The e-bike Wild West
I’m back to kicking around ideas for Another Summer of Hate, my next novel. One possible plot thread would involve the death of a kid on an e-bike, so I’m following the news about the incidents so far this year. (And one of them happened close to where I used to live, so there’s that as well.)
I don’t like the repeated suggestions in this article that it would somehow be perfectly safe to chase riders who wore helmets. Protective headgear, bike helmets in particular, provide limited protection against a limited range of injuries. They are not the magical lifesavers some people think they are (see also the zombie Helmet Debate, recently returned to eat the brains of politicians).
Criminal gangs, and reckless kids, use e-bikes. There is no straightforward way to deal with them, and I hope Police are deciding how, and whether, to pursue them based on more than just what’s on their heads.