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Image description:
Text: Amazon's electric cargo bikes have arrived in DC.
Image: A four-wheeled vehicle that appears to be a cross between a bicycle, a go-cart, and a mini-truck
Response text from high t alpha shemale @gluetaster: that's not a cargo bike man that's a loopholemobile
Edit: I found a slightly higher-quality version of the image:
That's a keitruck without regulations.
What? you don’t like corporate-exclusive keitrucks?
Amazon: Kei for me not for thee
Nope, I don’t like corporate-exclusive keitrucks that skirt laws and regs. Keitrucks are the designed result of regulations.
Keitrucks are the designed result of regulations.
So exactly as this "cargo-e-bike"... especially designed to work within the existing regulation for cargo-e-bikes.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. These have to be far quieter and don't pollute like cars. That's progress!
By all means, do criticise Amazon's treatment of workers and horrible policies in general. And yeah batteries are better than fossil fuels but still aren't the greenest. But IMO anything that brings the US closer to bicycle culture can't be all bad. Let's accept a win when we see it and keep pushing, yeah?
The posts about Berlin and Finland are inspiring, let's get others there too.
Okay, but what is pictured is a car sized vehicle that is going to be moving in traffic in the same place as cars, while simultaniously having fuckall safety features and no climate control. This is a fucking deathtrap, and just a new way to cut costs at the expense of working class lives. This is not progress, the is sacrificing people for the great capitalist overlords.
I don't know how fast it's meant to go, but it looks like it shouldn't be going faster than 30 kph (20 mph). That is the speed that most city traffic should have. If this helps to make that the standard, that's going to save far more lives than anything else.
Frankly, it is a loophole mobile unequivocally, but it's a loophole that I would prefer that the laws change to accommodate rather than the other way around. "Deathtrap" is complete bs inspired by the same propaganda car companies use to justify bigger and bigger dangerous gas-guzzlers.
If we want any validation for this we don't have to look any further than every other developed city in the world. This is just a more fuel efficient, quieter, more agile, and safer-for-pedestrians way to navigate a crowded city.
no AC and a singular water bottle. no protection for the driver either if someone decides to run up and drive off with it. Who thought this was a great idea?
Someone who will never have to use it, or likely even interact with someone who does
having worked at an amazon facility before, that is exactly how it goes, even the software is so stupid
Mail carriers die from heat stroke in similarly spartan vehicles every year here in the southwest, no question in my mind the same will happen with this.
They've had a ton of these style of delivery vehicles around Berlin for years now. They work great, are really quiet, and solve the vast majority of last mile delivery needs.
That said, the one in that photo is huge. I've never seen one even close to that size. The ones around here look more on this scale:
Lmao at the helmet. This country is a joke
it's a bicycle helmet. if you were riding around d.c. on any kind of 'bike', you'd be the fool to not have one.
I mean, yes I know. It like, in what world is that a bike? It’s obviously just skirting the laws, and the helmet is a hilarious addition.
‘Lookit me! I’m on a bike !’
Yeah, sure buddy.
We have quite a few companies in Germany using similar vehicles in cities (I can't compare the sizes here). All in all it's a positive development. Maybe in this case it's a way to utilize a legislative loophole, but even then I would say: The loopholed law has a positive impact if the new vehicles are smaller and more energy efficient than the ones they replace.
Loopholemobile, oh yeah for sure, still waaayyyy better than a whole ass SUV.
I am amazed at how this is mostly not mentioned in more upvoter comments. If kei trucks were not outlawed in the US ~~for having the driver see the road too well~~ this wouldn't exist, most likely
The shit us Americans will do to not just fucking use Kei trucks like the rest of the world.
I don't think these are a problem. They deliver mail and parcels with kind of similar vehicles here in Finland, though I grant that ours are a little bit smaller.
If there's a problem with these, it's that legislation doesn't properly recognize a class of vehicle smaller than a car but bigger than a bicycle. That's not to say these vehicles shouldn't exist, and stuff like this rightfully shouldn't have to follow the same rules cars do (because, well, it's a lot smaller, lighter, quieter and slower).
My first reaction would be: great!
Then I remember it's Amazon we're talking about, so it's pretty safe to assume there is some fuckery somewhere going on...
I would say so they can use bike lanes as well as the road, so say hello to essentially a small van to dodge in your bike lane
I'm fine with these as long as they don't use the bike lanes. Nothing with more then two wheels should use the bike lane because:
Why the world doesn't switch to mostly vehicles like this is fucking dumb. Hate amazon but support more vehicles like this.
Guys... I know it looks ridiculous. But it's really not that bad, imho. If those smallest cargo vehicles that are partly propelled by feet and (more, obviously) by a battery, that are tiny and slow enough to be used on wider bicycle lanes, actually replaced larger delivery vans and trucks... wouldn't that be, you know, good?
Everyone hunky dory until they start parking these things in the bike lane.
How to test if it's actually a bicycle:
I propose a simple ontological test by law enforcement. Simply steal one. If the police treat it like they do bicycle theft, it's a bicycle. If the police treat it like it's an auto theft, then it's an automobile.
If the police take the theft of one of these seriously, like they would a car theft, then point to that as justification for why they should be regulated like autos and banned from bike lanes. If the police treat it like bike theft....well....there's a lot of valuable materials in those loopholemobiles....and the police clearly aren't taking theft of them seriously...so....well the problem will solve itself.
At least it isn't racking up tens of thousands of hours of pollution emitting idle time like the gas vehicles.
If people would stop buyung shit from Amazon this wouldn't happen. I can't believe so many folks don't care. People I know still get stuff from Amazon. It's like talking to a brick wall.
Strong Flintstones energy
Pretty sure all that bullshit is so they can use bike lanes, hence the helmet
I would love to see those taking over the streets, but I would hate to see them in the bike lane.
Let's just put pedals on an F-150 Lightning and call it an e-bike.
thats so funny, they cant include a steering wheel and the driver has to performatively rotate their legs :DD
Obviously Amazon is only interested in these as an opportunity to inflict further cruelty and exploitation upon their workers while flaunting regulations, but even beyond that there is a bigger issue here regarding the absence of space for something between bikes and cars.
The thing about electric bikes is that they are a wonderfully deep well of loophole nonsense, this cuts both ways TBH. Right now, the American road is just too generalized, with not enough separation of regulation, infrastructure and spaces to accommodate different niches. Instead everything is forced to exist in a single framework, which is built to match large, highway capable, trucks and cars. It is a cataclysm of needless gigantism that wastes energy, space, and lives.
Having a separate category of smaller, lighter vehicles that are less dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists, with lower energy usage, looser licensing and smaller footprints is needed. But you can’t have them operating alongside normal cars/trucks, or regulated in the same framework. The carveouts around powered pedal assist vehichles, and the growing network of bike infrastructure, created space for these kinds of middle vehicles to start coming in to existence, but there is a very real risk that they’ll push out light vehicles like bikes( including those with reasonable powered pedal assist) for the same reason they’re not practical alongside trucks and cars. They will get people killed, both other people in bike lanes with them, and their own operators. There will have to be regulation, and that regulation will ether push this deeply needed middle ground vehicle out of existence, or kill the growth of bicycles.
I think the real solution here is to formalize a regulatory standard for these kinds of middle vehicles, kick them out of bike lanes and off of side walks, and heavily restrict highway capable cars/trucks from dense areas like urban cores to give the middle vehicles somewhere safe to operate.
“Oh but if I can’t drive my suburban assault vehicle straight in to the middle of the city, my hundred mile a day commute would be very inconvenient” drive to a park and ride and take the metro(DC area in this context) in, for the areas where that’s not practical yet, we should build more light and commuter rail.
Its a van not a car. So it doesn't need to be automatically fucked.
Assuming it's not delivering frivolous crap and is carrying stuff people actually need then it's fine.
When they start coming in bike lanes and up on the pavement then fuck them. That's when vans can get fucked too.
Ngl, I kinda want to get one to transform into a camping trailer. Become a traveling tea monk.
