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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
I don't understand DC, but I could see Amazon making a smaller vehicle to fit into tighter space
At least it isn't racking up tens of thousands of hours of pollution emitting idle time like the gas vehicles.
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
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.
The thing that gets me is why people buy stuff from Amazon to begin with. Their search feature is horrid now, the products on there are all cheap Chinse crap that's way overpriced, the reviews aren't reliable, they're shitty AI is 100% collecting your data and selling to advertisers, the number of delayed deliveries has been increasing over time, and the list goes on and on. Like it's genuinely bad product now. I remember Amazon in 2016 was elite, but in 2026? It ain't worth a quarter. This is on top of their shitty labor practices.
Let's just put pedals on an F-150 Lightning and call it an e-bike.
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.
I want one to use as a camper!
It doesn't belong on the fucking road or on the bike path.
True. Maybe they'll make a "this-thing" path.
We call that "the river"
"The Amazon"
These fucking things better not be on the bike lanes.
Strong Flintstones energy
My friend... Car no go bike, car go vroom!
I'd argue it's not a bike because bi means 2, but this has 4 (wheels). But the ke part comes from cycle and there seems to be a cycle thing going on. Can i propose we call it a quacle? Qua because it's the first part of quad, and cle because its the last part of cycle. Also when it quacles by it gives off quacle vibes imo.
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:
I would give actual quads and trikes a pass still but not these. Not everyone is physically capable of riding a standard bike and I will almost certainly lose the ability in time.
*"I'm fine with these..." *
You know the entire point here was likely to deny the drivers climate control and whatever X continuous hours of operation before mandatory 12 hours away type laws apply to people who operate vehicles professionally? They want people to burn/freeze and frantically move until they die on 72 hour shifts without overtime pay.
That's idiotic. The point of these is to drop their carbon footprint. These are a good thing.
"Drop their carbon footprint"
Bezos laughs at you while he takes a helicopter to his jet to another helicopter to the smaller yacht that transports him to his actual yacht.
Still stuck on bezos when he isn't in charge anymore eh. Maybe figure out there are many others involved.
I guess trikes and recumbent bikes are out for you then right.
Guilfoyle!
I know where these are in DC, I'll try to get some better pics tomorrow
Why the world doesn't switch to mostly vehicles like this is fucking dumb. Hate amazon but support more vehicles like this.
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.
Don't fucking park them in the bike lane