Our group have written to the Transport Department about their Trial in Tseung Kwan O, but not sure our message has reached anyone....
Dear Mr XXX, XXX, XXX / Walkability Task Force Team,
Thank you for the steps you are taking to legalise PMDs and conducting your trial in Tseung Kwan O.
Before we discuss the trial, we would like to mention our concerns about the whole methodology you are using to gather unicycle usage date in HK.
A. Unicycles are far slower than riders on bikes and electrics scooters, so putting them on a bike lane is problematic due to the difference in cruising/top speeds which could result in injuries on our community members.
A normal bicycle can easily reach 30km/hr, an amateur cyclist on a racing bike can reach 50km/hr. Bicycles presently have an annual death rate of 14 riders per year in Hong Kong. Electric scooters are very fast indeed with top speeds also ranging between 70km/hr to 115km/hr. In the past 12 months we have seen 4 or 5 escooter rider deaths. Over 12,000 have been sold in Hong Kong.
Electric unicycles have a much slower cruising speed of 18-25km/hr. Unicycles over the past 7 years have demonstrated that they are superior in terms of safety, as to date there are zero deaths among the 4000 riders and the 6000-7000 self balancing wheels that have been purchased in Hong Kong.
These differences in speeds may result in collisions and statistically this trial increases the risk of injury to unicycle riders caused, ironically, by very fast cyclists. We are concerned about our rider safety, during the trial and also if these bike lanes become the only way to legalise the use of electric unicycles in Hong Kong.
B. The PMD trial is unlikely to provide useful give data which represents unicycle usage. Firstly Tseung Kwan O is not a place most riders frequent and secondly riding up and down on a bike lane is not a typical usage pattern. We wish to use our unicycles as a form of transportation and we go from anywhere to anywhere on rides typically of 2km to 25km in distance across Hong Kong to commute and go to meetings etc. Electric unicycles are a very safe, convenient and Green method of personal transport.
We would like to volunteer our help to assist you in gathering typical electric Unicycle usage as well as offer you our expertise for any help you may require to understand unicycle performance, safety, usage, electrical and mechanical behaviour and other issues. Our community has experts in electrical, mechanical and software fields who have deep understating of how the unicycles function, how to repair them and enhance safety.
To provide the Transport Department with useful data, we believe that the most useful thing would be to attach GPS/location trackers that could either record or transmit location and speed data to your data collection platforms. Many unicycles brands have USB ports which can power a device that collect/transmit GPS location data and speed. In the cases of certain unicycles they would need a power bank or could be installed internally. The data collection would have to be anonymized to protect the riders privacy. We believe we could easily get 200 volunteers of the 4000+ riders in Hong Kong to participate.
Members of our group “HK Electric Unicycle Regulation Group” are in discussions as to how we can assist your PMD Trial in Tseung Kwan O. We are struggling with several points which basically exclude 99% of the electric Unicycle riding community in Hong Kong. These are:
1. Your requirement of having a valid full driver’s license is problematic. This would cause unnecessary discrimination against many riders such as myself as I only have a UK license. Also, my wife, my 8 and 6 year old children and a very large percentage of friends I ride with would be excluded. Most of us have little motivation to drive a car, own one, suffer in traffic jams, and pay parking fees in Hong Kong as we have unicycles for transport.
2. The second issue is that about 99.99% of unicycles used in Hong Kong do not meet any of the suggested electrical standards. We believe this requirement is unnecessary, impractical to comply with and impossible to enforce. Even the very high quality and expensive unicycles do not comply with these electrical standards as there is no need for them to do so. We saw that Singapore tried to enforce this rule which pushed many riders to ride with no complying vehicles. Even if a PMD has UL2722, very often we riders are forced to replace the unicycles battery system to be able to have adequate braking power for someone above who is over 80kg. However, the lack of certification does not make them a danger.
3. We also would like to understand your definition of an effective braking system. Unicycle braking systems are very dependant on the persons weight, feet size, physical strength and AMP discharge rate of the battery system. An experienced rider can stop very quickly with no danger. I would like to know what testing you are conducting. In our presentation we proposed to demonstrate to you a simple braking test of riding at 20km/hr and braking within a reasonable distance.
4. Trials on bike lanes: Our team is pondering over is whether we should be supporting a trial where we know there could be accidents and injures given the zero deaths we have had in HK in the past 7 years and rider injuries are minimal. Putting unicycle riders with other vehicle types which are much faster could cause injuries to our riders. We don’t believe that unicycles belong in bike lanes as our speeds are closer to a that of a jogger who we often see running at18km/hr on our promenades and pavements. In reality, the cycle paths are used by slow recreational cyclists, very fast racing cyclists, children learning to cycle, joggers, scooters, wheelchairs and pushchairs. Indeed, fast cyclists actually present most danger especially as there are no speed limits on these paths.
In New York City, as we pointed out when we presented to you, the riders avoided the bike lanes as they are more dangerous than riding on the road. New York had 18 deaths on bike lanes in 2019. We think that conducting trials mixing PMD of vastly different speeds and performances along with bikes may result in crashes and injuries. We are particularly worried about our community members being rammed, or colliding with electric scooters and fast racing bikes which as we know can do high speeds. Would it be possible for you to conduct trials for one vehicle type at time?
You mention a speed limit of 25KM/hr and having a speedometer: We believe it is more important that the unicycles have alarms to notify the rider that he has reached 25Km/hr or the PMD has the ability to limit the maximum speed to 25Km/hr. Most unicycles have these features and the ability to Bluetooth speed information to an App.
The use of helmets: We support your requirement to wear helmets. Bicycle type helmets provide protection for those riders that have a handle bar and a front wheel the can flip over, and land on their heads. In the extremely rare event that a unicycle has a failure, the rider will firstly most likely use his hands/wrists to stop the impact. Should the head hit the ground, a normal bike helmet will not protect the jaw, nose and teeth. A full face (mountain bike) helmet is required as it better protects the whole face. A unicycle rider’s most essential form of protection is wrist guards given they are the first point of contact on collision and are able to stop the head from hitting the ground. These should be mandatory. Wrist guards as well as the requirement to not carry anything in ones hands is important as the hands are the first line of defense to reduce the injuries.
If you would like to get any kind of significant participation in your trial from the rider community, I would be grateful if could address these issues. Alternatively or additionally, you could take our offer to collect actual unicycle use data from data collection devices installed on our PMDs.
We hope to hear from you soon and hope we can assist you in reaching your goals.
Kind Regards,
Me + My surname.
On Behalf of HK Electric Unicycle Regulation Group.