrier in-between is common where I live so I appreciate your perspective.
I was driving a rental scooter last summer and the thing just suddenly stopped in the middle of traffic. It had randomly decided that I was on a sidewalk when I absolutely was not. It was both an embarrassing and a scary situation.
Dude, that sucks. I can picture the walk of shame. They really shouldn't do shit like that.
Should've just left it in the road and walked off lol. It's the company's problem now... Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
That's literally what people are already doing and that's why rental scooters are getting banned in many cities; they just leave them laying around where they shouldn't and it's a massive nuisance to everyone.
It's gonma destroy somebody's car tho
So your system knows the exact situation and still is slowing down my bike, just at the moment I need to accelerate to avoid being overrun by that large truck heading into me.
After reading the article, it seems like the system is supposed to temporarily jam pedal assist, turning your ebike into a regular bike. And the system would need to be installed in all street legal ebikes for that to happen. Since you're still free to accelerate by pedaling like a normal bike user, that significantly reduces the amount of situations where the pedal assist would actually save you. If you can't avoid collision by pedaling harder, you probably had no chance in the first place.
Considering most of the inner city's roads now have a 30 km/h speed limit for cars, collision safety is probably even less of a concern now.
I do share the concern of others in the comments that such a system would probably be broken on day one, and you have a bunch of script kiddies with flipper zeros running around bricking ebikes.
The only way for that not to happen is to use proper encryption for any wireless signals being used to control this system. Considering the Dutch governmental reputation for IT failures, this is probably not going to go well.
Precisely; for context, it was recently discussed in Dutch media how some of these e-bikes reach 60 km/h. Together with a culture of people refusing to wear bicycle helmets, there's certainly some more nuance and middle ground.
There needs to be some kind of solution, but doing nothing is not really an option.
And the system would need to be installed in all street legal ebikes for that to happen.
Wouldn't street legal ebikes not go too fast by default anyway? I feel like if that's the case, this would mostly inconvenience people with legal ebikes and have barely any effect on illegal ones that can go faster.
But pedal accelerating an ebike is not quite as easy as a regular bike. They're over 20kg due to steel frames and batteries.
Since you're still free to accelerate by pedaling like a normal bike user, that significantly reduces the amount of situations where the pedal assist would actually save you.
Bro e-bikes are like 3-6x heavier than normal bikes, manual pedaling sucks and you can’t accelerate for shit
Imagine someone suggested this for cars
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a46554218/new-car-regulated-speed-limit-california-bill/ California is already trying.
They should!
The obsession with scooter and bike speeds that don't have the mass to seriously hurt people at top speed is crazy.
Like you can find videos of people being hit at top speed by scooters/bikes, usually the pedestrian is pretty fine but rightfully annoyed. Every fatal accident I can find is the escooter/ebiker was hit by a car.
Fingers crossed they stop being dumb and just make actual infrastructure for micromobility so they don't have to compete with giant murder machines.
With a usual bike, I mostly agree. But there are beasts like that now, they are heavier than a bike and even heavier han average scooter, and from the looks, they are mostly owned by a-holes. And not just from the looks, but from the fact that they remove facrory limit of 25 km/h
You know what? Yeah you're right, that's just a motorcycle with pedals and probably could do a lot of force if it hits a pedestrian and probably should just be treated like a motorcycle.
I have a cutesy little escooter that I feel like has a better chance of harming someone by picking it up and using it as a blunt weapon than trying to run them over at 15 mph. Make no mistake, riding on sidewalks is still super dangerous and shouldn't be done if there is any chance of a pedestrian, but you'd think they would just build proper infrastructure instead of limit them. If they had a bike lane with passing space, they could be as beastly as they want while passing me.
Searching for scooter and pedestrian brings up plenty of results, just gotta disclude vehicles from the pool of results.
In my town people have died from being run into with 25 kmh rental e-scooters (eg. Voi) so they definitely have enough mass and speed to both seriously injure and kill people. I can only imagine the damage that is caused by these high speed fatbikes I see people riding on bikepaths now.
actual infrastructure for micromobility
Right, because Amsterdam, as we all know, is such a shithole in that regard.
You’re the obsessed one in this case.
So, implement it in cars... Lethal machines that need to be limited.
The speed limits they listed seem so low given that 90% of bicycles in Amsterdam (or at least, those that are “victims” in traffic accidents) are unpowered. I’m not even a hobbyist cyclist, but on my (unpowered) entry-level hybrid bicycle I rode faster than 25 km/h (or 15 mph) the last time I took it out… and heck, I can run faster than 15 km/h.
The accident stats also don’t back up the idea that e-bikes are a problem demanding regulation, which makes me think that there’s knee-jerk politics at play here rather than this being a clear-headed response to a real problem. I’ll explain how I arrived at that conclusion.
First of all, as an aside, it’s weird that they said “more than half of all traffic victims were on a bicycle,” when the metric here should be the number of traffic collisions caused by cyclists. But supposing that’s actually what they meant:
- if half of all accidents are caused by bicycles, then the other half are caused by cars and other motor vehicles. Since bicycles outnumber cars 4:1 in Amsterdam, that means cars are 4 times as likely to cause accidents as bicycles (startling low compared to how much more dangerous they are in the US). They recently lowered the speed limit of cars to 30 km/h, but I’m not sure if the stats take that into account. Maybe it needs lowered further, or maybe they should only allow cars with the same sort of smart governors installed that they’re testing out for e-bikes?
- One in ten of those cyclists was on an electric bike (meaning 5% of accidents were caused by someone on an e-bike). 57% of bicycles sold in the Netherlands in 2022 were electric, but bikes last a while and they have a ton of them. As of the start of 2023 they had an estimated 5 million e-bikes, and the country has 23 million bicycles total (more than 1 per person). This means that 22% of their bikes are e-bikes, and (assuming that ratio applies to bikes on the road in Amsterdam) then given that only 10% of accidents involving bicycles involved e-bikes, that means that unpowered bicycles are a bit over twice as likely to cause accidents as e-bikes. Honestly, though, the ratio of e-bikes to unpowered bicycles is probably higher - I would expect people are more inclined to ride the new bicycle they just bought rather than one of the ones they’ve had for several years.
Obviously these stats are fairly sloppy, but I worked with what I could find.
Assuming my conclusion is accurate, this still doesn’t mean that e-bikes are less dangerous than bicycles - the accidents they’re in may be worse - but it certainly doesn’t suggest that e-bikes are the problem. I’m aligned with the other commenters here - this isn’t going to address the problem of people riding already illegal e-bikes.
The tech sounds cool and I’d love if it could be applied to cars, too, even if it’s opt-in only.
25 km/h is a sporty bike ride tempo, not a going to the shops to get some food bike ride tempo. Especially considering that most bikes here are upright sitting city bikes rather than sporty, leaning forward bikes.
I have a step through frame that you sit upright on. 20-25km/h is my average commuting speed for getting to work and going to the shops. I regularly have to push to 30km/h+ because of motor traffic trying to ride up my ass even though I'm in the designated bike lane. (cars in Australia like driving fast in the bike lanes to avoid the chicanes on the road designed to slow motor traffic for cyclist safety)
If ebikes are disproportionately represented in cycling accidents, then I would argue it's not the speed, it's the barrier to entry. People who have never ridden before, people who aren't physically able to ride a standard bike, these groups make up a significant portion of ebike riders because ebikes are accessible.
Yes, speed will contribute to this, people with limited riding experience being able to ride fast, possibly without the physical fitness required to control a bike at high speed.
The issue then isn't the speed itself, but rider education and training.
Maybe in NL.
On my bike commute (about 4km one-way) lightly down hill I can easily reach 30km/h.
Uphill the same route (depending on how fit I am) I can more or less pull 25km/h through.Though I am not in a busy city. I would probably get killed with the way I am driving where I live.
Depends on how often you ride I guess but if there is an e-scooter infront of me (they go 20 km/h), I have to hold back a bit.
I don't have the data to back it up, but as someone who lives in the Netherlands I can tell you that e-bikes definitely seem like a problem. People who ride a normal bike to go somewhere definitely don't go faster than 15 kph on average. You totally can do so if you want, just like you can run everywhere instead of walking, but then you might arrive sweaty and out of breath. E-bikes allow people who don't usually have the physical strength to cycle that fast to suddenly go 25 kph without much effort. Especially children and elderly are a problem. The bikes are heavy, meaning that they're hard to control for these groups. And children and elderly also both often lack the awareness of their surroundings needed for driving this fast. I've seen many dangerous situations where these groups on an e-bike yeet into a crossing, suddenly have to brake due to other traffic that they failed to account for, and then almost fall over or crash.
E-bikes have a way too large speed difference with normal bikes, and imo they're definitely a danger. Anything that makes them slower is imo a good thing.
I can easily ride my bike at 25-30km/h on flat even surface.
Light hills are more difficult on the long run but I can probably manage 20km/h.Edit:
A relative worked in the ER so I have some ideas why e-bikes are maybe more prone to accidents. My theory: Older folks.
The usual demographic driving e-bikes usually are/were +50 years old.
With reflexes being not what they were and them going out more due to being mobile again, they surely are more prone to be involved in traffic accidents.Makes sense, and is aligned with the “reduced barrier to entry” theory posited by another commenter. Just to be clear, though, what I read (though very imperfect stat-wise) suggests that e-bikes are less prone to accidents, not more.
The US has several proposals for this on cars. You say opt in only. How about this: when you exceed the speed limit the car automatically notifies the government so they can fine you. You can opt-in to have the car automatically control you top speed so you don't get fined.
The tech I’m talking about isn’t related to speed limits, but zones where pedestrians, particularly children, are much more likely to be in the street.
when you exceed the speed limit the car automatically notifies the government so they can find you.
I assume you meant “fine”; regardless, why is there a need for that in order to enable the second piece?
You can opt-in to have the car automatically control you top speed so you don't get fined.
Change that to “You can enable a feature that will automatically reduce your set cruising speed (or, if you’re not using cruise control at that point, give you tactile feedback on the accelerator foot pedal) when you enter an area where pedestrians are in the street or are expected to be in the street (i.e., there’s a cross walk up ahead and a pedestrian has triggered it).” Or, to summarize similar to what you said: “You can have the car automatically reduce your speed when necessary so you don’t kill people.”
Same with speed-limiters for cars, etc.
I wish cars would get speed limiters installed. Trucks and trailers especially, why does a truck try and overtake a car anyway? Or another truck?
Why stop only at e-bikes? Get them installed inside mobility scooters as well, slow down Grandma! /s
There are no US roads I am aware of where the speed limit is over 80mph.
Why can a stock US car go faster than 80mph, then? Why does NHSTA approve of cars that can go double, triple that speed? Makes no sense to me, for sure. Especially when similar agencies are doing idiotic and pointless shit like banning Kei Trucks for "safety" reasons when these vehicles are objectively safer and better for the public than any current-model "light truck" 120mph+ road yacht.
Europe approached this same question with a pretty straightforward answer: Intelligent Speed Assistance.
It'll be mandatory relatively soon for all new cars, as far as I am aware. It's already mandatory for new cars in the EU. There's some nasty privacy implications of it, obviously. Very possibly nasty enough to bring me to a "no" overall on the idea. But the safety considerations are without doubt correct.They can, cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_speed_assistance with example in this thread
If you're in a situation where you need to outspeed a truck to not die, you have tp consider your life choices. I can't even imagine a situation that could lead to it, if we don't count "I just randomly started to cross a busy road" ones.
This makes no sense in the geographical context. The reverse is usually true here in the Netherlands. Modded electric bikes and scooters go way above the legal limit and put themselves in danger by speeding across infront of trafic. Where cars have to suddenly account for them beeing somewhere quicker then expected/ coming out of "nowhere".
Yes, I know and I see them daily. I was answering on a comment "ooh, they will slow me down and I'll get in a dangerous situation because of that!" The one thing i don't see much is "speeding in front of traffic, as in Copenhagen there are not many places where there are no bicycle lanes and the cars are driving fast at the same time.
It’s relatively common for a car to merge into you where I live. If you’re adjacent to the front wheel it’s safer to accelerate the rest of the way than it is to brake.
Edit: it’s also insane that they’re trying to do this with e-bikes before cars.
First, you have to catch them. Without plates on the bike, they become anonymous asap.
Secondly, you need to understand us Dutch. Rules are for the Germans, as it’s always smart to ask forgiveness than permission (read: catch us if you can)
Was amazed that the ebikes in Switzerland have number plates.
Then realised it's Switzerland and of course they do
For anyone that might be interested in this: it's only for certain ebikes. Standard ebikes that only pedal assist up to 25km/h don't need anything special over a regular bike, which afaik is the standard limit in Europe. You can get ebikes that go up to 45km/h and they are regulated more like mopeds, requiring a number plate, rear view mirror, and that the rider wears a helmet.
Anything motorised that's used in traffic should have license plate to be fair. Kudos to the Swiss
Oh, it's coming for more countries. In Spain no new ebike/scooter is sold without plates since 2024, and in 2027 it will be illegal to go through puvlic spaces without a licensed plate. This 3 year gap is so that people that bought a scooter in 2023 don't feel too cheated out.
I see the German Maneuver app coming for e-bike, soon™️.
Headline 5 years from now, "Dutch hackers sit at outdoor cafes and boost bikers' pedal control, causing havoc and lulz".
In much of the EU, a terrorist org or nation state could cause tens of thousands of casualties using a system like this in a matter of minutes.
All they'd have to do is accelerate every bike to top speed at one during peak time. Even if remote acceleration is impossible (or not yet exploited), you could still do a-lot of damage with threshold changes or sudden braking; any remote intervention is a safety and security risk.
There are a lot easier ways to cause damage than this.
The usual "too many people are getting hit by cars while on bicycles, obviously it's the bicycles that are the problem"
If ebikes that go over 25kmh are already illegal, why would those ebikes have this speed limiter module installed?
Why are ebikes are not allowed to go fast enough to just ride on the road with cars, making it much safer for pedestrians and for the ebikes?
According to Paul Timmer of the Townmaking Institute, getting the device working on all e-bikes should be pretty straightforward. “There are five manufacturers and suppliers of motors for electric bicycles. They all work with similar systems,”
Also completely false, are they going to make it illegal to buy ebikes that don't come with those 5 drive systems from large corporations, and shut out the small businesses that make ebike motors?
The article also describes this working on lower speed limits like close to schools or when approaching worksites. I can't see why this is not a good idea
I can’t see why this is not a good idea
I believe the argument here is that it's security theater, i.e it looks positive but in practice has literally no effect. To clarify if people buy a "normal" e-bike today, they are already speed limited. Consequently people who have bike going faster that said limit are doing something already beyond the ordinary. The likelihood that such people would suddenly change their behavior to buy typical bikes when they have even more restrictions is probably not high, but the announcement still makes it look like something is done for the greater good.
Now do cars!
Apparently starting ISA in July 2024 https://www.brusselstimes.com/855280/self-braking-cars-all-new-cars-to-be-fitted-with-speed-limiting-technology
The technology to do it has existed for probably almost a hundred years at this point, but it was never implemented because of public pushback.
Ha! Do it for cars first
Being a pedestrian in Amsterdam can be pretty bad. Dutch on bikes are insane. No slowing down is allowed. The bike might be rigged like the bus in Speed or whatever. Ready to explode.
People on heavy e-bikes are riding 25km/h over pedestrian crossings with poor visibility.
It is dangerous, and should be treated as such.
Cars in Amsterdam is a much smaller consern than bikes. Really.
Been there. Beautiful city. Terrible biking culture. The Dutch know. They reference it occasionally.
The biking culture in Amsterdam is fine. The problem is tourists standing on the seperate bicycle lanes - colored red, with pictures of bicycles on them - and thinking that they are being assaulted when a cyclist rings their bell to wake them out of their cannabis-induced stupor so they can get to work.
Fat bicycles modified to go faster than 25 km used to be a problem, but they get stolen so quickly now it's less of an issue. 😆
If the state can control your bike, you don't actually own it.
Our bike
The more complicated question is whether cities actually want to implement the system and can convince e-bike riders to use it, he said.
Convince? So it's volunteer.
We've got that here. You jam a stick in the spokes, then throw the bike and the rider in the canal. Lots of fun.
This seems ripe for workarounds.
It's not too complicated to fix a motor to your normal bicycle. I wonder how well this will implemented.
That said I'm surprised this is coming from Amsterdam, considering they're both very pro bike. And I also see very little controversy coming from the Netherlands in general (farm laws primarily)
Very pro bike but only bike. Pretty much any other modality device is banned from public bike paths.
They should do it for cars first and see what happens
Hey I used to go to school here, it's the Wibautstraat at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam
Is this the same system they use to slow down basically everything at AMS? Like seriously, that's the worst, dirtiest major international airport I've ever had the misfortune of having to use.
People need to start registering and insuring bikes and bikes used in public just like cars in my opinion.
Have them use their own license plates and everything.
If you get three fines for going too fast on your bike let it get confiscated for a few weeks/months.
As long as there's close to zero bureaucracy and the process is seamless and digital, sure. I'm totally against anything that puts less people commuting by bike on the streets, and complicated registration is one such thing.
Many bike shops will register the bike frame serial number for you when you buy it.
I'm fine with slightly less bikes on the street if it's just the people who aren't responsible enough to be in public with them.
They can cause damage to property and injure people. If you drive a car without a seatbelt you get a fine. If you ride a bike without a helmet you should also get a fine. Head injuries cause strain on the healthcare system. There's plenty of reasons to require people to register and insure bikes like vehicles.
Includes kids then right?
Sure thing, have the parents register the bikes when they buy them. If the kids aren't responsible the parents get the fines and can decide if the kids get to keep their bike or not.
Switzerland had this up until 2012, when it was abolished because it cost more to administer than it was worth.
Overcontroll of citizens free will. A recurrent problem in northem europe. Because the goverment knows your safety and ethics better than yourself. And as some people view it:
Because of that they have the right to force your actions into what works best with society. Because individuals don't matter just collectives. Because enforcing is justified as long as it has an ethic basis, whatever it is.
It sounds dystopian and it is. Societies of the penitence, societes with ideals more religious than real religions. Where suicide rates are high, and society happines also is.
Yeah, it should be more like America, land of the free and happy, where suicide rates are lower!
Amsterdam slowly becoming like India with all those rules 😂
I don't get it, does India require speed limiters on ebikes?
None as far as I know. But then we enforce speed limits less with rules and more with potholes, traffic jams and narrow roads, so it's a moot point.
No making everything 30 km/ph so all the scooters and Ebikes go left and right of cars. To be expected people get those fatbikes that go over the speed limit. being almost impossible to get anywhere in the city is frustrating. in a few year it is just like India where no one cares about any rules on the road and crosses everything without looking.
Lol imagine you are trying to go max speed to not get robbed, they see you are going too fast and slow you down. Then the robber catches up and robs you lol
No, it's more to limit speed on some streets, when you have a 60lbs ebike with a 180lbs guy on it going over 60mph in a busy street downtown, it's fucking dangerous.
- AFAIK 60km/h let alone 60mph e-bikes aren't road legal in the Netherlands. 60mph is something like 95km/h. To give you an idea, most motorways are 100km/h in the Netherlands. To drive something that fast you'd need a full motorcycle license, insurance, etc.
- Certainly they're not allowed on cycle paths.
- Even if they were, Amsterdam has a citywide speed limit of 30km/h. That's under 20mp/h.
In addition to what everyone else is saying, any e vehicle able to go that fast weighs more than 60 pounds. You use a random number generator for this post?
As a conservative it warms my heart to see so many people in this thread responding with indignation to government intrusion.