Cops Are Now Using E-Bikes To Chase Illegal E-Bikers (insideevs.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[-] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago

If I escape with clown shoes and a pogo stick, are the cops going to chase me in the same manner? Asking for a friend

[-] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

There's really only one way to find out. Be sure to report back to us!

[-] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I'd prefer it. Meet crime where it's at, you know?

[-] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with an E-Bike is a good guy with an E-bike.

[-] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago

But instead they gave the e-bikes to the police.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

You’re telling me I gotta do the work of stopping all these cops?

[-] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

But are fat tire bikes the best option? Or are they chasing bad guys in snow and sand? 😂

[-] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

Well, you see, they look cool.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

At least you'll know that they're coming! LOL

[-] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Thum-thum-thum-thum-thum

[-] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Wuwuwuwuwuwuwwwuwuwuuw

[-] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

There's a Fast and Furious movie in here somewhere...

[-] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

I could get behind that. Me and my... family....

[-] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

So I outrun fat cops on bikes with my bike instead of fat cops on foot. Not really a problem since those fucks don't know how to ride a bike over anything but the flattest straightest roads.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

They'll just deploy the hose cops.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYivyUfarws

[-] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Bike cops are a different breed

[-] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

So I outrun fat cops

Sure you do

[-] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Unsurprisingly, the authorities have taken notice of this, and are now making use of e-bikes to catch crooks on e-bikes. Talk about fighting fire with fire.

But e-bikes aren't the fire..?

[+] [email protected] -6 points 9 months ago

I hope it works - there's a real need for enforcement. In NYC I constantly see e-bikes driving on sidewalks, going the wrong way on one-way streets, and running red lights. They're a real threat to pedestrians, and the police aren't able to do anything about it. I was happy when e-bikes were legalized here, but now I would vote to ban them again unless something changes.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

While we're talking about vehicles where almost no one follows the traffic laws, let's ban cars, too!
(speed limits, safe passing and following distance, indicating on turns, staying off the phone, staying off bike paths, using the horn only in emergencies, coming to a complete stop at stop signs...)

[+] [email protected] -7 points 9 months ago

The two situations are not really comparable.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Yes, they are. All traffic users disregard traffic rules, which increases the danger for others.
The groups only differ in which traffic rules they like to ignore and which other group of traffic users they endanger by doing so.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 9 months ago

Cities aren't built around e-bikes and the e-bike adoption rate, availability and all those things aren't on par with cars. It's just not the same. Unless you simplify it to "they're used to move around".

[-] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

To say that laws should apply more to e-bikes because cities are designed for cars is both wrong and dangerous. You realize that the bike came before the car, right? That cities actually were built around bikes, horses, and ..ugh.. walking, long before the assembly line was even a twinkle in young Ford's eye?

The poster is saying that if you are going to call out the operators of one for gross negligence, then the other should be called out as well. It is a very comparable situation and pretending that because cars are more ubiquitous, they should somehow be less restricted is a leap in logic that is rather ludicrous.

[-] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I don't think they're saying that. They're hoping e-bikes get banned because of the issues they cause. Cars, regular bicycles and whatnot are sorta a lost cause at this point, they're so crucial and numerous that it'd be really hard to ban them. So you have to deal them in other ways. Not so much for e-bikes which are new and nowhere near as numerous, so could feasibly be banned without as much issues.

It's all well and good to consider them all equal and want to treat them as such, from a fairness point of view. But there's big differences between them and in reality you'd have to take that into account and work with those differences. Even if it means being more lenient to one method.

Unless we're talking about just pure hypothetical or fantasy scenario. Then it's fine, don't have to care about the differences then. But it's good to keep things somewhat grounded imo.

The poster is saying that if you are going to call out the operators of one for gross negligence, then the other should be called out as well.

By all means. I'm just saying it's not the same, for the (imo) obvious and well, now mentioned reasons.

pretending that because cars are more ubiquitous, they should somehow be less restricted is a leap in logic that is rather ludicrous.

Don't know what you mean with less restricted. I don't care if you ban all vehicles. I'm not advocating for some policy. Just saying it was a bad comparison because of the big differences.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

No, I'm simplifying it to "If you want to use rule-breaking as reason to ban a class of vehicle, you have to apply it to all vehicles".

Or even shorter: "Don't ban e-bikes for bullshit reasons"

[-] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

"If you want to use rule-breaking as reason to ban a class of vehicle, you have to apply it to all vehicles".

But you don't have to. And you wouldn't treat everything the same since they aren't the same. It's like saying when designing traffic routes, you have to treat every class of vehicle the same. Of course you wouldn't, you'd consider prevalence, design goals, feasibility, need, all kinds of things.

Simplifying too much is a bad thing.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

But you don’t have to.

But the comment I answered at the beginning of this chain did.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

They're applying it to e-bikes. They said nothing about being an universal policy that affects any other vehicles the exact same way.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Driving on sidewalks because there are no bicycle lanes preventing you from being crushed to death by an emotional support truck.

Going the wrong way on one-way streets because it hardly matters on a bicycle since one-way streets were created for cars specifically.

Running red lights because solely cars can ride the Green Wave, bicyclists have to stop at significantly more traffic lights.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I live in NYC too. I get that there are a lot of delivery workers zipping around on e-bikes. And yeah, it’s a little annoying and dangerous.

But I’m in WAY more danger and am way more consistently shocked by the stupidity of car drivers in this city. Blatantly running red lights, speeding, going up one way streets (in my neighborhood it happens plenty), doing real stupid shit where they shouldn’t/don’t have the time nor space…just because we’ve for some reason grown to think of cars as inevitable, we ignore just how insane the space we’ve sacrificed to them is. Think of how much public space is dedicated to cars. It’s like we live in a car’s world.

In the city! Barely anyone truly needs cars here. And somehow people decide to sit through hours of traffic to not take the train. And they block bike lanes because they’re running errands and double park, the trucks have to squeeze through and then THEY block the bike lanes—or even the walking lanes! The car situation in the city is off the fuckin wall. The e-bike situation by comparison is fuckin nothin.

this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023

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