Note: I began to write this post assuming that the Guv would sign this bill. Instead he vetoed it. Good on him. I’m still posting it because the bill was yet another example of politicians dunning people who get around without cars while mostly turning a blind eye to the car-induced carnage on our streets and roads.
There are no cars on Mackinac Island. But Michigan slapped a 15 mph speed limit on the island’s lone road.
Because e-bikes.
Problem solved? Nah.
“Mackinac Island Police Chief Dwayne Miedzianowski said his office has yet to issue a ticket for violating the new speed limit, in part because the department lacks the ability to clock bicycle speeds,” reports the Detroit News.
It’s sort of like that Florida law requiring motorists to keep at least 3 feet away when passing a bicycle. It’s not enforced because it can’t be measured.
But it’s a nice sop when politicians want to say they really do care about cars killing cyclists.
Ah, but now we’ve got a new and ostensibly even deadlier menace to life and limb on our public streets. And we must deploy the full force of the law to bring it to heel.
E-bikes.
Which, last year alone, killed more than 36,000 people in this country.
Oops! Wait!
My mistake. Actually it was cars that killed nearly 36,000 people last year.
To be fair, a handful of those killed people were almost certainly riding e-bikes when they suicidally inserted themselves in the path of some perfectly innocent car driver.
My point being that the bill imposing a 10 mile speed limit on e-bike riders and other micromobility users when they are on a sidewalk or shared path and within 50 feet of a pedestrian was unenforceable.
“The bill establishes a standard that would certainly be difficult for the bicyclist to measure,” The Guv wrote in his veto message.
Which is not to say I endorse cyclists or anyone else imperiling pedestrians. Hell, if it were in my power I would make it illegal for cars to go more than 10 mph when in the vicinity of a pedestrian.
Because cars, not e-bikes, killed more than 7,000 pedestrians last year in this country.
Listen, I think it’s ridiculous that some e-bikes or other e-assisted micro-vehicles can go 30 mph or faster. Especially in a city where many e-bikers ride on sidewalks because they are…afraid of cars.
E-bike manufacturers design and market fast products that can be used recklessly for the same reason automakers do: They sell.
We call it the free market.
Detroit has been free for generations to market and sell vehicles capable of achieving speeds greatly in excess of what any law allows.
Not to mention SUVs and pickups that, by their very design, will throw a stricken pedestrian under the vehicle to an almost certain death rather than onto the hood with possibly lesser injuries.
Say, how’s this for a cool bumper sticker? Outlaw Lawn Darts, Not Killer Pickups.
Basically the vetoed bill was passed so politicians could say they “did something” about e-bike renegades. If it had been enforced at all, it would likely have been selectively enforced.
E-biking while Black. That sort of thing.
I suspect the real reason autoAmericans are frothing at the mouth about the e-bike menace is that millions of people who wouldn’t dream of riding a pedal-powered bicycle are getting out of their cars and getting onto electric-assisted riding.
We, um, old fashioned cyclists have always maintained that the more people on bicycles the safer all riders are. Because the more of us out there on the public streets and roads, the harder it is to ignore us all.
That’s why, in the years I helped organize and run Bike Florida tours involving upwards of 500 riders, we only had one casualty. And that one was caused by a distracted driver.
But to a lot of autoAmericans, the more people on bikes the more motorists feel obliged to exercise caution and perhaps even slow down.
And forcing drivers to slow down is as close to a Cardinal Sin as there is in autoAmerica.
Yeah, I’ve seen the statistics on rise of e-bike related deaths and injuries. As bad as they are, those stats pale in comparison to car-related deaths and injuries.
Why won’t the politicians do something about that? We’ve got the technology, just not the will.
FreeGNV 