Riders and lawmakers must understand the actual regulations and intent....

[jabberwocky]

Theres a wack-a-mole effect with regulation. When something becomes a perceived problem among the public, it becomes politically expedient to be seen to be doing something about it. Ebikes have absolutely become a perceived problem. Granted, its mostly an emoto-pretending-to-be-an-ebike problem, but the ebike community largely has itself to blame for not really doing much to draw a line between the two until it became obvious that emotos were going to cause a backlash that caused issues for everyone. And legislators aren't exactly well known for technical nuance or narrowly scoped laws. So you get a general crackdown and some idiotic laws like the NJ one.

The defense against stupid legislation is either a) sheer size, to where so many people participate that no elected official really wants to piss the group off (like cars), or b) effective advocacy to increase the political power of a small group (like traditional cycling advocacy). Ebikers don't have the size where its a political issue to stomp on us in a hamfisted way, and our advocacy is largely reliant on traditional cycling advocacy which is, lets say, fickle.

 

[Ken M]

Damn! You’d think legislators are ignorant of almost everything (in this case bicycles and e-bikes), afraid of their more extreme or at least activist constituents and otherwise incapable of producing actually useful laws or regulations.

Regulating ebikes is challenging because you have brands promoting e-motos that have functional pedals as ebikes. This is highly risky because if someone riding something that is not a compliant ebike hits and harms a pedestrian they are on an illegal vehicle that can create huge liabilities. I don't understand why the companies doing this are not at risk themselves but they do have claims to check local laws which is their way of skirting responsibility. We need micro-mobility solutions so I hope legislators take their job seriously. I for one believe that HR727 was an acceptable regulation defining what is a compliant "low speed electric bicycle" that could be sold and ridden as a bike in all 50 states. The real issues began when the states started adopting the 3-class legislation which in some cases was in conflict with HR727 and should have been preempted by the CPSC.