Encinitas City Council declares emergency for e-bikes, bicycles

[Jason Knight]

From the article:
the number of collisions involving bicycles or e-bicycles has "almost tripled since 2020,"... OMG, OMG! We need to declare an emergency!!!

This is a common aspect of propaganda driven legislation and/or false assumptions made by people who don't understand statistics.

Collisions tripled, ok... what's the pool size? Were there as many e-bikes on the road in 2020 as there are now? Sure, the NUMBER of collisions has gone up, but has the percentage?

It's a logic fallacy I come across a lot as a web developer that other dev's use as an excuse to be ignorant lazy little turds.
A great example of this is how back in 2003 Internet Explorer (mostly IE6) was what 95% of all visitors to websites were using. By 2008 that number had dropped to just 45% as Firefox cut into their numbers. Firefox fanboys used those numbers to wildly claim that IE was dying and that Firefox was responsible for that.

A bald faced LIE! They were sounding the trumpet five years too soon. Chrome is what eventually killed both.

Why was it a lie? Because the pool size changed. In 2003 at IE's peak percentage there were roughly 608 million Internet users. In 2008 there were ~1.5 billion.

Now I'm no mathemagician, but 95% of 608 million is 577 million. 45% of 1.5 billion 675 million. So in spite of "losing" 50% market share, they gained 98 million users? It wasn't "dying", it was just failing to expand as quickly into new markets. This is the common lie of "market share" in growing markets.

Thus the claims of IE's death were premature, and based on a card stacked lie. Using a single data point whilst omitting anything that contradicted the preconceived conclusion.

Without telling us how many e-bikes were on the road for each of those years, the number of collisions leads to false conclusions.

It's like the disease I have as a result of an overactive ventromedial pre-frontal cortex: non-24 sleep wake disorder. Prior to about 20 years ago there were no known cases, ten years ago the number of cases shot up to 200 times prior, and today there are hundreds of thousands of people worldwide with the diagnosis. What's going on? Why are so many people suddenly getting this?!?

Wrong question based on incorrect conclusions rooted in incomplete data. The first doctor to recognize the condition even exists did so 20 years ago, and it didn't even have a medical diagnostic code or wide-spread education about it until a decade ago.

The number of people with the condition hasn't gone up. The ability for doctors to recognize and diagnose it has. And STILL you get the "moral panic" level of stupid because people only talk about how many diagnosis there are, omitting that prior to 20 years ago they didn't even know what it was.

And make no mistake, these types of knee-jerk reactions to numbers are a form of moral panic. NO different than the people losing their minds over tik-tok "poisoning the minds of the youth" the same way such "moral guardians" reacted to metal, rap, video games, D&D, rock and roll, jazz, and anything else that was "new" and "children like it". Or screaming about China spying on our kids through it. Because Chinese military intelligence gains security information via pre-teen girls acting like trashy bimbos and the 40-something male virgins spanking their crank to it.

I guess it's a way to distract from the child abuse that is religious grooming. Which is why those same "defenders of the innocent" seem to have no problem with priests diddling little kids or Churches covering it up. But won't we please think of the children. When Jesus said "let the little children come unto me" that's NOT what he was talking about!

Anyhow, beware of statistical fallacies. They are a perfect example of how the best place to hide a lie is between two truths. It is entirely possible to lie using facts, that's what card-stacking is. Present the handful of data that supports your view, and omit anything and everything that shows how full of manure the conclusion is.

 

[Taylor57]

Chrome the app or Chrome the stuff we liked on our bikes when we were yutes?

A bald faced LIE! They were sounding the trumpet five years too soon. Chrome is what eventually killed both

 

[sanyata]

The pool based percentage figure doesn't matter. Perhaps, it does to folks that want to have statistical arguments. The mere fact that the pool has grown with accompanying deaths albeit without an increase per capita of ebikers is what matters. Simple fact, the number of bikers is up and the number of deaths is up, thus causing safety concerns and more rules. Pretty simple fact that doesn't need to be over complicated.
You lost me when you went off topic with Chrome, TikTok and churches......

 

[Jason Knight]

The pool based percentage figure doesn't matter.

You might want to work on your comprehension as...

without an increase per capita of ebikers

How do you know for the area they're talking about there was no increase, decrease, etm? If you don't know out of how many e-bikers there are on the road over the time of comparison, you CANNOT determine that! The number of accidents to number of bikers may in fact have gone down... but we can't say that if we don't know out of how many! Aka "the pool size".

Hypothetical: If there were 4 e-bike related accidents three years ago in a town where there were only ten people who owned them, and this year there were 20 e-bike related accidents, but there are 200 people who own them, is it more or less dangerous now than it was then?

THAT is the flaw of focusing on any one statistic like the number of accidents. The number of accidents can go up despite it being safer overall for riders! Thus said statistical flaw can work both ways. Do not draw conclusions from single data-points!

I'll never understand why "normal people" seem to find that so hard to understand, and are so easily suckered, hoodwinked, and bamboozled by propagandists who exploit such mental failings.

Simple fact, the number of bikers is up and the number of deaths is up

How do we know that first part? That's an assumption. It might even be safer per rider if the increase in accidents does not correspond to the number of riders.

You lost me when you went off topic with Chrome, TikTok and churches......

Is that an "aah, wall of text" reaction, or do you simply not understand the literary mechanism known as a simile? And no, for the nose-breathers out there I did not just misspell "smilie"

I'm oft astounded how some folks start going "aah off topic" when they encounter the simile. A comparison or example that draws direct parallels that should in fact INCREASE one's understanding of the viewpoint.

But I guess that's par for the course in the age where out of context sound bites are "facts" and text longer than 144 characters is "TLDR" territory for the gormless half-tweets.

 

[Rexlion]

Is that an "aah, wall of text" reaction, or do you simply not understand the literary mechanism known as a simile? And no, for the nose-breathers out there I did not just misspell "smilie"

I'm oft astounded how some folks start going "aah off topic" when they encounter the simile. A comparison or example that draws direct parallels that should in fact INCREASE one's understanding of the viewpoint.

Where you lost us was not in the use of a simile, but rather in the alleged factual validity of the simile you used. (Actually I had no problem with the Chrome simile, the TikTok issue could be debated either way, but the "religious grooming" claim was hypberbolic, opinionated, and inaccurate. Not that we should go totally off-topic with a debate about it, though.)

 

[None]

Horrific Crash on Manhattan Bridge Bike Path Underscores Moped Crisis
According to the NYPD's crash statistics, there were 44,754 reported crashes between January 1 and June 23.
Of those, 43,188 — or 96 percent — were caused by drivers of cars, SUVs, trucks, ambulances, vans and other heavy motorized vehicles.
Just 826 crashes — or 1.8 percent — were caused by the operators of e-bikes, e-scooters, mopeds or motorbikes, according to the police.
Another 740 crashes — or 1.6 percent — were caused by regular bike riders, the cops said.

Drilling down further, there have been 3,952 crashes that caused injuries to at least one pedestrian.
Of those crashes, 3,784 — or 96 percent again — were caused by car and truck drivers.
Only 168 — or 4.2 percent — were caused by the operators of e-bikes, e-scooters, mopeds or motorbikes, according to the police.

Horrific Crash on Manhattan Bridge Bike Path Underscores Moped Crisis - Streetsblog New York City

Illegal and legal mopeds are forbidden yet are increasingly common on the span as delivery workers shift to faster vehicles to make their meager living.

nyc.streetsblog.org

Why New York City wants electric bikes stopped at the border

Why New York City wants electric bikes stopped at the border

New York City is enacting a ban on electric bikes that don't conform to UL standards in an attempt to eliminate e-bike battery fires in NYC.

electrek.co

 

[sanyata]

.......

 

[mschwett]

…
Drilling down further, there have been 3,952 crashes that caused injuries to at least one pedestrian.
Of those crashes, 3,784 — or 96 percent again — were caused by car and truck drivers.
Only 168 — or 4.2 percent — were caused by the operators of e-bikes, e-scooters, mopeds or motorbikes, according to the police.
…

this is actually a pretty terrible statistic.

there are about 75 million miles driven per day in new york city, so one pedestrian injury per 3,400,000 miles driven. sounds pretty good, actually.

with 1.1% of trips in NYC by bicycle as of 2019, we might charitably assume 2% today with the legalization of e-bikes, vs 40% by car or bus. if the average e-bike trip is the same length as the average car trip (highly unlikely!) this statistic seems to suggest e-bikes and scooters and mopeds are actually just as likely per mile as cars to injure pedestrians. if the average e-bike trip is 1/2 the length of the average car trip, they’re twice as likely per mile!

stats on trip length for bicycles are very hard to come by, but no doubt people in the city are looking at these stats as they consider regulations.

 

[Art Deco]

This is going to be one of those "figures don't lie, but liars can figure" type of discussions. No mass media reporting can assume that their readers understand anything about statistics. All politicians can ( and do) count on a mathematicaly illerate base. Present company excluded, of course.

 

[mschwett]

This is going to be one of those "figures don't lie, but liars can figure" type of discussions. No mass media reporting can assume that their readers understand anything about statistics. All politicians can ( and do) count on a mathematicaly illerate base. Present company excluded, of course.

hopefully we don’t have any politicians in our midst

 

[None]

hopefully we don’t have any politicians in our midst

Politicians are people, I'd trust a politician that is among the regular people over any politician that spend more time with the wealthy.

This is going to be one of those "figures don't lie, but liars can figure" type of discussions. No mass media reporting can assume that their readers understand anything about statistics. All politicians can ( and do) count on a mathematicaly illerate base. Present company excluded, of course.

When mass media are owned by the wealthy, that's when you stop trusting the ideas being pushed by mass media.
That's why I believe NRP over any other mass media.

 

[Art Deco]

Back when typewriters were still high technology, I was a journalism student, and even then I was taught not to use statistics b/c "real people " didn't understand them, so that issue existed even then. They just didn't take advantage of it the way they do today. But I agree that NPR is probably the best of them.

 

[Mulezen]

The facts of bike collisions are mutable in that during, and since, the pandemic bike numbers and usage has grown greatly. Infrastructure is lagging. Ebikes only recently became part of the equation with its riders decidedly not in the spandex crowd.
In regards to NYC and UL certification…for it. The city has a deadly history with them.
When I was young (14) I learned that statistics/probability could be a great friend (Poker)

 

[Art Deco]

The facts of bike collisions are mutable in that during, and since, the pandemic bike numbers and usage has grown greatly. Infrastructure is lagging. Ebikes only recently became part of the equation with its riders decidedly not in the spandex crowd.
In regards to NYC and UL certification…for it. The city has a deadly history with them.
When I was young (14) I learned that statistics/probability could be a great friend (Poker)

Indeed. I'm not much of a poker player, but a friend who was in the Navy claims he made the down payment on his house by playing poker.
And someone on here (maybe @ChezCheese:) ?) once pointed out that the lottery is just a tax on people who were bad at math.

But back to the topic of ebikes safety ... I think fires are more dangerous than traffic.
One of the things that really bothers me is that I see these "charging stations " in New York on the ground floor with people living in apartments above.
No matter what the level of battery safety mandated, I think that should be illegal.

 

[Rexlion]

Why New York City wants electric bikes stopped at the border

Why New York City wants electric bikes stopped at the border

New York City is enacting a ban on electric bikes that don't conform to UL standards in an attempt to eliminate e-bike battery fires in NYC.

electrek.co

Undocumented immigrants welcome; ebikes, not so much!

 

[None]

Undocumented immigrants welcome; ebikes, not so much!

In case you didn't know, undocumented immigrants are the backbone of America's workforce & economy, modern day slavery.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/immigrants-contribute-greatly-to-us-economy-despite-administrations

4 myths about how immigrants affect the U.S. economy

President Donald Trump’s characterization of immigrants, as people who are a drain public resources, is not backed by the data.

www.pbs.org

I doubt ebikes contribute much in consumer taxes once imported into the US.

 

[TPEHAK]

My undocumented e-bike allows to me to commute to work within reasonable amount of time so I can work effectively and pay taxes.

A lot of undocumented e-bikes allow people work in delivery industry and pay taxes, just like undocumented immigrants.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

The ebike situation in Encinitas made the New York Times:

‘A Dangerous Combination’: Teenagers’ Accidents Expose E-Bike Risks https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/...0Sbj36z_xxUk9rWy6Q&smid=nytcore-android-share

It's finally dawning on public safety officials that turning kids on ebikes loose on the world without supervision or training is a bad idea. I'd add tourists to that list, but the yahoos I see daily on ebikes in Encinitas and surrounding beach towns are by no means limited to these groups.

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[PatriciaK]

The ebike situation in Encinitas made the New York Times:

‘A Dangerous Combination’: Teenagers’ Accidents Expose E-Bike Risks https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/...0Sbj36z_xxUk9rWy6Q&smid=nytcore-android-share

It's finally dawning on public safety officials that turning kids on ebikes loose on the world without supervision or training is a bad idea. I'd add tourists to that list, but the yahoos I see daily on ebikes in Encinitas and surrounding beach towns are by no means limited to these groups.

This is why we can't have nice things.

I just read those articles... Unfortunately, the first example they noted was a teen who got hit by a car while doing everything right, according to witnesses. The problem the article is highlighting is very real, but the problem demonstrated by the first example is a car and infrastructure problem, not an ebike problem.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Lest anyone doubt that we have a reckless-kids-on-ebikes problem in here coastal North (San Diego) County, I saw the pack of 15-something kids belonging to this pile of over-powered fat tire ebikes doing wheelies down very busy La Costa Avenue minutes before. In close formation.

La Costa is on the boundary between Encinitas and Carlsbad to the north. Quite clear from watching them that these in all likelihood affluent kids thought of themselves as some kind of renegade ebiker gang.