E-bikes and a 12-year-old's death

Elefantino · #1 02-01-2023, 07:06 AM

This is an excellent story in Bicycling by Peter Flax. It raises real questions about e-bike safety and is at the same time respectful of a young girl's death.

Quick take: QRs and mechanical discs are a pretty stupid idea for a 70-pound bike that has a throttle and a 750w motor.

oldpotatoe · #2 02-01-2023, 07:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elefantino

This is an excellent story in Bicycling by Peter Flax. It raises real questions about e-bike safety and is at the same time respectful of a young girl's death.

Quick take: QRs and mechanical discs are a pretty stupid idea for a 70-pound bike that has a throttle and a 750w motor.

It isn't an 'e-bike', but an 'e-scooter'..No different than a ICE scooter, that also doesn't need a license to ride. BUT

These are regulated, not sure why -e-scooters' aren't. Few more of these deaths and they will be.

Elefantino · #3 02-01-2023, 07:16 AM

Agreed. We call them "mopeds" because that's what they are. And we don't sell them.

bikinchris · #4 02-01-2023, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elefantino

Agreed. We call them "mopeds" because that's what they are. And we don't sell them.

EXACTLY. Throttle controlled means it's a moped, not a bicycle.

Also, before the advent of thru axles, good manufacturers had changed the design of the fork dropouts to keep the wheel from coming out under hard braking by changing the angle the axle slid in from.

Alistair · #5 02-01-2023, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bikinchris

EXACTLY. Throttle controlled means it's a moped, not a bicycle.

Legally speaking, RadPower are Class 2, so despite having a throttle, they're considered e-bikes (and allowed to use bike infrastructure, and don't have limits on user age beyond existing bike regulations) in most of the US.

I'd argue the class system is wrong, but not sure there's much to be done there at this point.

dsimon · #6 02-02-2023, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elefantino

Agreed. We call them "mopeds" because that's what they are. And we don't sell them.

Not to segway, but we call em DUI bikes

peanutgallery · #7 02-01-2023, 07:23 AM

I think we have gone around about this not long ago. The parents share some blame as does Rad Power. Its a tragedy all around

The parents were dumb enough to buy the contraption and Rad was greedy enough to sell it D2C and assume 2 lawyers will figure out how to assemble it, you know...like a bookcase. Service, shoddy parts and lack of accountability are going to turn the ebike market into the lowly hoverboard

Alistair · #8 02-01-2023, 07:40 AM

Was there anything about this death that was different because it was an e-bike? Seems like just a freak bike accident that could happen to any kid (or adult).

Even more so on any D2C or big-box store bike built to a low price point, as is the case with RadPower (while not cheap in the absolute sense, they are relative to offerings from the big bike brands).

All that said, there's blame to spread around, but I mostly blame RadPower because cable actuated discs and QRs strikes me as a poor design choice for usability on this sort of bike. As fast and heavy as these things are, they really should have heavy duty hydraulics, more like what you'd find on a trail bike (180-200mm rotors, GAs, and possibly even 4-pot calipers). That drives up the price, but at some point, as a seller/manufacturer, you should be asking if you should meet a price point, not if you can.

Pegoready · #9 02-02-2023, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alistair

Was there anything about this death that was different because it was an e-bike? Seems like just a freak bike accident that could happen to any kid (or adult).

Kids lived in a wealthy neighborhood in the hills. I think the argument can be made that they wouldn't have ridden analog/acoustic bikes up such a steep grade but an e-bike made it easy.

This is beyond sad. I have a daughter and would be crestfallen forever if something like this happened but ultimately I would agree with most opinions in the Bicycling article that this isn't on RAD power. There are a lot of crappy, dangerous bikes out there not just RAD powers.

AngryScientist · #10 02-01-2023, 07:41 AM

It is indeed a tragedy, and of course the bike was a contributing factor, but I dont know much this is really an ebike issue.

growing up as a kid, we rode bmx bikes. growing up as a kid in a family with not a lot of disposable income and as a born tinkerer, my friends and I all had cobbled together bmx lower end bikes with those awful, awful center pivot brakes that were near useless. add some plastic mag rims and stopping was not something that happened fast. foot over the rear tire was the leading method to stop in a hurry.

We'd push our bikes up the biggest hills we could find and zoom down. No helmets. Our parents had no idea where we were. A lot of us got hurt, nothing ever serious.

This strikes me as kind of the same. Kids out in the outdoors having fun, and something that could have just as easily ended with scraped elbows and maybe a broken wrist turned tragic.

It sucks that it happened, and no one ever wants to see it happen, but I dont know that a legal blame game needs to be undertaken. There will always be kids goofing around, and there will always be crappy bikes with crappy brakes, just as there always have been.

Blown Reek · #11 02-01-2023, 07:45 AM

Dived a little more into the law. Nevermind.

AngryScientist · #12 02-01-2023, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blown Reek

Dived a little more into the law. Nevermind.

It's right in the article.

Quote:

Just to be clear, children under the age of 16 are prohibited by California law from piloting a Class 3 e-bike, which can reach 28 miles per hour, but presently no age restrictions exist for riding Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes like the RadRunner that Eme and Molly were on.

unterhausen · #13 02-01-2023, 07:55 AM

Do we know that the QR was a contributing factor? I think the driver just screwed up.

I always thought that TA was invented by lawyers. You can still screw it up, but I think it fails more slowly.

Blown Reek · #14 02-01-2023, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

It's right in the article.

Yes. And that's why I rescinded my comment.

unterhausen · #15 02-01-2023, 10:46 AM

As far as the ebike class system is concerned, adoption by the states is being lobbied for fairly heavily by the main bike advocacy organization in the U.S., People for Bikes. I have never really known what to think about that.

I think in the end, radpower will settle and we'll never know if there really were any issues with the bike at all. After all the fires, I think we will see regulation on ebike batteries, which may not stop the fires, at least not for a long time.