When I looked at hit and run deaths a few years ago, I was kind of shocked how much more often hit and run occurs in bicyclist and pedestrian deaths vs. vehicle occupant deaths: data.bikeleague.org/new-nhtsa-da...
I guess it makes sense due to less property damage to a striking vehicle, but yikes
Nice driver pledge, including: "Completely stop for pedestrians about to enter marked or unmarked crosswalks.
Only pass bicyclists by a minimum 3-foot distance or greater."
www.saferoadsmd.org/pledge
Interesting to see HOAs in this road safety group
"Founding organizations include the American Automobile Association (AAA) Mid-Atlantic, the Route 210 Traffic Safety Committee, the Greater Olney Civic Association (GOCA) and a group of Maryland homeowner associations." www.saferoadsmd.org/about
"John Seng, founder and chair of Safe Roads Maryland... testified the driverless services like Waymo remove the most dangerous part of driving: the human element. Waymos can’t 'drive inebriated, chew edibles, drive distracted or speed'" www.route-fifty.com/infrastructu...
Funding table is here: www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa....
Most states don't apply for funding: www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa....
Current NHTSA grants to promote 24-7 programs are likely too small to effectively promote the intervention
South Dakota received a "whopping" $46,429.20 in 2025 from NHTSA for its 24-7 program
Just pennies in the scope of federal spending
Yeah, I think drunk driving can be addressed by enforcement, adjudication, and treatment in ways that infrastructure cannot address drunk driving
Unfortunately, current federal NHTSA grants don't seem effective at promoting 24-7 programs, only 7 states received grants last year
I also think it's hard to quantify the "dose" of law enforcement in an intervention
I'm sure there's scholarship I'm not aware of, but 4 hours of human or camera enforcement could result in many different amounts of tickets with different humans or cameras, so tickets only isn't a full picture
I think in this context, the data they're reporting is national so if enforcement was a cause of a change in national data then you'd need a national database
For research on specific types of enforcement interventions, like cameras or high visibility enforcement, you don't need national data
Picture of Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear against light green background. Graphic says "Keynote Speakers" in white and red with a white and red logo for the National Bike Summit in the lower right.
More tour news! We will be keynotes speakers at the National Bike Summit, hosted by @bikeleague.org, in Washington, DC. The Summit takes place March 24 - 26.
Register:
bikeleague.org/events/summit/
I suspect our current data would conflate Class 2 and e-motos with throttles most of the time, likely showing a relationship with safety due to the higher speed and weight of e-motos
The many safe users of Class 2 e-bikes would get drowned out in data about e-motos
I think our data systems don't allow strong claims about the relationship between throttles and e-bike safety
It would be very useful to have data showing the absence of a relationship and I think there is no relationship for many users
E-motos with throttles likely get lumped with Class 2 often
Our #StopSuperSpeeders is working its way through the Maryland statehouse RN.
HB107 passed the House floor yesterday. A corresponding Senate bill expected to pass today.
Let's go, Maryland! Email to show support here: secure.everyaction.com/Lgxe3mwSMUuH...
My personal experience is that I've gone faster on my gravel and road bikes than I've ever gone on my class 1 e-bike
Even if we're talking cruising speed on the greenway, my typical gravel and road bike speeds are just as fast if not faster than my typical e-bike speed
I'm kind of a doomer about relying on the popular use of terms to make a clear distinction between e-bikes and electric motorcycles
e.g. there was a movie called The Bikeriders released in 2023 and it was not about bicycles en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bik...
E-moto is useful but confusion is likely
There's an aspect of truth there and I fully support better education
But, even in the example of a kid running a stop sign, the speed limits of the roads leading into and through that intersection likely play a large role in the outcome of a crash or whether a vehicle brakes in time
A lot of states have existing laws creating a minimum age for riding e-bikes and requiring helmets while riding e-bikes
The legislation that has been most problematic this year has typically ignored existing laws related to those issues and imposed new burdens regardless of age
I feel like there's a part of e-bike backlash that is just bike backlash
There are a lot of issues in traffic safety with much stronger data showing they are leading to deaths and serious injuries that people are willing to overlook because they like big trucks, touchscreens, or are used to them
This could be a solution: electrek.co/2024/02/13/d...
But, my feeling is that the people who want laws against e-bike use also generally don't want to spend resources on enforcing e-bike-related laws
I think it's underrated how much the panic is just related to seeing more people on bikes
Strongly agree that there is precious little data in e-bike policymaking right now, and a lot of feelings and panic driving decisions
Frustrating how often legislators seem to not care about enforcing existing laws first, or will propose new laws to send a message w/o caring about implementation
Is this an enforceable compliance issue?
"pre-programmed as a Class 2 e-bike...However, you can unlock the programming to reach speeds north of 28 mph. This is intended for private property only." revv1.ride1up.com/product/revv...
"Trying to retroactively regulate this now will be Sisyphean" - agreed
The big wildcard to that though would be federal regulation. I expect if federal regulation on labeling for sale occurs it will reflect the 3-class system in 40+ states, but it could also upend things and lead to new state laws
It's a little more complicated, but New York does have truly bizarre speed limit laws that set a very high default and then specify lower speed limits city-by-city, sometimes street-by-street
so New York accounts for like 25%+ of speed limit legislation in the US www.ncsl.org/transportati...
I think the reason that people want to differentiate throttle vs. non-throttle e-bikes matters
For law enforcement, I don't see a great middle ground because they want an easy differentiator and a throttle for a start boost looks like a throttle (and could enable modified top speeds)
With infrastructure, you have a physical change to the road
By observing the behavior of people on the road you are observing the effect of the infrastructure change - infrastructure impacts everyone the same and doesn't have complicated reporting requirements
e.g. This article saying the California Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) in 2015 led to fewer stops
"reports could take as long as 20 minutes to complete after pulling over a vehicle" www.kpbs.org/news/local/2...
And then there's a separate issue of data on fine amounts & adjudication
We're arguing about 20 mph vs. 28 mph e-bikes while the Uniform Vehicle Code recommended 30 mph default speed limits for urban areas since 1956 and many states still have that policy, creating dangerous speed differentials by default regardless of e-bike class www.datawrapper.de/_/GpwYF/?v=4
There are so many variables about how stops can occur, requirements for collecting demographic data of people stopped, and all of the data about stops also needs to be compared to data on violations before/during/after stop interventions
Infrastructure-related changes are way easier to observe
"Fun fact: Because there is no comprehensive national database that tracks the number of traffic stops U.S. police make in a given year, it is impossible to study the relationship between traffic stops and traffic violence"
Data collection for traffic stop evaluation is really hard & time intensive
"For bicyclists, 62% of deaths with reported speed limits were on roads where the legal speed was 40 mph or more, the most common speed limit for the striking driver in a crash that killed a person biking was 45 mph." data.bikeleague.org/new-nhtsa-da...
