The REAL Menace on Our Streets?

 We've all seen them.  Riding along the streets, almost without effort.  That menace to the established order.  E-bikes.

  The online publication Electrik posted a partly tongue-in-cheek essay about the "menace of e-bikes".  

 Electric bikes are a menace. They go almost as fast as a car (if the car is parking), they’re whisper quiet (which makes them impossible to hear over the podcast playing in your headphones), and worst of all, they’re increasingly ridden by teenagers.

By now, we’ve all seen the headlines. Cities are cracking down. Lawmakers are holding emergency hearings. Parents are demanding bans. “Something must be done,” they cry at local city council meetings before driving back home in 5,000 lb SUVs.

And it’s true – some e-bike riders don’t follow the rules. Some ride too fast. Some are inexperienced. These are real problems that deserve real solutions. But if you think electric bikes are the biggest threat on our roads, just wait until you hear about the slightly more common, slightly more deadly vehicle we’ve been quietly tolerating for the last hundred years.

 They’re called cars. And unlike e-bikes, they actually kill people. A lot of people. Over 40,000 people die in car crashes in the US every year. Thousands more are permanently injured. Entire neighborhoods are carved up by high-speed traffic. Kids can’t walk to school safely. But don’t worry – someone saw a teenager run a stop sign on an e-bike, so the real crisis must be those darn batteries on two wheels.

 The REAL menaces on our streets are cars, specifically large, heavy cars, distracted drivers, speeding drivers, lack of bike lanes, lack of decent shoulders on roads and simply too much traffic - car and truck traffic.  Bikes are one solution to most of those menaces.