E-bikes and the right to the road

I originally put these thoughts down (some of them, anyway) over four months ago in response to a column in the newspaper, but a recent discussion with a fellow rider made me once again consider them, and the subject of both the discussion, and the column:  E-bikes, or “electric bicycles”.

In particular, one sitting at the local shop prompted a discussion about their merits and demerits.  Also as to why anyone would ride one.  A general consensus was that people wanted to use one because the electric assist wouldn’t require them to get as sweaty if they were, say, riding to work.

In that sense, the E-bike may be a laudable invention – although riding it to work still poses some questions (with the added weight no one is taking it inside, even though they have complicated electronics and cost a lot of money).

Similarly if a person has been injured; an E-bike with an electrical assist allows them to keep riding.  Great.  More power (literally) to them.  It’s sure better than having either sit in a car.

In that respect I agree with columnist Paul Mulshine in his 11-10-13 column that in terms of traffic impact,  and even pollution concerns, an e-bike is better than, say, a car.  Indeed, from the perspectives of just those two issues, it would be better to have people riding electrically assisted bikes than Humvees or even regular sedans.  However, I do not share his conclusion that since this is the case, all is well with electric bicycles.  There are other factors involved as well.  The first is, except for where the motor only assists actual pedaling (as mentioned earlier), E-bikes are not actually bicycles.

Put a motor, any kind of motor, that moves the bicycle as a substitute for pedaling, and what you have is a motorized bicycle.  In this case an unlicensed one.

It may seem absurd to compare the tiny electric motors on E-bikes to Harley’s or even mopeds.  However, the distinction is one of kind not degree.  While there is a huge practical difference between an E-bike and a motorcycle, as one normally thinks of the term, there is nearly as much practical difference between an e-bike and a conventional bicycle.  Moreover, there is a difference by definition: a bicycle is not motorized.  Put a motor on it, and it is no longer a bicycle and subject to the rules of bicycles, but instead it becomes a motorized vehicle.

To protest this logic because, well, the motor is tiny compared to a huge motorcycle, is to distort the issue.  Yes, it is tiny.  But it is a motor.  If part of what defines a bicycle is that it is human powered, and the legal distinction between that and motorized two wheeled vehicles such as motorbikes or mopeds is  the lack of a motor, than adding any motor, even a tiny or slow one, takes it out of the bicycle category.

By itself this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but it is, because of the regulations for motorized vehicles.

American bicyclists have enjoyed a legal right to the road since the late 1800’s.  In cases such as Swift vs. City of Topeka, the courts affirmed that the cyclist was a road user – as the operator of a vehicle.

But when automobiles came along and were required to be licensed and insured, this was never extended to bicycles.  Same for other motorized vehicles – motorbikes, trucks, buses.  Why?  The bicyclists had a legal right to operate their vehicles on the roadway.  The drivers, because of the increased danger posed by a motorized machine, could get up to speed with no effort, and whose vehicles weighed more, were required to get government’s permission to use their vehicles on the street.

In other words, the regulatory status of cyclists is different than that of motorized road users.  The cyclists have much more freedom and a legal right use their vehicles on the street.

Because of this, one  has to consider that electric bikes, by introducing a motor, even an electric one, into the bicycle equation, risk moving bicyclists closer to the role of motorized vehicles – and the regulation that entails.  This is a risk to all bicyclists, even those riding  bicycles without electric motors, because the E-bike riders are self-identifying as bicyclists – even though they aren’t.  Thus they risk forcing the rest of the cycling public into some new regulatory straight jacket with them.  That’s why one cannot say it enough:  These aren’t bicycles, they are motorized bikes.

In Mulshine’s 11-10-13 column in the Star-Ledger, “Conserving the rules, not energy,” he talks about a citizen who wanted to ride an e-bike rather than drive a car to save gas.

Mulshine said his reader, who wrote in about his plight, was going to buy an e-bike and then found out that according to the DMV it’s considered a “motor vehicle.”  But because a motorbike has to have an engine displacement of at least 50cc, or cubic inches, and an electric motor has no engine displacement in that measurement, there was no procedure for registering it.

This, as Mulshine opines, is indeed evidence of foolish and inept runaway bureauacracy.  Or would be under normal circumstances.  The devices have been around for a while now, there should be a rule that applies to them.  Well, yes, if they were intended to be used on the road.  But they do not fit into the current state of things.  It would be one thing if they wanted to create a third category, a sort of secondary motorized bicycle category for electrically powered E-bikes.  But attempting to force them into the normal bike-car equation causes havoc.  A bicycle does not have to be licensed, a motor vehicle does.  Which is it?

There could be some argument for an e-bike where all the motor does is assist you in going up hills.  But many of these things have motors that will power you forward without any pedaling.  That’s a motorized bike, not a bicycle.

To try and keep weight down, and because they are based off of bicycles, e-bikes often don’t have turn signals and all the other things motorized vehicles have.  A bicyclist doesn’t have to have them because he can make a hand signal.  But then he also doesn’t have to register his bike either.   And, at the end of the day, unlike a 20-lb bicycle, the e-bike is still mostly too heavy to lift!

It would be nice if one could agree with Mulshine and just say, let em ride the thing, who cares?

Who does it hurt?

Well, it could and eventually would hurt all cyclists.  First of all, many of these things are much heavier than a standard bicycle which typically weighs 20-something pounds.  A good quality road bike can weigh less than 20 pounds.

An e-bike weighs a lot more, often so much it is difficult to lift it.  This is because the battery pack is very heavy.

This could be a problem given where they ride, which is, excepting the foolish and illegal who ride on sidewalks or footpaths, typically where regular bicyclists would ride.  Why?  Although motorized and much heavier than a bicycle, they aren’t as big or fast as a car, so they hug the side of the road away from other motorized traffic – and end up nearly running down cyclists.

This is evident on islands and vacation resorts where tiny motorized scooters or often used are rented, according to some localities, without needing a license – because the engine displacement is less than a given amount (maybe 50cc?  They never said.)  Now these are gas powered, but the principle is the same and so is how they act: you have these motorscooters zipping along and then zoom, a motorscooter comes up behind a cyclist, engine screaming, passes, then moves back over to the edge of the road, where the next bicyclist he encounters is likely to be riding, and speeds off.

What are the dangers here?  With a motor, the scooter rider is likely going faster than the cyclist he encounters.  And with the greater speed and mass of his motorized vehicle, if he hits the cyclist, he could seriously hurt him or his bike.

But at least you can hear a scooter coming.  The e-bikes are by comparison silent!  True, no one on an e-bike that is only capable of 20 mph is going to overtake a paceline of road riders.  But a regular cyclist cruising in traffic could be doing more or less than this typical speed of say around 20mph.  For example, 17 or 18.   Or the e-bike rider could soup it up.  There’s been examples where people fiddle with the batteries and so forth to boost power and therefore speed.

Several articles in the last year or two have highlighted the new trend of "electric bikes" --  Mulshine’s column isn’t the first.  However, most of the others were simply along the lines of noticing an increase in e-bikes.  Mulshine’s column is unique in that it calls for them to be declared legal road users. 

So let’s look at e-bikes.  What are they, and what is or would be there legal status?  

In the beginning they were mostly bicycles with an electric motor attached to provide a power assist, in other words, help pedal up hills.  Some of these however do move on their own without pedaling.  

The danger of course, is when you don't have to pedal, at that point, you have a motorized vehicle.Same goes for other bicycle infrastructure; cyclists have seen bike racks at local train stations, from Madison NJ, to Summit NJ, blocked by motorized contraptions ranging from old folks' electric mobility scooters to full fledged motorscooters with motorcycle license plates to top-heavy e-bikers like the kind Mulshine’s reader wrote in about.  Newsflash:  A  motorcycle is not meant to be locked in a bicycle rack.  Neither is an old folk's scooter or an e-bike.  Both the first two block the cyclists -- the intended users -- from using the rack because of their bulk.  However, the motorcycle or motorscooter is worse, because it not only blocks use of the part of the rack it obstructs, it could fall on and damage any bicycles parked adjacent to it.  A motorcycle is a hell of a lot heavier than a bicycle.  This observation applies completely to e-bikes too.

What happens when you have a bike that weighs, say, a hundred pounds, and it is locked to a bicycle rack next to a nice classic road racing frame or good quality fixed gear commuter that weighs 19 to maybe 22 pounds?

Easy, that huge heavy e-bike, if it is jostled or tips over in any way, can crush or damage any bicycle near it, because it weigh much more than a regular bicycle thanks to its motor.  Specifically, the battery.

Inept and often clueless drivers want to take up every tiny little bit of room and leave cyclists with nothing to bike in.  That's bad enough, but now you have people intruding motorized devices where you park your bike?  No way.  Tow the damn things. 

As to the legal status of E-bikes, do whatever you want – but not on the street.  American cyclists have a legal right to the road -- going back to court rulings in the 1800's -- primarily because unlike the drivers who came later, their vehicle aren't hugely heavy or powered by a motor. 

If one accepts motorized bicycle – including e-bikes – as legitimate road users one has to decide on which side of the fence do they fall – motorized, or bicycles?  Given an Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker's kneejerk, illegal proposal to require bicycles to be licensed to ride on the public road a few years back (after an accident that involved a youth who wasn’t even using the road) one must be careful to ensure that threats to cyclist’s right to the road do not re-emerge. 

Long ago, the courts and the legislatures decided cyclists were vehicles, but not motorized vehicles.  Unlike a car driver or motorcyclists, they have right to the road.  They have to obey any applicable laws while using the road, but that use of the road cannot be denied them or made conditional.   In other words, rushing to welcome e-bikes either creates a third, middle category between motorized and not, or it could force cyclists further towards the “motorized” category. 

Once you introduce a motor, it is no longer a bicycle and the operator loses many of the rights of the bicyclist.  In fact those encouraging people to choose e-bikes over bicycling are ultimately threatening them with the very rules and regulations and strictures that people often take up cycling to get away from, starting with, you don’t need permission to ride!

In short, motorized “bicycles” risk moving cyclists toward to same category or regulation as motorized vehicles, destroying not only cycling as a sport, hobby, form of transport or way of life, however you look at it, but also destroying it’s practical advantages for travel, such as its low operating cost, total lack of licensing or other fees, and a simple, human-powered mechanism that is small enough the law allows you to share a lane alongside a car, sparing you many traffic jams.  

The e-bike might be a neat idea, and is certainly better than a car.  But it is hardly a “bicycle” and when Mulshine opines that “in a few years, E-bikes are expected to outsell regular bikes” what he means is that he sees the bicycle as on the way out.  

There are reasons to doubt his observations.   E-bikes may be popular with tourists or people “down the shore”, but they are not and probably will never be popular with avid cyclists. Nor or they especially useful for commuting, the stated goal.  Why?  Weight and handling.  Here’s from one advertisement:  “Weight = 54 lbs”.  Fifty-four pounds?  A normal lightweight road bike weighs under 20 and there are some that are even lighter.  A “normal” bicycle weighs about 20-odd pounds.

Guys (or gals) who are not racers, but are just using bikes for transport will be likely to choose a real bicycle – not an e-bike.  Why?  Weight. Carrying a nicely balanced 20-pound bicycle up the stairs to an apartment is no big deal.  Nor is it to hustle one up the stairs of an office, or into an elevator; the bicycle there can be tipped on end to fit in even the narrowest of elevators.

Now imagine that bike is a poorly balanced 50-something pounds.  Or closer to a hundred pounds.  No one is going to be taking it upstairs or into their office.

And as, according to Mulshine’s reader who wrote in on the subject, many of the E-bikes cost over one or even two thousand dollars, is someone going to use them and not take them inside?

In other words, no regular cyclist, whether road rider, urban rider, offroader, or commuter, is ditching their bicycle for  quasi-motorbike, as Mulshine suggests.  Maybe they are popular among tourists, or people who don’t know much about road use and the benefits of a bicycle.  One of those benefits is that it’s light weight and lack of a motor keep it from being subjected to many of the same rules as cars, SUVs, or motorbikes.  Mulshine seems to be insisting that e-bikes are taking over so the law should accommodate them.  He forgets that with motors they are no longer bicycles (again, with the caveat about pedaling assist, which, though motorized, accomplished the same function as a series of advanced gear ratios; it makes self-propulsion easier, it does not substitute for it.)

Let’s hope that regarding these devices outselling bicycles, Mulshine’s wrong, because that would mean the effective end of cycling.  So far he seems to have greatly overestimated the appeal of E-bikes.  I have seen no indication of their ascendance; they are growing to be a more often-seen rarity, but, fortunately, still a rarity.  And, especially among actual cyclists, the e-bikes are still an oddity.  It is their very rareness that prompted recent discussion; seeing one of these contraptions in a bicycle shop is rare.

Why?

Because it’s not a bicycle.

And that’s that.