Recently as I came across a video on YouTube by Ryan (FortNine) on why he thinks electric bikes are more dangerous than motorcycles. He points out that the general public think of ebike cyclists as responsible human beings who are mindful of the our planet while motorcyclists are seen as daredevils often referred to as 'donors'. Ryan suggests that ebikes are far more dangerous than they seem and proceeds to prove his point with four arguments; speed, safety gear, visibility, and sophistication.
Lets not rule out his analogy, instead lets evaluate them without any biases.
Ebikes are much slower
Ryan likes to include humor in his as he does in this argument, "ebikes are whizzed more than a public urinal". In my opinion this does seem to be a valid point as moving slower in traffic is pretty dangerous. Chances are that you are more likely to get knocked over from the rear. As a cyclist I know how scary it feels when each and every vehicle 'whizzes' you, so I'll give him a pass in this argument.
Ebike cyclists are known to disregard safety gear
Being both a motorcycle and ebike rider, Ryan admits that he is one of those ebike cyclists who only put on a half helmet, but when it comes to a motorcycle he does not take any chances. I do believe he has a point here as most people associate ebikes with less power and hence lower chances of fatal injury. When in reality recent medical studies have shown that ebike crashes are just as fatal as motorcycle crashes.
Ebikes are less visible
This might not be entirely true to me as to other car drivers motorcycles and ebikes are rarely visible to them. In this case the level of danger is the same except at night as motorcycles have all lights in place.
Ebikes are less sophisticated
In this case he argues that motorcycles have enhanced features such as indicators, traction control, side mirrors... etc, all of which the ebikes lack and to top it all up is that motorcycle riders require a license while ebikers don't. It is true that these features improve the safety of the bike no debate, I agree especially the license part.
Conclusion
While it is simple to assume that motorcycles are safer than ebikes we should keep in mind that sufficient data for ebikes is lacking as they have not been around for a long time. Ebikes are still in developmental stages and I believe more work is going to be done to make it more safer in the near future. Overall all of them are dangerous and its upon the rider to be cautious keeping in mind that all bikes are more vulnerable than other vehicles on the road.
