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Transportation Digital Government Technology

Electric Bike Motors Will Be Shut Down When Entering Residential Areas of Amsterdam (theguardian.com) 106

In an effort to cut road deaths, the Dutch government will be using a new digital system to automatically reduce electric bicycles' power in residential or built-up areas of Amsterdam. The Guardian reports: The digital technology, which has been successfully trialled on a 4km stretch of bike lanes at Schiphol airport, was funded by the Dutch ministry of infrastructure and water management. The not-for-profit Townmaking Institute behind the concept is working with e-bike manufacturers and government authorities with the expectation that the speed-cutting technology and new regulations could be rolled out by 2022.

Sixty-five people died last year while riding e-bikes, which have an integrated electric motor to propel the wheels, up from 57 in 2018. The vast majority were men over the age of 65. The standard e-bike reaches speeds of 12mph (20km/h), but faster models, such as speed pedelecs, can reach 28mph. Discussions over the use of the technology are most advanced with the municipality of Amsterdam, but the provinces of Gelderland and North Holland are also said to have shown an interest.

The technology trialled at Schiphol offers policymakers a range of options. "Say the weather is really bad, there is a headwind of 40km and cyclists are at a standstill, then cutting off the power would be counterintuitive," said [Indranil Bhattacharya, a technology strategist at the Townmaking Institute]. "We built it so you can detect the direction the bike is going, and a policymaker can say: 'We change the regulation. We won't cut your power off because the weather is bad.' The intelligent infrastructure would then tell the bicycle not to cut off the power.â The infrastructure could also inform an e-bike of upcoming obstacles or junctions, by alerting cyclists with a gentle vibration of the handlebars.

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Electric Bike Motors Will Be Shut Down When Entering Residential Areas of Amsterdam

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  • This is insane (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 )

    This kind of stuff makes me hate government

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DenverTech ( 6049994 )
      Are you over 65 ? Do you follow the rules of the road ?? Are you a shit head !!
      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Are you over 65 ?

        No.

        Do you follow the rules of the road ??

        I'm a cyclist. So no.

        Are you a shit head !!

        Yes. Stay out of the road when I'm riding!

      • Are you under 30? Do you own a crotch rocket? Are you a shit head !!

    • Re:This is insane (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06, 2020 @09:45PM (#60693928)
      What's insane is unskilled uncoordinated people being given electric mopeds without any training or testing to ensure they're safe to be riding them.
      The average untrained person shouldn't even be on a bicycle without some sort of instruction and checking to see if they're a danger to themselves or others.
      I'm out riding anywhere from 20 to 60 miles a day and I see people every single time that are just not paying attention and just not good at riding normal bikes, then you give them something with a motor? Think about it, these same people they're talking about probably are riding an e-bike because they aren't allowed to drive a car anymore, and you're handing them a more dangerous motor vehicle? That's the real insanity.
      E-bikes should be licensed the same way mopeds used to be licensed. You have to have a drivers license and you have to register the vehicle, put a license plate on it. They should not be allowed on bike paths or multi-use paths or sidewalks, they should be restricted to public roads only.
      • Similar argument - license riders vs an auto-license via control over the (few?) *powered* bikes that adhere to the system.

        Electric scooter deaths in the US outnumber the Netherlands by far, relative to population, but we classify them as Darwin awards.

      • Re:This is insane (Score:4, Informative)

        by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @04:42AM (#60694582)

        This is probably true in whatever lard-ass car-centric hellhole you live in, but this article is about the Netherlands. You know, the country where children ride bikes from the age of 2 upwards, half the population goes to work on a bike, and where a dense network of bicycle lanes crosses all the cities, and the countryside as well. Where people do shopping for a week on a bike. Where children going to school are expected to just ride their bike for 10km or more, because it is the normal thing to do.

        These people are not disqualified from using a car, they just don't have the muscle power anymore to ride a bike at the speed they are used to.

        "You call that bicycle lane? THIS is a bicycle lane!" https://imgur.com/oCoO9Ta [imgur.com]

        • Where people do shopping for a week on a bike.

          Here's some examples of things I've seen in my suburb:

          - A guy transporting a fully assembled IKEA KALLAX (the 3x3 model).
          - Two girls, one peddling the other sitting on the bag rack holding a 70" TV.
          - 4 kids riding on one bicycle (one sitting on the seat, one on the rear bag carrier, one guy stand pedaling and steering and another sitting on the front wheel bag carrier).

          I already mentioned people holding hands while cycling below, and people using bicycles to ride home pushing other bicycles :)

          Hell Dutch rap

      • Re:This is insane (Score:4, Interesting)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @06:11AM (#60694732)

        What's insane is unskilled uncoordinated people being given electric mopeds without any training or testing to ensure they're safe to be riding them.
        The average untrained person shouldn't even be on a bicycle without some sort of instruction and checking to see if they're a danger to themselves or others.

        Except you're talking about the Netherlands. What typically happens is 9 months after two people have sex a baby pops out of the womb, cries a bit, and then hops on a bicycle. At some point they learn to walk and run, but first they learn to ride.

        About the only people who are not coordinated enough to ride on a small moped here are foreigners. On the daily I see people holding hands while cycling. Cycling while pushing other bicycles. Engaging in unwarned "Dutch mounts" whereby you run up and just jump on the bag carrier of someone cycling (the first time I saw that I almost instinctively reached for the first aid kit and then had my mind blown by the fact these 10 year olds didn't so much as wobble let alone crash in a tangled mess).

        I do agree E-bikes should be licensed though. The bigger problem I see with them is that it gives more scope to the reckless (most Dutch city bikes are fixies or 2-3 speed things so they don't really race around recklessly through the city), and they allow people to cycle beyond their effective use by date.

        That last part is a big cause of concern here. When people start getting older and slow to react, or start having balance issues, or otherwise are not all there anymore they typically also come with health issues that prevent them from cycling. E-bikes have allowed them to get back on the bikes causing some quite tragic accidents.

        I don't agree that they shouldn't be allowed on bike paths though. Ultimately they are still quite light. Full on mopeds however with all their metal do some incredible damage. They should be banned from bikepaths, electric or otherwise.

      • What's insane is unskilled uncoordinated people being given electric mopeds without any training or testing to ensure they're safe to be riding them. The average untrained person shouldn't even be on a bicycle without some sort of instruction and checking to see if they're a danger to themselves or others.

        So smother them with your pissflaps, you overcontrolling cunt, you.

      • Standard ebikes (in NL) have their maximum speed already limited to 25 km/h - the same speed limit that applies to unpowered bikes. That speed is also easily attainable by a reasonably healthy cyclist on an unpowered bike. It makes no sense to require a license for one but not the other.

        It also makes no sense to force ebikes (max speed 25 km/h) off the bike path and onto the road, where they'll be a major hazard driving at half the speed of other traffic. In NL, many town roads have been narrowed to allow b

    • This kind of stuff makes me hate government

      Don't move to Amsterdam and it won't be a problem.

    • Re:This is insane (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quenda ( 644621 ) on Friday November 06, 2020 @10:58PM (#60694096)

      Government is people living together, and agreeing to act for the common good, and set rules instead of families and tribes fighting over every disagreement.
      If you don't like it, go live in a cabin in the mountains. It sounds like that might suit you.

      I like that we all pitch in to build common assets, like roads and bike paths. And when it gets bigger than a small village, we set written rules.
      The alternative to a common government is tribalism. How is that working out?

    • Re:This is insane (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @06:03AM (#60694712)

      This kind of stuff makes me hate government

      You clearly don't live in Amsterdam. This kind of stuff is the reason governments exist. What next, get upset that you can't drive 100mph though a school zone because fuck the government?

      • When they're stopping your ebike doing a mere 12.5mph, then yeah, fuck the government
        • I'm guessing it's the ones doing 40 kph they're talking about.

        • When they're stopping your ebike doing a mere 12.5mph, then yeah, fuck the government

          Again you don't live in Amsterdam. The thought of you doing 12.5mph on a bikelane in the city fucking scary. There's a reason there are calls to ban the things entirely.

      • Put your statement into a for-loop decrementing to zero. Which one is safer for children?

        "Do you really wanna drive 100mph in a school zone? Implying less is safer"

        "Do you really wanna drive 30mph in a school zone? Implying less is safer"

        "Do you really wanna drive 25mph in a school zone? Implying less is safer"

        "Do you really wanna drive 10mph in a school zone? Implying less is safer"

        The problem is some fool with no common sense can keep proving that slower is always even more "safer" until you are going ZER

  • Track ur asses!
  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday November 06, 2020 @09:43PM (#60693922)
    I hope you enjoy your connected cars, connected bikes, connected speakers, connected toasters and so on.
    • Yup, connected stuff for no reason is just idIOT.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Scottish government is already talking about arresting and convicting people for "hate speech" in their homes. All they're missing is "how to listen to people in their homes".

      Unfortunately there's a large amount of people who tend to really want to enter government who seem to view world of 1984 as something to strive for.

      • Scottish government is already talking about arresting and convicting people for "hate speech" in their homes.

        My experience is that most Scottish hate speech is directed at the English, so a desire by the government to control it is understandable. Let's not forget what happened in 1745.

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          I'm pretty sure that SNP loves the anti-English hate speech. Hate speech they don't like is the anti-political correctness. Person talking about it was Justice Secretary who's a Muslim, and his demands were pretty much in line with how Sharia demands punishing those who insult Islam.

    • I hope you enjoy your connected cars, connected bikes, connected speakers, connected toasters and so on.

      I love it. People should obey speed limits in the inner city.

    • Yeah I can't wait until I can't make toast in the morning because the government disabled all toasters to reduce GHG emissions for a day.

    • How about just classifying stuff that can drive as fast as a motorbike as a motorbike?

  • Why would they go through the complicated process of gauging wind speed and direction? Why not just put governors on the bikes and limit top speed in congested areas? You could even have a sensor that detects congestion and limit speed automatically and then controls are local to the machine and not some centralized power... Ticket those that muck with the controls. Or is some bureaucrat lusting for power and wants the thrill of cutting off the power from time to time?

    • Ebikes already have a speed "governor" (the electronic equivalent), so it's as simple as changing a single parameter in the controller, which I'm sure is how this will work. The wind thing is a non-issue brought up by people who don't know the details of how ebike controllers work.
    • Bikes already have a speed limiter (legal requirement in NL). If you try to go faster than 25 (normal ebike) or 45 ("speed pedelec") km/h the motor cuts out and you have to provide all of the power via the pedals.

      What Amsterdam wants is to reduce this speed in certain areas.

      • by pjt33 ( 739471 )

        I was puzzled by the article saying that normal e-bikes only go up to 20km/h, because when I rented what I thought was a normal e-bike in Normandy last year the top speed I managed on it was about 40km/h. Your post makes sense of the situation, and I don't have any mod points to give you +1 Informative, so instead I'll say thanks.

  • Wtf (Score:2, Troll)

    They say most of the problem is men over 65. So limit the speed of bikes for men over 65 and leave everyone else alone

  • by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Friday November 06, 2020 @10:13PM (#60693996)

    the gasoline and diesel bikes will work just fine. /s

    • the gasoline and diesel bikes will work just fine. /s

      Sarcasm aside you can already get a huge fine for driving a non-speed limited moped on a bike path in the Netherlands. The problem is it's rarely enforced.
      Oh and in Amsterdam you're already not allowed to use mopeds on bike paths https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/... [dutchnews.nl]

  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Friday November 06, 2020 @11:03PM (#60694102)

    I don't want an car / truck / bike / etc that can only do the speed limit

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Thanks for sharing!

    • by dargaud ( 518470 )
      And I fucking do. I'm so tired of (motor) bikers continuously doing races on the mountain road where I live (and I don't mean going 60 in a 55 area). I mean, yes the idea of the OP is kinda dumb, but then it would unjust to apply it only to ebikes that already only go below 20kph. Apply it where it really matters !
      • by tsa ( 15680 )

        This. I live along a road close to the city center where the max. speed has just been reduced from 50 to 30 km/h. This doesn’t prevent people, usually morons with souped-up cars with loud tailpipes to try how fast they can go in the middle of the night. You can easily reach 100 km/h there. So far this has resulted in one deadly one-sided accident in which five people were killed including the driver. Speed limiters would have prevented this. Better for the people in the car AND the people who have cle

        • by pjt33 ( 739471 )

          If the speed limit of 30km/h there certainly shouldn't be a problem with adding a few speed bumps (humps, sleeping policemen, or whatever they call them where you live). Anyone going over those at 100km/h is going to lose their loud tailpipe.

          • by tsa ( 15680 )

            True, but the plan is to have buses use that road in the near future. And they don't like speed bumps much.

            • by tsa ( 15680 )

              BTW, losing your loud tailpipe makes your car a LOT noisier!

            • by pjt33 ( 739471 )

              I've seen speed bumps which are designed so that a bus fits around them, but most vehicles have a narrower wheelbase. (And yes, the bit about losing the tailpipe was a bit tongue in cheek).

              • by tsa ( 15680 )

                I've seen those too, in Utrecht. I almost crashed my car into one of them once in the dark. These things are dangerous. I hope they will make a few curves in the road with high edges so you can't go straight on through the grass. They use them a lot here in NL.

      • Yeah other people having fun are the worst.

        • by dargaud ( 518470 )
          Their fun is "everybody who lives within 5 miles of them"'s nightmare (in the mountains the sound really carries that far).
    • I don't want an car / truck / bike / etc that can only do the speed limit

      Don't worry. A government near you will soon outlaw your ability to even decide that. Humans will be banned from driving within 20 years at the rate we're going. Think autonomous cars are all about convenience and safety? Think again.

    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @06:14AM (#60694740)

      I don't want an car / truck / bike / etc that can only do the speed limit

      If you want to get your kicks go to a racetrack and get the fuck off public inner city roads.

      • No Just try to do the very under posted 55 on some highways / tolls roads in my area and see how many others just blow you by.
        They all need to be 65-70 min with max posted 70-75

        • Ahh yes the old "they break the rules so they don't apply to me either excuse".

          I thought you lived in a western country with laws. You sound like you live in a shithole nation.

  • by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @01:59AM (#60694340)

    After a few generations, the people who drive ebikes to fast will be naturally selected out of the population and everything will be fine.

  • This is not the first time they're proposing massive changes to nationwide standards because of a tiny perceived problem. The last time was when they unilaterally decided an entire category of mopeds ("snorfietsen", mopeds limited to 25 km/h) should be banned from bike paths because some people would tune their moped and go faster than 25 km/h.

  • by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @02:22AM (#60694382)

    Max speed for ebikes is 25 km/h (15 mph), for speed pedelecs it's 45 km/h (28 mph).

  • by Xenna ( 37238 )

    This is clearly a joke. How did this make Slashdot?

    • It's not a joke, it's Amsterdam. All our nutty politicians eventually end up over there. Or maybe there's something in the water that makes them nutty, I don't know.
  • by kot-begemot-uk ( 6104030 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @03:04AM (#60694426) Homepage
    The issue with electric bikes is not so much speed, but brakes. There is no mandatory maintenance regime and no inspection. Add Dutch, British, etc climate and the brakes become iffy in a year or two.

    1. No amount of electronic speed control will fix that.

    2. Electronic speed control can be hacked and is hacked. Example: UK e-bikes are limited to 15,5mph. This spring I was overtaken by a "cute yummy mummy" riding a Dutch Cargo Bike with two kids in the front "pram". 30kg+ unholy hybrid of a double size pram and a city bike on three wheels. I was doing ~15-20mph on a road bike and she cruised by as if I was standing still. Electric assist on both front wheels and one on the rear wheel - all of them hacked (the joy of living in a university town - too many people with engineering knowledge). Now, imagine what happens if she tries to stop in this 30kg+ contraption and brakes fail.

    3. Dutch have serious issue with road markings on cycle lane crossings, at least in Amsterdam. There is no defined priority, no rules to speak of and the sole reason this is not a bloodbath is that 95%+ of the bikes are prehistoric slow contraptions which crawl at 10mph or thereabouts. Instead of putting speed limits they need to put some traffic lights and priority markings so that the ones which need to yield stop in time. Once again - if their brakes work.

    • what is really needed is they need to have completely separate bike and car only roads and not mix the two.
    • by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @05:03AM (#60694632) Journal

      There is no defined priority, no rules to speak of

      No markings = give way to the right, every Dutch kid knows this. And ignores it. Especially in Amsterdam. Markings and lights won;t fix this either; have you noticed Dutch cyclers obey the traffic lights much? Maybe if there's a lot of motorized cross traffic, but otherwise the red light is taken as friendly advice, not a rule.

    • by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @07:51AM (#60694890)
      I thought the canals are there to catch the speeders.
    • Many electric bikes have hydraulic brakes made by Magura or Shimano. They are essentially maintenance free, only the pads have to be changed when they are used up.

      • by K10W ( 1705114 )

        Many electric bikes have hydraulic brakes made by Magura or Shimano. They are essentially maintenance free, only the pads have to be changed when they are used up.

        I've found they do need a fair bit of maintenance much more than simple pad changes if you ride in less than ideal weather or regular basis. They can be prone to sticky pistons from crap building up on pistons or creepign in the seals, minor mushiness from moisture and so on. Especially the 2pot designs on most ebikes (or xc mtb's) vs the downhill or FR types on none electric mtbs that oft use 4pot and beefed up sizes. I find shimanos are worse with the mineral oil vs others that use dot4/5.1 but they all g

        • Oh, I used ride in all weather and I have a pair of MT2s that are 6 years old by now and only ever needed new brake pads. Never even bled them once, they are still with the stock oil inside. Brake force one, on the other hand, are notorious to require constant maintenance.

          Shimanos have been somewhat worse with sticky pistons, but this is only an issue for people like us who don't use electric assist. Didn't have to bleed them either, though.

          The reason I have mentioned mineral oil brakes is because DOT requi

          • by K10W ( 1705114 )

            Oh, I used ride in all weather and I have a pair of MT2s that are 6 years old by now and only ever needed new brake pads. Never even bled them once, they are still with the stock oil inside. Brake force one, on the other hand, are notorious to require constant maintenance.

            Shimanos have been somewhat worse with sticky pistons, but this is only an issue for people like us who don't use electric assist. Didn't have to bleed them either, though.

            The reason I have mentioned mineral oil brakes is because DOT requires yearly maintenance lest risk losing all braking power when you need it the most.

            And I am here in Europe. Home of Magura, in fact. Used to be a fan, all my forks and some of my shocks are theirs. Work great, very durable, easy to maintain. Alas, Magura doesn't manufacture bicycle suspension anymore.

            Impressive you've got that long with no problems and perhaps a lot of the bias for me is historical quality vs competition and things change, as well as I tend to only see stuff that has problems. That said not all issue prone models will always have problems, for instance had a set of formula oros on a hardtail commuter that was used on light to mid xc routes and road that only saw maintenance when problems occurred which was basically never despite formula being finnicky and generally pissy beasts that ne

    • 1. No amount of electronic speed control will fix that.

      That's a stupid comment. The reliance on quality brakes is directly related to speed, so yes speed control reduces requirements on brakes. Heck in Australia the police even campaigned to people who modified their cars to please also modify their brakes, not because the brakes were going bad but because the faster speeds required better stopping power.

      2. Electronic speed control can be hacked and is hacked.

      The lack of obeying laws is not a reason to just give up on any regulation. You can get serious fines already for modifying limiters on mopeds for bikepaths. S

    • The issue with electric bikes is not so much speed, but brakes

      The brakes that came with my bike self-destructed within two years. They were supposedly a good brand used by mountain bikers who had all kinds of work arounds for the problems they were having. The new brakes bled on the first try, don't squeal, stop the bike faster than ever, and don't have an online group posting workarounds.

      Then you have all the bikes here in the US which blink their lights so you can't tell how fast they are moving. Or they are aimed to blind everyone else. My wheel came with a dyno an

    • I can second that one. I have a motorcycle license and have ridden Norton, Honda, Triumph and Harley motorcycles. I also had a recumbent bicycle that was pretty easy to human power up to 15mph on a flat and capable of going very fast down hill. The brakes on the recumbent were not capable of an emergency stop.

  • what if your bike is dumb and not computer & gps enabled ?
    • by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      what if your bike is dumb and not computer & gps enabled ?

      They'll probably put up cameras to make sure you're as miserable as the rest of them.

  • I see this being hard to enforce on privately owned e-bikes. I don't know what the laws are like in Amsterdam regarding bikes/ebikes. But here in Florida any motorized vehicle you can sit on so an ebike or escooter with a seat has to be registered just as a car/motorcycle/moped. Technically the only motorized gas/electric vehicle that doesn't require registration is a stand on scooter. However the laws around this are pretty much not enforced in my area regarding ebikes/escooters that you can sit on. Seems
    • Electric bikes (limited to 25kmh) do not require license plates or registration in the Netherlands. "Speed-pedelecs" (limited to 45 km/h) are classed as mopeds and require registration, insurance, a moped license, and a helmet must be worn. There has been some discussion about requiring registration for e-bikes as well, but they prefer to keep those low-threshold in order to encourage more people to ride them instead of travelling by car.
      • What if I don't need a motor to go 25kph? 35-40kph on flat ground is not hard for me to do..

        • > What if I don't need a motor to go 25kph? 35-40kph on flat ground is not hard for me to do..

          In that case, the Judges will provide you with a non-optional handicap ala Harrison Bergeron.

  • "Sixty-five people died last year while riding e-bikes, which have an integrated electric motor to propel the wheels, up from 57 in 2018. The vast majority were men over the age of 65."

    Gee if there were only a way to test a rider of two-wheeled motorized devices to ensure they are capable of handling it instead of removing the entire fucking point of an e-bike. Let me guess, zero testing and no age limits for something as unstable a bicycle going as fast as a moped, right? Smart government right there. Ignore the fucking obvious.

    “...we helped them to understand that where vehicles should go and how fast is not up to a private party, a business. In a functioning democracy, that is the job of citizens and of government.”

    Until the government decides it's the job of government and government. Might as well force e-riders to wear diapers too. No way we should ask adults to exe

  • If people are stupid enough to buy these bikes, often tweak them to reach higher speeds, ride them without helmet, insurance and such, unable to properly ride them (dieing is the ultimate indication) then why do we all have to suffer from that?
    Even electronic gadgetery, not a simple lower speed limit and enforcement.
    This indicates that this option is cheaper and/or more effective in their eyes.
    Typical of leftist government: if one sees a problem, either make it illegal or `fascistly` fix it.
    (Think abou
  • There is a genuine problem with eBikes: The fast ones go faster than mopeds, but don't require any sort of training or license. Add in the stupidity of many bike riders, who think that the laws don't apply to them, and deaths are guaranteed.

    FWIW, I used to commute on bicycle. I frequently encountered cyclists going the wrong way in the dedicated bike lane, because they couldn't be arsed to cross the road to the bike lane on the other side. I don't dislike cyclists at all, but I detest the idiots.

    This system

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