This summer I'm starting to see teenagers (all boys, FWIW) riding throttle e-bikes on the road. And when i say 'on the road', I mean in the middle of the road as if they were riding a motorcycle. Except I'm sure the riders don't have a driver's license, nor are the e-bikes registered (definitely no license plates on the bikes)
What are these kids' parents thinking? Will they be suing the e-bike companies when their kids get run over by a car or truck? I guess natural selection is still a thing.
You answered it yourself. It's a form of mobility that doesn't need registration, license, pocket money to refuel, etc. that can cover a lot of distance quickly.
Kids are raring to exercise their freedom. I'm in the US Army and see how the young recruits have very restricted freedom and can't wait to get even a small fraction of it back as they qualify for "phase-ups". They look forward to getting any sort of assignment that has the opportunity to let them go free, disliking the safe training environment. In other words, they will happily forsake safety for the taste of freedom that has been kept away from them for so long. They typically seek to splurge on something newer and more exciting (more extreme than anything they've previously experienced) to overcompensate for a need to release a lot of pent-up negative feelings.
They're safer on those than a regular bicycle. If they are traveling closer to the speed limit, they shouldn't need to ride to the right; only road users greatly exceeding the limit would be over-taking them. Fatalities from car collisions are HOMICIDE and shouldn't be considered natural selection; if they die, I hope their deaths will not be in vain, helping to highlight a need to address how vehicles of much greater kinetic energy (greater mass and/or velocity) bully out the smaller more vulnerable users, not too unlike how bikers and hikers feel threatened by emtbs (except cars dish out the majority of violence, while the emtbers are on the receiving end of much of the abuse/threats). Expecting them to get a car is akin to an emtbs expecting others to see the light of emtbs, or whatever self-centered bias you have that you want to impart on others.
In the end, it's a public sharing issue again, which originates from selfish people's frustration of having their desired line and pace being disrupted by other users/traffic. People like OP are like Karens, wanting to assert their greater rights (right to complain about others) through paying more into related systems, wanting to be recognized as having more seniority/value, and/or perhaps having authoritative connections that might listen to them if they cried pitifully enough, etc. How about recognizing that you should stop being a b!tch, stop focusing on low-tier sh!t, and stop expecting respect after having such a condescending attitude towards sharing public spaces with other
people. Being bad at sharing public spaces is a personal issue until the infrastructure is updated, and it doesn't help that people keep investing resources to conserve outdated designs.
