New Jersey has a new law for e-bikes that is so restrictive it borders on absurdity. The bill is so bad its created headlines around the cycling world, reportedly faced near-universal opposition as it was being debated and is, depending who you ask, wildly impractical to actually implement. So, there are lots of problems specifically with the law.
Regulatory confusion
The first problem for cyclists outside of New Jersey, I think, is that explaining why it is so bad is wildly confusing. I started to try when I went to write this story and now I have about 20 tabs open in my browser and I, a person who a couple hours ago would have told you I’m relatively confident in understanding e-bike regulations, am more confusing than ever.
Since we are called Canadian Cycling Magazine, I started by trying to compare the New Jersey law to Canadian regulations. Only, those regulations are different in every province. As far as I can tell, B.C. no longer even uses the three-class designation that everyone seems so mad that New Jersey moved away from. Instead, there are two different versions of what would, anywhere else, be a Class 1 e-bike. Or Class 1 and 2, they seem to be merged into “standard e-bike). And, Class 3? Seems to be just a motor vehicle. Ontario doesn’t have the same division.
E-bikes are new, and constantly changing. Writing good regulations is hard. I’m sure we could all figure this out together. But …
Opening a can of worms, then throwing worms everywhere and mushing them around a bunch
OK, so the existing regulations are confusing. But that’s just the start of the problem. Say you take the time to understand the regulations. Your next step is to understand which bikes fall under which category. This is when everything turns into a giant mess. And that, I’d argue, is on purpose.
To be clear, there are a whole bunch of very responsible bike companies that are making e-bikes of all kinds that clearly and intentionally fit quite nicely into the three-class system. Or into whatever the local version of that system is.
There are many companies taking a different tact, though. There are more than enough brands that are being intentionally vague about their e-bikes capabilities so that they can squeeze into a lower class. Because lower classes have fewer regulations. Some brands are being vague. Some brands are being outright deceptive.
No, I don’t care that a lot of these deceptive brands are from “outside the mainstream cycling…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Canadian Cycling Magazine…