Yup - and the law applied to cars isn't all that different. There are billboard sized signs along the autoroute outside Toronto that clearly state that driving in excess of 40kph over thecspeedlimit will result in a minimum $10,000 fine, seizure of vehicle and immediate roadside suspension of license. Good luck getting home!
And apparently there's always someone that thinks laws don'd apply to them - like that kid in BC that posted a video of himself doing 300kph on a crotch rocket on a public highway through traffic. Luckily his friends were smart enough to turn him in before he killed someone.
And now e-bikes. I have 3 myself. Amazingly the speed limit on the bike paths here is 20kph and the speed limit on everything except main arteries is 30kph. A stock e-bike will handle all that. Driving in 50kph zones also means driving in heavy traffic here and I'd rather not.
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...her-hard-cases
So the 'need' for a 1,000W motor completely escapes me. I have one e-bike thats equipped to do house calls. It has a 500W HT motor and even loaded down with 50lbs of luggage, parts and tools - it'll climb the steepest holl in the city at 30kph. I did swap out the front fork for a RockShox Reba, but the motor, battery and controller are all dead stock.
http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...4&d=1353438631
Thing is - fully loaded, I don't WANT to drive at full speed. Mostly out of respect for what I'm carrying. And that's not unreasonable anyway. The last BMW R100RS I had would do 200+kph. But the owner's manual was very specific - with rear luggage cases installed the top speed MUST BE kept below 100kph.
With all this talk about 'freedom' it seems that a few people forget very fast that their freedom stops at the point it starts to endanger other people's freedom. And that particular point isn't their's to decide - its already been established.