61–70 of 170 posts
E bikes are amazing for getting around. Did it for years before moving inner city and just walking. The major issue I had was the fear of theft as e-bikes are stolen regularly and cost a lot to replace.
Just today I saw a crazy e-bike kid cruise down a major highway, going back and forth between the north and south lanes on the shoulder at intersections, narrowly missing several tractor trailers. And when I am in major cities I am regularly almost run down by scooter people. What are the stats on injury rates on these things?
40,000 people are killed each year by cars in the United States. We do need to ensure bikes and scooters are not on the sidewalks. The best way to do this is to build dedicated bike lanes that remove bicycles and scooters from the sidewalk and from the road (where cars are too dangerous). But I can't take humans serious as this stage where 40,000 of us are dying each year and so little is done to prevent it despite i…
These e bikes and scooters are going quite fast in urban environments with more or less zero protection for the cyclist/scooterist, and who are closer to pedestrians.
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Insurance, registration, property taxes (in some areas). Not sure if that annual costs includes parking and other things that cost, but aren’t obvious for many people (many of us park for “free”, but we’ve paid for those space through higher rents, mortgages, etc). For the rest of the money, the average new car costs around $50k today. And the average ownership length is about 8 years. Average loan length is approach…
It's hilarious to me that anyone would overlook 25 years of registration fees, considering that Californians literally overthrew their government because of registration fees. Maybe in their jurisdiction it's not that costly.
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Just looking at reducing CO2 emissions, 0.94 lb CO2e per dollar spent is a terrible return. That money applied to more efficient CO2 reduction options could return 100-1000x better.
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My problem with e-bikes is my problem with regular bikes. Riding on the sidewalk is generally not permitted and I don't trust drivers in cars to not murder me while driving in the street.
I can't be sure of the exact mechanisms or whether I'm observing behavior correctly, but a strategy that seemed to be shaking out in SF is cyclists aggressively standing up for our rights, by for example one person blocking cars from making illegal rights while the rest of the bicyclists rode along, or by repeatedly asking people parked in the bike lane to move along.
Again I can't be sure about mechanism of action all I know is that over the course of five years, bicycling in the sf area transformed from a battleground to a relatively easy ride full of demure cars sometimes going out of their way to give right of way to bicyclists (like expecting bicyclists to run stop signs, something I personally disagree with but hey, the slower cars are going the better).
My personal strategy was to decorate myself with so many strobes I was like a rolling disco ball. You can get some pretty crazy bright bicycle lights these days. That plus the GoPro, the rearview mirror, all the shit hanging off my bike... I looked dumb as hell but also the last bicyclist on earth you'd wanna cut off.
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The amount of public real-estate we dedicate exclusively to enabling peoples usage of their private property in the united states (and to lesser extents all other countries really) is absolutely absurd. I have considered just walking slowly in random lanes of traffic while in downtown areas recently. On what grounds do you need thousands of acres of space? Speed limits should often be 4-5mph and space usage should be…
How would you deliver furniture and maintenance machinery to your place?
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Am I well below the average? I spent $22k on a new car in 1999 that I stopped driving in 2022. I would guess I spent $15k on maintenance and repairs, but let's go on the high end and say $20k for that. That means it cost me an average of $42k / 23 = $1826 per year for that car, excluding fuel. In a year that I drove 10k miles, when the car's fuel economy was 24 MPG and the fuel cost $4 per gallon, the fuel would cost…
Following the links [1] with quotes I've selected, the answers seem to be mainly: 1) You forgot about insurance 2) Your car's value was in 1999 dollars, not 2022 -- $1 in 1999 was worth $1.71 in 2022, so you need to adjust your yearly cost upwards into 2022 dollars 3) You haven't mentioned loan interest, which is additional cost if you financed it, which the average person needs to do 4) If $22K was below average for…
My problem with e-bikes is my problem with regular bikes. Riding on the sidewalk is generally not permitted and I don't trust drivers in cars to not murder me while driving in the street.
The amount of public real-estate we dedicate exclusively to enabling peoples usage of their private property in the united states (and to lesser extents all other countries really) is absolutely absurd. I have considered just walking slowly in random lanes of traffic while in downtown areas recently. On what grounds do you need thousands of acres of space? Speed limits should often be 4-5mph and space usage should be…
My general theory has become "the harder it is to drive, the better." Turns out we give cars way more leeway than is even legal, like here people will wait to let them finish a right turn they no longer are legally allowed to do (no right turn on red here). Or in a tiny alley, everyone will scooch out of the way if a car shows up. Why? If a tremendously huge person showed up and was is no emergency or particular rush, but just blasted airhorns in people's faces so he could get by a little faster, why would we all do so? Screw that guy lmao you came to a walking area you can go at walking speed like the rest of us. Take the mrt next time.
We just had lantern festival where there were lines of cars snaking out of the city for the few parking lots we have, all of which filled up in the first hour of course. So now just a bunch of cars idling around with nowhere to go. Thought about getting a sign and carrying it around that says "you'd already be here if you took the MRT."
When you factor in the reduced capital costs, carbon emissions, noise pollution, traffic, wear on infrastructure, health benefits, etc of electric bicycles the opportunity cost of car ownership over e-bike adoption is tremendous. The average cost of owning a car in 2022 is $10,728 per year: a figure which blows my mind.(edit: Source bankrate.com, the top hit on google) As a personal anecdote, my household has gone fr…
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It's hilarious to me that anyone would overlook 25 years of registration fees, considering that Californians literally overthrew their government because of registration fees. Maybe in their jurisdiction it's not that costly.
Registration for my 1999 car was only $70 per year and there were no property taxes. Insurance was a more significant cost and harder to estimate, but still not major. Regardless, I agree that these expenses add up fast. If I replaced my regular commutes with a $3000 e-bike that lasts 2 years, and I spent $2k per year on Ubers and rentals for various things that require a vehicle, I would come out ahead.