So it's literally to prevent 9 year olds going 50 on an e-bike. Seems fair to me.

Damn 1997 was 100 years ago? How time flies...

Do they at least require insurance on anything that goes faster than 15 mph or similar?

"It is literally impossible for us not to harvest your data and sell it, so you can't come in".

Someone going 40+ MPH is doing what amounts to riding a small motorcycle down a sidewalk. That's no longer a "bicycle" thing. Imagine the howling and pearl-clutching we would be reading if someone were caught blasting, say, a Honda Grom down a sidewalk like that. Which is already illegal, for obvious reasons.

One of the many reasons you don't ride anything on the sidewalk is that you cross driveways and crosswalks too quickly to be seen by drivers. Even a standard bike should be ridden in the road, because 15 mph is fast enough to "come out of nowhere" and be hit by a car. All bikes are road vehicles.

In NYC, maniacs ride ebikes and mopeds on both the sidewalk and the street as it benefits them. Every time I walk my dog I have to dodge the fuckers going full speed down the sidewalk. And they always glare at the pedestrians like you're the problem.

One caveat I’ll say is that depending on how fast they were going the laws should be that they should be with traffic, because if I’m driving and I look right I may not notice someone going 40+ mph on a sidewalk. But even then the law should be “Where do ebikes belong” officially

40mph is twice as fast as the max (motor assist) speed of a normal class 2 e-bike, but yeah, the real problem here is lack of proper bike infrastructure.

I hate cyclists that masquerade as pedestrians. It’s less safe for them and it’s less safe for everyone. Get your ass out into traffic and learn to take up some space. Ride defensively. Get yourself a rear view mirror. Pick the most bike friendly route. For fucks sake.

I once made a left turn through a gap in the crowd downtown, then out of the ongoing crowd zips out a bike the opposite way out of nowhere. He almost hit the side of my car and of course he got mad at me, even though he was on the sidewalk which is illegal in my city, and he was riding against traffic

I'm from Toronto, same. Also as a pedestrian, those ebikers scare me the way cars scare them. They're not allowed on the sidewalk in my city, but you'll be walking with your toddler and an ebike speeds past you on the sidewalk almost hitting you. And they'll switch between sidewalk and road depending on the traffic, so I have no love for ebikers.

Remember that for state governments, "Highway" is a term of art that does not necessarily mean "elevated controlled access high speed multilane thoroughfare with on and off ramps" but usually more along the lines of, "anything paved, but not dirt." And the cops parrot this to make themselves sound like they're very officious and totally not useless doughnut-eaters, and then news outlets follow suit.

For example, my state's laws consistently use the word "highway" to refer to all paved roads that are under the purview of the state (i.e. not private roads, county roads, or municipal roads), even if they're not wide enough to have a center stripe. Then what we'd think of as a highway I believe is referred to as a "controlled access freeway."

Here is the location in question. This is definitely a Stroad, and it is certainly not a freeway. Stroads are well known to be hostile to pedestrians and cyclists. It also appears to have non-separated bike lines, i.e. some asshole just came by and painted bike icons on the existing shoulder, calling it job done.

"Well we clearly need to make it even more illegal then" -The Government

(Although technically was 16 year olds not allowed to ride e-bikes? If so then this is more permissive, because it says 16 year olds can ride class 1 bikes)

A permit is a learner's license, and it looks like you can get them starting at 15 in Oregon, which is the case in most states.