I live in Luxembourg and the infrastructure is not as good as the Netherlands. Majority of offenders (in my experience) are delivery guys and teenagers. Where teenagers simply don't care & do reckless things like passing on a big intersection at full speed on a red light, delivery guys do the same things for extra tips.
Some of the fat-tire electric bikes are really fast, I happen to chase them on Kirchberg cycle road. I sustained 40km/h average behind delivery guys and they were still faster, eventually dropping me. (I was on a road bike).
Simply put, anything above 250watts does not belong to cycle lane.Includes humans :j
By the way with 5 mph you wouldn't enforce it accurately as there are no speedos or speed cameras for bikes but it makes it clear if you are going 15 mph you are breaking it. That's what the have for the shared walk in Regent's Park for example.
Something changed on the biking paths when e-bikes became the norm. Average speed went from 15 km/h to 25 km/h. This, combined with the heavyer weight of these bikes, created new dangers. A big ebike bike hitting a pedestrian routinely throws the pedestrian in the hospital and with life long damage. The fat bikes, some esteps and the food delivery people are worse. They tend to drive asocial, and are commonly illegally modified for higher speeds. The law is behind, and stupid politicians make it worse by stopping the police checking the bikes.
Meanwhile, bike paths are a lot busier, and if near pedestrians, things are getting dangerous by default. I've decided for myself to limit my speed to 20 km/h in the city centers or at schools, and commonly go even lower. 25 is only for the ebike 'highways' next to secondary roads.
I am pro stricter regulation and follow-up for my ebike. Belgium famously only implemented laws against drunk driving after an idiot killed a whole class at once. Let's not wait for an ebike equivalent. Better to do this calmly and thoughtfully now.
That boundary needs to be recovered, and then rules will make sense again, until then, any effort is futile.
It obviously confounds fragility with participation but, still, it must mean that people continue to use bikes -- I'm guessing increasingly e-bikes -- well into their old age.
(42% is 118/281 in the report.)
There's a certain sub strain of cyclists that want absolutely no rules for them.
In a just world, cyclists would have more freedom than cars, but pedestrians would have most of all. But walking through European cities with large cycling cultures can be dangerous, too, especially for children and the elderly. Too often, cyclists will completely ignore stop signs and stop lights, or go at full speed on the sidewalks.
And because I know someone is going to retort that car drivers break traffic laws, too: drivers acting dangerously shouldn't excuse cyclists.
What's the reason? Ordinary fatbikes aren't fast, and e-bikes are fast in any case.
If you want to go faster, pedal yourself.
This solves two problems:
- Cool kids aren't cool anymore, biking on their now slow ass fatbikes
- Old people who's mental faculties can't keep up with 25km/h anymore dont end up in so many traffic accidents.
Really we need to ban motorised vehicles that go above 12mph. They are not bicycles and should not be in cycleways. I feel there is a big difference between someone who is able to pedal at higher speeds and someone who is just using a motor vehicle.
The question is, would I be allowed to use the road instead, if I go anywhere between 45kph to 60kph, as I tend to do on road-/gravelbikes on flat grounds, without too much head wind?
Thinking about it I even do 45kph with an old 3-speed rear hub and coaster brake, mudguards, dynamo, porter, basket, from 1985 when in Hamburg.
This makes no sense for me. Maybe don't declare bike lanes as such, if they are unfit for the purpose?
Tourist tip if you are ever in Amsterdam: check the ferry next to the train station during rush hour. It is the equivalent of Shibuya crossing only for cyclists. Pure madness but somehow it all works like clockwork.