Quoting _Bicycle_Retailer_:
| In a letter to the industry, Pizzi noted that outdated,
| inconsistent state vehicle codes could hamper the emergence of
| the e-bike category.
|
| "An antiquated and patchwork regulatory environment threatens
| consumer confidence, retailer acceptance, and could cause
| market disruption just as significant use begins to take off,"
| Pizzi wrote.
=v= Lobbyists for the e-bikes industry deserve a good deal of
the blame for the patchwork nature of these laws. Some of the
categories exist because of these lobbyists (and lobbyists for
other products such as scooters with two-stroke engines), and
now this guy is calling them antiquated.
=v= Usually their approach is to lobby for way more than
is reasonable -- in this case, the definition of e-bikes as
bicycles, and arguing for a top speed that's 5mph higher than
what California settled on. This is done because things get
negotiated down a bit, though as I wrote earlier the result
is still 5mph higher than what the facilities are designed
to accommodate (and they were shooting for 10mph), so it's
still a patchwork.
=v= However, if the industry is going to accept what this
turned out to be in California and are lobbying to make it
more consistent nationwide, that would be in improvement.
But that's not how lobbyists generally work, and of course
there's no telling what legislators will do.
<_Jym_>
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