Kids and ebikes

["A"]

I would argue that education starts at your local school Board and any other elected university positions of power up to and including our legislators.
Kids have no chance whatsoever to learn about anything themselves, including riding an ebike, when we keep acting as if this is the beginning of the baby boom all over again and that every kid has a parent or even an orphanage let alone a good one.
Kids need to witness adults fighting for them on some level **publicly**...which is likely the first question that will be asked at the pearly gates.

Question for the membership: Ever been to a school board meeting whether you have kids or not?...thought so.
Turns out that there are plenty of kids out there whose parents don't even know what goes on there and who still wouldn't go if they did.
A good share of others have been recently told that they will be labeled as "domestic terrorists" if they dare show up/speak up.

Freedom is not free and neither is education...with a few glaring exceptions currently.

That is so wrong.

 

[JerryB]

Education starts at home.
Behavior & reaction to emotions are learned at home, not a teacher's job to teach more than specific subjects in classrooms.
Kids need to leave home: ready for school, ready to learn.
Part of being a parent is to get your kids ready for learning in classrooms, in school.
If your child is not ready for school, you, as a parent, need to figure out why, not the teacher in the classroom.

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/04/06/how-to-fix-the-growing-discipline-problem-in-u-s-classrooms

My daughter has been a teacher for years....she would love your comments........unfortunately....in today's world......it ain't happening.

 

[JerryB]

I would argue that education starts at your local school Board and any other elected university positions of power up to and including our legislators.
Kids have no chance whatsoever to learn about anything themselves, including riding an ebike, when we keep acting as if this is the beginning of the baby boom all over again and that every kid has a parent or even an orphanage let alone a good one.
Kids need to witness adults fighting for them on some level **publicly**...which is likely the first question that will be asked at the pearly gates.

Question for the membership: Ever been to a school board meeting whether you have kids or not?...thought so.
Turns out that there are plenty of kids out there whose parents don't even know what goes on there and who still wouldn't go if they did.
A good share of others have been recently told that they will be labeled as "domestic terrorists" if they dare show up/speak up.

Freedom is not free and neither is education...with a few glaring exceptions currently.

Been to many school board meetings......one big problem we have.......you can't hold kids and teachers accountble when parents have no accountability. It's always somebody elses fault and society needs to take care of me and my kids.

 

[ETrike]

That is so wrong.

Yeah...our whole "freedom is not free" reality is certainly a slap in the face to many.

 

[ETrike]

Been to many school board meetings......one big problem we have.......you can't hold kids and teachers accountble when parents have no accountability. It's always somebody elses fault and society needs to take care of me and my kids.

I'll have to disagree in terms of holding teachers, kids and parents responsible.
Our founders set this all up for success. We decided to. (instead) throw away the notion that all politics are local and the concept that anyone elected is not only responsible but needing to be babysat.
School Board members have the power to affect more than kid's ebike skills.
They have the ability to publicly shame all three of the above in to getting their acts together for our kid's sake.

 

[ETrike]

I know that this is not taught in schools, churches or perhaps anywhere else save for the last bastions of constitutional/conservative thought...but if you want to promote (say) safer ebike experiences for kids...you have to work at it. Not the government, not some NGO/non-profit or heaven forbid not some ill-intentioned 'foundation'.
You have two choices:
You either fund it yourself or as a community asking absolutely nothing in return (ie. 'tax relief')....
...or you convince the majority that any tax dollars are best spent that way.

it's pretty simple: W-O-R-K .
If you want a morally-based society(?)...then I can guarantee that you will work your buns off and suffer greatly fighting the forces of evil pitted against just that.

There's no free lunch, folks.
And kids will suffer a whole lot more than getting killed or maimed on ebikes before this is ever mutually agreed to by the looks of things now.

 

[Django]

I know that this is not taught in schools, churches or perhaps anywhere else save for the last bastions of constitutional/conservative thought...but if you want to promote (say) safer ebike experiences for kids...you have to work at it. Not the government, not some NGO/non-profit or heaven forbid not some ill-intentioned 'foundation'.
You have two choices:
You either fund it yourself or as a community asking absolutely nothing in return (ie. 'tax relief')....
...or you convince the majority that any tax dollars are best spent that way.

it's pretty simple: W-O-R-K .
If you want a morally-based society(?)...then I can guarantee that you will work your buns off and suffer greatly fighting the forces of evil pitted against just that.

There's no free lunch, folks.
And kids will suffer a whole lot more than getting killed or maimed on ebikes before this is ever mutually agreed to by the looks of things now.

I think that we may have strayed off topic a bit.

Getting back to the base question, I don’t think that anyone that is too young to operate a motor vehicle should be allowed to operate a motorized bicycle, (class 2 ebike is a motor vehicle).

 

[ETrike]

I think that we may have strayed off topic a bit.

Getting back to the base question, I don’t think that anyone that is too young to operate a motor vehicle should be allowed to operate a motorized bicycle, (class 2 ebike is a motor vehicle).

I think that we may have all just got slapped in the face in terms of our (oh-so-valuable-in-this-particiapation-trophy-world) 'opinions' versus actually doing something about...wait for it...kids in danger (period).
Forums are where these things used to start before...well...referencing the topic by example in our replies didn't qualify necessarily as being 'on topic'.

 

[Django]

I think that we may have all just got slapped in the face in terms of our (oh-so-valuable-in-this-particiapation-trophy-world) 'opinions' versus actually doing something about...wait for it...kids in danger (period).
Forums are where these things used to start before...well...referencing the topic by example in our replies didn't qualify necessarily as being 'on topic'.

My post wasn’t meant as a slap, and it wasn’t directed at “all”. I was attempting to get back on topic by adding an on topic response. You are free to start a thread about whatever it was that you were trying to say. People on an ebike forum don’t necessarily need to be subjected to YouTube videos called “the truth about sin”. Sin seems to be a defined by perception these days with perception being mistaken for reality.

To forum members, I apologize for the further off topic comment. Snoop brought up an important topic and I hate to see it hijacked. If laws regarding age and education were passed and if ebike manufacturers made it abundantly clear that these are not toys for children, then that would at least take these issues out of the courts. I don’t think that we will change society or human nature here. That is the job of some other forum.

 

["A"]

Ultimately, your kids are your responsibilities.
How your kids operate an ebike in public, is how you teach them to operate.
How your kids learn in schools, is how you teach them at home.
How your kids do in society, is how you raise them.
Don't put off your responsibility as a parent to anyone else; not the Bible, not the teachers, not the school board, not the legislators.
Spend a few hours with your kids and educate them how to operate the ebike before you let them roam on their own.
Teach them the rule of the roads and show them how you ride as a parent on the road for a few rides.

 

[Smaug]

It really depends on the kid. My 11 year old daughter rides my XP Lite all the time and the only thing she does wrong is that she tailgates me sometimes. She’s a sober, serious kid and she listens and obeys what she’s told. (might change when she hits the teen years...)

On the other hand, my 17-year-old stepdaughter is a total ditz, has crashed three times and just has AWFUL judgment. She’s always trying to do multiple things at once and is not very coordinated. I watched her almost crash once because I was ready to take a picture of her on the eBike, and she took her hand off the bars and was digging in her purse to put sunglasses on to look cool for the picture.

↑ Because of puberty and the accompanying Know-it-all Syndrome that goes along with it, younger kids are sometimes safer!

My wife is mature but didn’t ride bikes much growing up and so she doesn't have that natural coordination that most of us do. (she preferred the big-wheeled kick scooters!) She’s crashed a few times; absolutely cannot handle a U-turn. She cannot get her head around the idea of getting off the seat at stops. I show her how to do it but she won’t listen. So even though she is adult and makes responsible decisions she’s just too damn malcoordinated. My 11 year old is the best of the bunch, next to myself. I think a tandem a bike is in our future at some point. I just need to find a decent one that’s under three grand.

 

[Smaug]

Also, I agree that you guys are 100% right about how kids are being raised (or not) these days.
I grew up at the end of the era when corporal punishment was OK, and I think that made a big difference. That and holding kids responsible for their actions, even when the police aren't involved.

“If you are going to make your kids tough, which they better be if they are going to survive in the world, you can't interfere when they're doing dangerous things carefully.”
-Jordan Peterson

For example, I taught my daughter knife safety when she was 5 and she has been at my side cooking since then. There are no dull cooking knives in my house, and occasionally my wife or stepdaughter gets bitten when they are careless. (they weren't taught knife safety as lasses, so they didn't develop such good habits)

Now that she's 11 and we're riding eBikes together, I'll have to take my chances with the police. Our local law is that kids are supposed to be 16 to ride an eBike, but most cops are reasonable and have better things to do than go around second-guessing the little parenting decisions like this.

 

[JerryB]

I'll have to disagree in terms of holding teachers, kids and parents responsible.
Our founders set this all up for success. We decided to. (instead) throw away the notion that all politics are local and the concept that anyone elected is not only responsible but needing to be babysat.
School Board members have the power to affect more than kid's ebike skills.
They have the ability to publicly shame all three of the above in to getting their acts together for our kid's sake.

I wish that were true but it's not.....school boards are nothing more than political pawns for state governments now. Politcal leaders now cater to their base....which....in many cases......does not reflect the will of the people. Frankly.......it's amazing to me the people keep voting the idiots into office. The people have become lemmings.......they don't realize they are being led off the cliff.

 

[ETrike]

"...reflective of the will of the people...."

Apparently, "the people" do not possess "the will" to do anything about kids being hurt on ebikes...(themselves)...save for complaining about who is elected...not doing it for them (sorry but that was never going to happen anyways).

if you don't believe that your local school Board has significant power over the quality of your kid's education including possibly teaching them basic safety tenants which could very well someday include basic ebike training...you are kidding yourself.

 

[JerryB]

Apparently, "the people" do not possess "the will" to do anything about kids being hurt on ebikes...(themselves)...save for complaining about who is elected...not doing it for them (sorry but that was never going to happen anyways).

if you don't believe that your local school Board has significant power over the quality of your kid's education including possibly teaching them basic safety tenants which could very well someday include basic ebike training...you are kidding yourself.

You seem to want to make this personal....OK.....you are entitled to your opinion but I don't agree with you and think you telling me that I am kidding myself is a joke......I will stick with my orignal statement and contiue to live in reality.

 

[HumanPerson]

We're here to speak on Ebikes.
This is not a church.

 

["A"]

As a parent, you (should and always) have far more influence on your kids for everything in their lives than any school board, any church.

If you or your child needs reminder of that reality, you should do it, every single day, multiple times a day; that's why education always starts at home.

How your child operate an ebike should be the same as how you teach them to ride as a parent.
If you didn't bother to spend some time teaching them how to ride safely, you should try to teach them before they start to develop bad habits from others; so your child don't have an accident like the lawsuit filed against RarPower:
How many hours do you think those parent spent teaching their daughter how to ride an ebike safely?

E-Bikes Are Booming—And Virtually Unregulated. Will This Lawsuit Make Them Safer?

Twelve-year-old Molly Steinsapir crashed onto the pavement from a Rad Power e-bike and never woke up. With a poorly regulated e-bike industry, who is responsible when a child dies?

www.bicycling.com

 

[Django]

The parents already got $1,500,000.00 from the parents of the owner of the bike. An 11 year old riding a heavy ebike down a steep hill with a passenger on back, and it’s the manufacturer’s fault? Tail heavy with a high center of gravity is a perfect recipe for instability. The bike probably went into a classic “tank slapper”,

, which has nothing to do with trail or QRs and everything to do with how the bike was being used.

I’m sorry for the loss of their daughter, but the bike was not being used responsibly, (quite the opposite). In engineering the saying was “those that attempt to make something foolproof underestimates the ingenuity of a fool”. Unless they can prove that the accident was caused by the equipment, they may have to be satisfied with the $1,500,000.00 settlement from their neighbors/friends.

I don’t know these people, but I think that they should take some responsibility. If they are going to put the money into a scholarship fund or into some form of safety advocacy organization, then maybe something good will come out of this tragedy. I hope that they are not doing it for further self enrichment.

One of the things that confuses me is that if the neighbor was to blame, (the $1,500,000.00 settlement would indicate that they were), then how could the bike manufacturer and the helmet manufacturer be to blame? If they are to blame, then why did the neighbor pay out?

 

[knightrider]

The parents already got $1,500,000.00 from the parents of the owner of the bike. An 11 year old riding a heavy ebike down a steep hill with a passenger on back, and it’s the manufacturer’s fault? Tail heavy with a high center of gravity is a perfect recipe for instability. The bike probably went into a classic “tank slapper”,

, which has nothing to do with trail or QRs and everything to do with how the bike was being used.

I’m sorry for the loss of their daughter, but the bike was not being used responsibly, (quite the opposite). In engineering the saying was “those that attempt to make something foolproof underestimates the ingenuity of a fool”. Unless they can prove that the accident was caused by the equipment, they may have to be satisfied with the $1,500,000.00 settlement from their neighbors/friends.

I don’t know these people, but I think that they should take some responsibility. If they are going to put the money into a scholarship fund or into some form of safety advocacy organization, then maybe something good will come out of this tragedy. I hope that they are not doing it for further self enrichment.

One of the things that confuses me is that if the neighbor was to blame, (the $1,500,000.00 settlement would indicate that they were), then how could the bike manufacturer and the helmet manufacturer be to blame? If they are to blame, then why did the neighbor pay out?

I seriously doubt the ebike is gonna reach speeds that will set up tank slapping. Todays trend of suing is just another example of blaming someone for your mistake or negligence in most cases. Please explain the meaning of poorly regulated ebike industry. You bought it and you allowed your 12yr. old daughter the use of it. Why was Rad Rover to blame. Poor designed helmet maybe. That would be determined by Dot or which agency regulates. Most bicycle helmets are made for fall protection not speed related impacts. We are now entering motorcycle helmet protection needs with ebike speeds. Swat a tree on your mtn bike on a decend with a street bike or skate helmet on and see how that works out for you.

 

[HumanPerson]

It happens sometimes.