The silence — and danger — of the e-bikes

Opinion

It was a short letter to the editor — sometimes the very best kind of letter to the editor — from cyclist Chris Jensen on June 21. He thanked the city of Winnipeg for repainting bike lanes, but then pointed out another hazard for bike riders — and others.

“On the other hand, the impertinent e-bike and e-scooter behaviour continues. Excessive speed, buzzing, no helmets and rudeness on bike paths and also our streets will lead to injury, while not regulating such do-your-own-thing behaviour is simply self-reinforcing,” Jensen wrote. It’s a very good point.

Anyone who has ever been ambush-passed from behind by an e-bike knows what the experience is like.

You’re walking peacefully, caught up in your own thoughts, when the wind of a speeding e-bike plucks at the fabric of your sleeve with no warning whatsoever and the bike and rider whoosh past you, with only a flash of warning in your peripheral vision. Not even the sound of an engine behind you, just the e-bike’s near-silence hidden in the background traffic noise, and you are left with the thought of what might have happened if you had stepped to the left at that point to avoid a sparkling spear of broken glass on the sidewalk.

It’s bad enough when a bicycle, whispering up behind you on smooth tires, makes you shudder with its passing. But at least then it feels like it might be close to an equal match.

The thing is that e-bikes aren’t really bicycles, any more than a dirt bike is a bicycle.

The combination of their weight and speed make them something else again — it would be fair, in fact, to call them motor vehicles.

An e-bike can weigh as much as 34 kilograms, including battery. Add a rider in the 82-kilogram range, and you’ve got 116 kilograms of mass (256 pounds) travelling at speeds of up to 45 kilometres an hour. (Manitoba regulations specify that e-bike engines must turn off when the e-bike reaches 32 km/h, but those rules are under the Highway Traffic Act, and online e-bike discussion regularly argues, “Don’t be an ass when you’re riding, and no one will care.”)

And injuries related to e-bikes and scooters are rising dramatically — a bulletin from the American College of Surgeons noted “bicycle deaths reached a 24-year high in New York City in 2023, as 30 people were killed on a bicycle, 23 of whom were riding e-bikes. Three pedestrians also were killed by e-bike riders.”

As always, there are responsible riders and irresponsible riders. There are riders who improperly use their e-bikes on sidewalks, roll through stop signs and even exceed street speed limits in 30 km/h areas. Riders who eschew the helmets required by law, and ignore the rules of the road.

And there are electronic scooter riders who do the same thing, but in a bit of a legislative vacuum — technically, the all-electric scooters aren’t allowed on many streets, just ones with separate bike lanes and speed limits of 30 km/h or less. But they also can reach impressive speeds — as anyone out for a weekend leisure walk has probably observed.

As with all things, it is the actions of the irresponsible few that will end up restricting the behaviour of the responsible majority.

As hard as it is to campaign for yet another level of regulation, e-bike and e-scooter use should be governed by clear restrictions and also a clear and recognizable set of fines. Those regulations should be regularly enforced, even — and perhaps especially — on the city’s active transportation routes, walkways and sidewalks.