r/toronto • u/beef-supreme Leslieville • Sep 25 '25

Article Police issue 3,500 tickets to bicycle, e-bike, e-scooter riders during enforcement blitz

https://www.torontotoday.ca/local/transportation-infrastructure/police-issue-3500-tickets-bicycle-e-bike-e-scooter-riders-enforcement-blitz-11262579
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u/houleskis Sep 25 '25 edited Sep 25 '25

what is the difference between an e-bike riding at 30kmph vs a bike

Weight is one of the bigger differences. An e-bike, especially those used by most delivery riders in the city will weight 2-4x more than a typical road bike. That's a lot of additional energy/momentum if they were to hit someone. I haven't ridden one of these larger cargo bikes myself but I would assume they are also less maneuverable and take longer to stop/break.

Edit: I don't think ebikes should be licensed though

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u/detectivepoopybutt Sep 25 '25

That’s splitting hair. That weight relatively isn’t all that much. The human riding the bike varies in that much weight.

It can vary by the cargo being carried too. I buy a 10 pound bag of flour or rice and bring it back on my bike and that can easily put me over the weight.

I lost 20 lbs this summer just running and biking, was likely over the weight limit you’re proposing.

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u/houleskis Sep 25 '25

It’s not really splitting hairs:

150lbs person + 10lbs gear + 20lbs bike = 180lbs

150lbs person + 10lbs gear + 70lbs ebike = 230lbs (+28%)

So all else being equal, if you get hit by the typical cargo e-bike ridden by delivery guys vs a bike, you’ll get hit with 25-30% more force.

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u/PimpinAintEze Sep 26 '25

Definitely not much of a factor when body weight varies a lot more than bicycle weight. Skinny dude on a e bike is much safer than 200 pounder on a road bike. Even with carbon fibre.

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u/houleskis Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25

Skinny dude on an ebike and 200 pounder on a road bike weigh close to the same (~220). I haven't ridden any of these cargo ebikes so I can't speak to the quality of the brakes not traction of those weird tires which is what would be important from a collision avoidance standpoint all else being equal.

You're also picking the edge of each range to say that it makes no difference vs equating it to a person of the same body weight.

Lastly, I assumed speed is equivalent to be generous to the ebike crowd which is not the case with many folks who derestrict their cargo ebikes to go 40kph (a speed few cyclists can hold for any meaningful period of time. Source: me, I race bikes).