For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

Hah, as if a mere $20,000 would be enough to pause the machine for long enough to pull out 200 orphans.

I have been through the healthcare systems of Brazil (private) and Sweden (public). I can say that private healthcare is only strictly better if you pay out of pocket, not through insurance.

Public healthcare is FAR more efficient though, I am always amazed how _fast_ doing exams in Sweden are. Like my doctor asked me to take an MRI, put it in the system, scheduled an appointment within a week for me automatically and I was in and out of an MRI clinic in 20 minutes (and I was attended to exactly on time of my appointment) all of that just using my ID card. Bloodwork is usually drop-in so I can just go directly from the doctor without an appointment.

In Brazil with private healthcare I would have to find the MRI clinic myself and see which one was covered by my insurance and try to get an appointment within a reasonable time (by calling multiple clinics). And when getting there I would probably have to wait at least an hour to actually get the MRI done. That is if insurance didn't contest the need for it in the first place. And god forbid I forget to bring the insurance paperwork with me.

Oh yeah, in Brazil I also need to personally go pickup the MRI and personally bring it to the doctor and do another visitation, while in Sweden it is all digital and the doctor just called me on the phone to tell me the results.

My father took ~4 months to schedule a life-saving cancer surgery, insurance kept contesting the surgery. My partners mother in Sweden had cancer surgery approved and done in less than 10 days.

Yes the care in Sweden is usually worse than in Brazil private. I wouldn't say it is so much about doctor quality, more about doctors feeling a bit rushed to see patients. But it is so much faster and easier. Usually you need fast care, not personalized care. And of course a lot of things are just not covered in the Swedish public system (for example some skincare problems) that could be covered in some private in Brazil.

The only thing better about the Brazilian clinics was that some of them had marble floor on the lobby while the Sweden ones usually had concrete floors or tiles.

Overall I prefer the Swedish system much better than the private Brazilian system.

When someone criticizes US healthcare, they are almost always using "healthcare" to mean "the care that everyone receives on average" and not "the healthcare received by those with good insurance." Private jets fly from around the world to The Cleveland Clinic and The Mayo Clinic every day, but that's not what's at issue for most people.

I've known Canadians facing severe health issues who stay in the US because it's more affordable when you consider the higher wages.

That's not true for everyone, but I'm not talking about the super-rich either. Just plain middle class.

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This tends to be a much lesser problem once the person's original country is in the EU, but yeah if you are coming from outside the EU it can be super tricky. Even professions that is desperate need like nursing and doctors can be hard because of the recertifications required.

I think you can do better than that in charitably reading what I said in the context of a hagiography whose centerpiece is a loan to a 50 year-old immigrant for an e-bike.

The tradeoff is that the higher you carry the bag (i.e. on your shoulders), the more space you have when maneuvering between cars. You can imagine how, if your bag was at the same level as the bike saddle, it would be more likely to get pinched when cycling through traffic. A clever cyclist could even stand upright with the bag on their back to get a few more inches of clearance when need be!

Uno reverse/Yu-Gi-Oh trap card: They're not pushing the handling limits.

Which companies batch food orders now? It was a short lived and unpopular experiment in India years back.

Reminds me of seeing amazon workers struggle to drag those plastic boxes full of deliveries around the sidewalks of the neighborhood while UPS provides a hand truck. I get it, a hand truck cost more than that 10 cent box they abandon all over town.

right? This is the orphan-crushing-machine meme (referenced elsewhere here) playing out live.

Top comment: "This is bad ergonomics for the humans doing delivery"

Reply: "But here's all the reasons why good ergonomics lose money for The Platform"

Why not just put the ramen in liquid-tight containers?

Ah. Good comparison, I completely agree. And also, your description of long wait and cold food is reasonably accurate for Houston - it shocks me that food delivery apps are still so popular here; most people seem to talk about mainly bad experiences, but keep using it anyways.

From my very first google:

"In the five-year period from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2020, there were 14 deaths reported to an Australian State or Territory Coroner where an electric e-micromobility device, including e-bike, e-scooter and electronic self-balancing device, contributed to the death"

"Seven of the 14 deaths were related to e-bikes); 7 deaths were in Queensland and 5 in Victoria (by jurisdiction of investigation); 6 deaths were in the age group of 35–44 years; 5 were females."

<snip>

"Last year the state recorded eight deaths related to personal mobility devices, including e-bikes and e-scooters, quadrupling the number from the previous year, with more than 3000 people presented to 26 emergency departments."

https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/unaware-huge-war...

In addition, the reporting is lacking in this area.

"Often, e-bike injuries are grouped with other road users: motorcycles, bicycles and e-scooter therefore making it difficult to track its use, correlates of it and any injury or harm from it."

It's not one or the other in my eyes - both can be a problem. When someone whips by me on the sidewalk on an e-bike or moped at 20+ MPH, that's a serious danger as well. I agree that I haven't heard of anyone specifically dying from this, but it's absolutely a public danger.

A friend's 8 year old kid had his arm broken by ripping, when it got caught in an on-pavement electric bike's wheel. 100% torque straight away.

I assume you heard about it, given the confidence of your assertions. So I'm just reminding you.

If that's the case, then the comparable motor scooters should be deregulated as well.

I've seen e-bike collisions too. Unfortunately pedestrian's are still badly hurt or killed.

The e-bike rider has more on the line in a collision with a pedestrian as well.

> I’d much rather he’d have been struck by an e bike

E-bikes offer additional risk, not alternative risk, because they're ridden on pavements.

I just looked it up, it's actually 25kph, which is faster than the average speed of a pedal bike rider.

So assuming that the safe amount of momentum we're happy with (without registration, etc) is that of a pedal bike rider, if we take into account the extra weight of an e-bike, that seems like a pretty lenient cutoff. Overly lenient in my opinion.

I've seen them here going >70kph, just judging by them going faster than 60kph traffic.

But people must have their Ubereats and safety costs money, so the deaths will be justified, I suppose.

Moped going 20+kph are regulated need registration and can't ride on sidewalk, there are ebikes weighting more than moped and going faster.

Because bikes go the wrong way up one way streets, ride on sidewalks, don't use lights at night and run red lights whenever they feel like it. Think Brownian motion. If there are a lot of them (and there are in New York City) the odds of getting hit by one if you're not super duper careful is high. Worse if you are older and don't see so good or move so fast.

> Why is a bike going 20kph suddenly a problem?

because the bike can and will use the sidewalk if there's not bike lane.

Well, we (in NL) are used to bikes going mostly the same speed and people in cars and bikes following the rules. With overpowered fat-bikes, it's now much more chaotic than a decade ago.

The established road / bike path system here runs so smoothly that changes like this cause problems. People can't seem to improvise. I've also been to Cairo a lot and had a bit of a traffic culture shock. I believe that the chaotic Cairo traffic seems to cope much better with unexpected situations.

You can buy well built kits that are inexpensive. If you buy the cheapest available on Alibaba then maybe there's some risk of this

Agreed - maintainability directly contributes to whether or not something is "affordable" which is one of the center points of the article. Cheap and not repairable can quickly become expensive and wasteful.

I can tell you for a fact that snow and salted streets is far, far worse for an e-bike (I assume cars/trucks too, but maybe not since the gears are more isolated from the street?). However these places are like that only for 2-4 months of the year.

Compound that to e-bikes batteries usually (always?) don't have heating systems to keep them at >0 C, at least you can take them out of the bike when not in use though.

Worse is there are some cities that have both, humid summers and salted streets in winter.

You're right about hot and humid, but Bogota (which is where the story is set) is not hot. Highest temperature ever recorded was 30 Celsius and usual highs all year are about 20 C. Average altitude is 2600 m/8600 ft.

It is humid, but that doesn't seem to translate into especially heavy rain - total precip is less than 900 mm/yr, or somewhere between Minneapolis and Chicago.

Why's that? I have no experience here so I'm confused as to why the batteries would be different. Is it a size thing? Or are they just different tech all together?

I'm not sure why that would be.