As road deaths increase and cycle lanes overflow with e-bikes, the Netherlands is considering a cycling speed limit of 12mph (20km/h).

The government has started a two-week trial in Houten, near Utrecht, to gauge whether freedom-loving Dutch cyclists are willing to slow down – and whether they have any idea how fast they are going in the first place.

    • ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      No it isn’t. The average speed of a pedal cyclist is 16 km/h.

      My natural speed at which I comfortably cycle is around 25 km/h,

      That is your maximum speed.

      • porkloin@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        Max speed for the average (50th percentile) for the commuting population, sure, I believe that. Did you mean to actually question whether or not the other user can actually ride a bike above 25kmh maximum? I would imagine the 70th percentile of regular commuting cyclists could easily exceed that on flat ground if they needed to.

        My average speed on commuting rides is around 30kmh, ~18mph. My maximum speed on rides I regularly do for commuting is ~55kmh. Downhill, of course. Not all of us live in flatland.

        For whatever it’s worth, despite regularly riding at that speed I am 1000% in support of speed limits on dedicated mixed use lanes. 25kmh is a reasonable speed limit to put on bike lanes IMHO. I’m riding along a rural road when commuting because I have no other choice. If I was in a mixed use path I wouldn’t feel comfortable at all going that speed.

      • lad@programming.dev
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        10 days ago

        My average speed is somewhere around 12km/h sure, but that’s because half of the time I spend on traffic lights, limiting top speed to 20 would just make average closer to 10km/h

        Also, I don’t think limit lower than 25km/h makes much sense, but that’s personal opinion that is not backed by statistics. And yeah, I drive a muscle powered bike, not an e-bike, maybe I would’ve thought differently in that case

      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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        10 days ago

        I mean I’ve actually measured myself. My standard pace is about 14 mph. But I’m fairly athletic so that may be above the typical cyclist.

        • Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtf
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          10 days ago

          This is about the Netherlands. In NL they ride Omafietsen. You’re not going to push past 20 kmh on one of those without breaking a sweat.

          The problem is that there used to be a flow. Everyone kinda rode at the same speed. Now there’s so many different vehicles, running at different speeds, it’s impossible to keep everything flowing without everyone being annoyed as fuck.

      • floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 days ago

        Lmao this is hilarious.

        I also do about 24 as my “natural” speed. 28 is about the most I can sustain for a while, about 32 going full tilt for a couple of minutes. On the bike paths here I would say the average speed is closer to 20 than 16, as measured when I’m stuck behind bike traffic.

      • bigpEE@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        Ahahaha you must be so out of shape. I commute maybe once every two weeks and hit 30kph average