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Calls mount for more e-bike regulation · Talking Michigan Transportation

• 0:07
  Jeff Cranson: Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 0:10
  Jeff Cranson: I'm Jeff Cranson.
• 0:12
  Jeff Cranson: By now you're probably aware that electric bikes or e-bikes are proliferating.
• 0:20
  Jeff Cranson: You see them everywhere.
• 0:21
  Jeff Cranson: You see them on the streets, on the sidewalks, on the trails.
• 0:24
  Jeff Cranson: And recently there's been a flurry of bills dropped in the legislature seeking to regulate these further in Michigan in various ways.
• 0:34
  Jeff Cranson: Put very simply, now, under Michigan law, an e-bike is anything that has a seat or a saddle, fully operable pedals, and has an electric motor of 750 watts or fewer.
• 0:46
  Jeff Cranson: An e-bike that meets those standards is treated like a bicycle, so you don't need a license or registration or insurance to ride one.
• 0:53
  Jeff Cranson: That would seem like enough and seem simple enough, but like all things with evolving technology and innovation, it gets more complicated.
• 1:01
  Jeff Cranson: So I wanted to kind of sort out where we've been with this and what's going on.
• 1:06
  Jeff Cranson: I spoke with Tim Gates, who is a PhD professor of environmental and civil engineering at Michigan State University.
• 1:14
  Jeff Cranson: He's been a guest on the podcast previously, to talk about various research that he has done at the university and studies that have been done in other states and what different states and communities are doing to try to address this issue moving forward.
• 1:30
  Jeff Cranson: So I hope you enjoy the conversation.
• 1:33
  Jeff Cranson: So Tim Gates, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan State University, as I mentioned earlier, who's been on the podcast previously, has a vital interest, like all of us in this space, and really all of us that live and breathe in safety.
• 1:50
  Jeff Cranson: I want to hear your thoughts on what's going on with e-bikes.
• 1:54
  Jeff Cranson: We've seen a lot of laws dropped recently, lots of discussion.
• 1:59
  Jeff Cranson: Um, some people, the advocates, think that any regulation is an attempt to try to curb them or rein them in, and that's really not what I think anybody's trying to do.
• 2:08
  Jeff Cranson: I think they're just trying to make sure that these things can operate safely and mix and use with other kinds of road, street, trail users.
• 2:16
  Jeff Cranson: So, what's your high-level view of where this is going?
• 2:19
  Tim Gates: Well, it's pretty obvious that where it's going right now in its somewhat unregulated form and what whatever we have, uh however you want to call it, it they it's really trending in the wrong direction.
• 2:31
  Tim Gates: I mean, we have had just recently where uh, you know, in California, I believe it was, there was a um teenager who had one of these e-bikes and had collided with an elderly gentleman on a sidewalk and that person died.
• 2:46
  Tim Gates: Um, and the the precedent that was set with this is that the the kid's mother, and I don't know if it was both parents, but I think the mother was was actually um found guilty and I think served some jail time um because both the kid and the parents had been warned um previously that this nonsense needs to stop.
• 3:06
  Tim Gates: Now, e-bikes can go up to 28 miles, depending on the class, they can they can go up to 28 miles per hour.
• 3:13
  Tim Gates: And it's not just the overall speed, it's also the acceleration that these things can um do.
• 3:19
  Tim Gates: I mean, it's you know, we've done some time trials a few years ago here at MSU, we compared um pedal bikes versus uh all three different types of e-bikes, and we found obviously that the e-bikes, uh, whether used in pedal assist mode, which is where the motor only engages when you're actively pedaling, or when you're using the throttle, which is especially the problem, um, can certainly accelerate and and get up to top speed much quicker than um than a bicyclist can on uh flat or uh especially uphill.
• 3:51
  Tim Gates: And that's a big problem.
• 3:52
  Tim Gates: Especially if we're talking about throttles here, you almost have to ask yourself, is this really a bike?
• 3:59
  Tim Gates: You know, if people are not pedaling them, it it really acts more like an electric motorcycle or maybe an electric scooter.
• 4:07
  Tim Gates: So therein lies the problem is that you know, when you have these things, they also weigh a fair bit more too, right?
• 4:13
  Tim Gates: So when you have a collision with one of these things going at 28 miles per hour, and in some cases, people have modified them to make them go even faster, then you can see where the problem is.
• 4:23
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that.
• 4:25
  Jeff Cranson: Uh, do do any of the laws, the the current bills that are proposed, I didn't see anything, but I could have missed it, deal with that um that ability to modify them?
• 4:35
  Tim Gates: You know, I haven't looked into the laws closely enough.
• 4:38
  Tim Gates: Um the thing that I've been keep hearing is that these things are more and more becoming um less of a bicycle and more of kind of falling in a gray area.
• 4:48
  Tim Gates: You know, are they not a motorcycle, they're not a bicycle, and so it's hard to um create policy and enforce policy related to them.
• 4:57
  Tim Gates: I mean, nevertheless, I think we all understand that these things are faster than a normal bicycle.
• 5:02
  Tim Gates: They're being ridden by kids, I shouldn't say kids, but they're being ridden by people in many cases a much younger age without helmets and at a much higher rate of speed than a bicycle would be ridden.
• 5:15
  Tim Gates: And also, we don't see these same kids riding, let's say, gasoline motorcycles on the road because they're not licensed, you know, the kids don't have license, but you don't have to have a license for one of these e-bikes.
• 5:26
  Tim Gates: Um, and if you're able to mod them, well, even unmod it up to 28 miles an hour.
• 5:30
  Tim Gates: But if you mod them, then of course you can really get moving.
• 5:34
  Tim Gates: And I see kids whipping all over the place on these things without helmets, you know, without um heating to the traffic control, blowing through stop signs, doing wheelies as they're blowing through stop signs, um, riding on the sidewalks.
• 5:50
  Tim Gates: So there's a lot of there's a lot of issues here.
• 5:54
  Tim Gates: I mean, I think part of it is you know, we have a new unregulated device um that is causing some havoc from uh a traffic safety standpoint mostly, both for the people that are riding them, the safety problems, of course, colliding with vehicles, but also when they're ridden on sidewalks colliding with pedestrians.
• 6:16
  Tim Gates: Um, one thing I had happen to me recently, too, I was making a right turn.
• 6:20
  Tim Gates: And you know, normally when you're making a right turn, you're checking for pedestrians, but there was somebody on the sidewalk that was on an e-bike and traveling much faster than my field of view could see.
• 6:30
  Tim Gates: And I had to slam on my brakes really quickly to stop from hitting them as they blew right into this the crosswalk.
• 6:36
  Tim Gates: Now, of course, we both had the green, so I would have been at fault, I think, but that person should not have been riding on the sidewalk.
• 6:44
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, that's terrifying.
• 6:45
  Jeff Cranson: I wonder, you know, when you talk about modifying these, I think about um when I first learned what a governor was as a kid, you know, on a on a minibike or a go-kart or a straight sport.
• 6:54
  Jeff Cranson: So yeah, you could play around with that and you know, regulate your own speed beyond what it was intended for.
• 7:01
  Jeff Cranson: And I know that's going on, but yeah, your example is exactly what I'm talking about.
• 7:05
  Jeff Cranson: I was standing with some folks on the Blue Bridge, which is a pedestrian bridge over the Grand River in downtown Grand Rapids a couple weeks ago, and one came flying by, and I heard it just before I would have stepped backwards because I was about to take a look down the path, and there's no way it could have stopped in time.
• 7:21
  Jeff Cranson: So are you have you yet been called to testify on any of this legislation?
• 7:25
  Jeff Cranson: Because I'm guessing you might at some point.
• 7:27
  Tim Gates: Well, I have been uh called to assist um in a consulting manner, expert consulting manner on um on e-bikes, but uh and these same safety issues and policing them, but I have not yet been called as it pertains specifically to the new uh policy.
• 7:47
  Tim Gates: So th e new laws that are that are being proposed.
• 7:50
  Tim Gates: So I that's where most of my knowledge comes from doing some research on these things um as it pertains to um you know municipalities basically, but I I haven't yet quite really dived into the uh the laws that are being proposed.
• 8:06
  Jeff Cranson: I see that uh several states do have laws, but they're all they're all different.
• 8:11
  Jeff Cranson: Do you know of any state that's kind of got it figured out that could be a model as Michigan policymakers look at this?
• 8:18
  Tim Gates: Um I don't.
• 8:19
  Tim Gates: Uh the this is evolving so quickly that and it's been a couple of years since I've um really been spending a lot of time in this area.
• 8:28
  Tim Gates: The issues that I am very aware of that come up with the policies are if you want to do an outright ban.
• 8:35
  Tim Gates: The problem with these outright bans, though, is that you do run into a little bit of issue with ADA compliance, you know, preventing someone who really needs an e-bike in order to be able to bicycle, preventing them from actually utilize what utilizing one of these things is can be a bit of a problem and can put municipalities or entities into you know legal um issues with those you know blanket prevention policies.
• 9:04
  Jeff Cranson: Um well, yeah.
• 9:06
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, think about the complications for law enforcement to have to learn about the three classes and what are they gonna stand out there and check the right, you know, the power on each bike and I mean who's gonna even do right the enforcement.
• 9:20
  Tim Gates: Right.
• 9:21
  Tim Gates: I think one you know, one thing if there's a way to do the problem is classifying them.
• 9:24
  Tim Gates: It also comes down to how do you classify them because it'd be one thing, and I and I don't have as big of an issue, and I think most people don't have as big of an issue with just having pedal assist only e-bikes.
• 9:36
  Tim Gates: It's the throttle when they're basically using them as an electric motorcycle, just with the throttle only, not pedaling.
• 9:44
  Tim Gates: You know, again, I don't call that bicycling because you're not actively pedaling.
• 9:48
  Tim Gates: And then just when people can mod these, modify them so that they can go faster than 28 miles per hour.
• 9:54
  Tim Gates: Obviously, that's a the big deal, too.
• 9:56
  Tim Gates: And we know that there's cases of that going on, but um from an enforcement standpoint, you're right.
• 10:01
  Tim Gates: Um, it'd be really hard for law enforcement, you know, for several reasons.
• 10:04
  Tim Gates: One, you know, how do you are you are you using radar or LIDAR to measure these the speeds on these things?
• 10:09
  Tim Gates: Are you know, even if you like just police it with a speed limit, there's got to be some sort of enforcement.
• 10:14
  Tim Gates: They're obviously not getting the specs on the pulling people over on these bikes and getting the specs of the motors and that sort of thing.
• 10:22
  Tim Gates: I do think there'd be a way if you could somehow eliminate them with throttles, but most of the bikes that I see out there now for sale have throttles on them, right?
• 10:32
  Tim Gates: So the it's the industry is trending towards more towards like the class two and above e-bikes because of course that's what everybody wants.
• 10:40
  Tim Gates: They're getting cheaper, the technology is getting better, the motors are getting better, and so it's hard to find them.
• 10:45
  Tim Gates: Well, it's not impossible, but it's getting more and more difficult to find them without throttles on them.
• 10:50
  Tim Gates: And then the question becomes too you have some people, then people will potentially still have ADA compliance problems because some people need that throttle, and they say that it, you know, it's but you know, or bicycling, you're depriving my ability to bike by not allowing me to use a throttled bicycle.
• 11:09
  Tim Gates: But then I go back to the argument that if you're not isn't the whole point, the whole definition of bicycling, doesn't that involve pedaling and active movement, right?
• 11:18
  Tim Gates: Not just using a throttle.
• 11:19
  Tim Gates: So I don't know.
• 11:20
  Jeff Cranson: These are I would argue that's how you should interpret it, that it's not a bicycle if you don't pedal.
• 11:25
  Jeff Cranson: Right.
• 11:25
  Jeff Cranson: So I know within the 2017 law in Michigan, that the class three that you're talking about, where the motor helps only while you pedal, that you're still supposed to be 14 years old and you're supposed to have a helmet if you're under 18.
• 11:42
  Jeff Cranson: I don't know why you wouldn't, well, I guess I do know why you wouldn't require a helmet for everybody because Michigan repealed its helmet law several years ago for motorcycles.
• 11:51
  Jeff Cranson: Um, and I'm still amazed.
• 11:53
  Jeff Cranson: I don't know if you've noticed this anecdotally.
• 11:55
  Jeff Cranson: I haven't talked to any police departments about it, but I think post-pandemic, when a lot of people stopped wearing seat belts and speeds went up, I think I don't see as many people wearing helmets on their bikes as I used to.
• 12:09
  Tim Gates: I mean, yeah, that anecdotally, I can't really say one way or the other, but it wouldn't surprise me.
• 12:15
  Tim Gates: Wouldn't surprise me.
• 12:16
  Tim Gates: You see a lot of change in behaviors um since the pandemic.
• 12:21
  Jeff Cranson: I'm always struck when I see a family and the adults aren't wearing helmets, but the kids are, as if like, I don't know, I guess the adults' heads are harder.
• 12:28
  Jeff Cranson: Well, maybe they are.
• 12:31
  Tim Gates: Yeah.
• 12:31
  Tim Gates: Yeah, I uh obviously um, you know, all it takes is one flash, you know, one blink of an eye, and you know, you're falling and hitting your head potentially.
• 12:41
  Tim Gates: So you know, helmets are definitely important.
• 12:44
  Tim Gates: I mean, even it it's getting to the point now when you talk about these things, should people be wearing helmets where they'll start walking out and about walking.
• 12:51
  Tim Gates: You know, you've got these people coming up behind you very quickly and very quietly in many cases.
• 12:56
  Tim Gates: It's not like it's a gas engine where you can hear it.
• 12:59
  Tim Gates: You know, they're sneaking up behind people, and there's I I'm anticipating uh that there's gonna be an like an exponential growth in e-bike pedestrian e-bike to e-bike or e-bike to bike and e-bike to vehicle crashes here over the next couple of years.
• 13:18
  Tim Gates: And we're already seeing it.
• 13:19
  Tim Gates: Like I from when I started getting into this issue two, three years ago till now, I've heard so many more cases of uh e-bike collisions, e-bike involved collisions, um, making news mostly.
• 13:34
  Jeff Cranson: Oh, absolutely.
• 13:35
  Jeff Cranson: Emergency room doctors will tell you, you know, some stories about what they're seeing.
• 13:39
  Jeff Cranson: So, yeah, absolutely.
• 13:40
  Jeff Cranson: We will continue the conversation right after a quick break.
• 13:46
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• 13:50
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• 13:56
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• 13:59
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• 14:01
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• 14:06
  Jeff Cranson: How do how do we balance this?
• 14:07
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, you hit on it.
• 14:08
  Jeff Cranson: There's ADA compliance, it's an entry point for people into bicycling who otherwise might not be.
• 14:14
  Jeff Cranson: It's certainly good for the environment.
• 14:15
  Jeff Cranson: It's uh it lowers the carbon footprint if people can use it to commute, to class or to work.
• 14:21
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, it's not uncommon, obviously, that regulation has to follow innovation, right?
• 14:26
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah.
• 14:28
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, I guess is that the best we can do is just keep thinking about it and talking about it and figuring out a way to strike that balance.
• 14:36
  Tim Gates: Yeah, I something really needs to be done.
• 14:39
  Tim Gates: I mean, we I think we understand the intended purpose of these and how they do, like you hit on, they definitely open up windows of accessibility for people um that have mobility issues and whatever, to be able to bicycle, to be able to get out and enjoy, you know, everybody likes to go out a nice day and enjoy bicycle ride.
• 14:58
  Tim Gates: But the problem is, is they're being used in an unintended manner, and that is again to be used like a motorcycle, which is fast.
• 15:05
  Tim Gates: Um, you've got so many underage people riding on these things, don't have to be licensed.
• 15:12
  Tim Gates: So, again, it gets back to the thing I continue to ask myself is how do we define a bicycle?
• 15:19
  Tim Gates: How where do we draw the line between a bicycle and a motorcycle slash Honda Spree type scooter, etc.?
• 15:29
  Tim Gates: And that's you know, that's gonna take, I think, a lot of debate, especially when it comes to the ADA piece.
• 15:35
  Tim Gates: So, I mean, maybe we get into the situation where we're better enforcing sidewalk or having more um zoning policies that disallow instead of just being in like the downtown areas, but just completely disallowing bicycling on the sidewalk.
• 15:49
  Jeff Cranson: Um well, that's one of the bills, actually.
• 15:52
  Jeff Cranson: Um 6340 would prohibit e-bikes on public sidewalks, at least that's the intent.
• 15:58
  Jeff Cranson: Another one that's out there I'm sure you read about would uh just provide new regulations for miners.
• 16:04
  Jeff Cranson: A couple of bills in a package want to make miners have a license, which isn't unreasonable, you know, kind of like we do for boating in Michigan.
• 16:13
  Jeff Cranson: And it would uh require the manufacturers of micromobility devices to have labels that indicate its speed and motor wattage.
• 16:21
  Jeff Cranson: Um, all of these seem like ideas worth discussing, you know, worth debating, as you say.
• 16:27
  Jeff Cranson: I don't know what's your not that you have a crystal ball, but um this this could take a while.
• 16:31
  Tim Gates: And by the time we're gonna go.
• 16:32
  Tim Gates: Those all sound good.
• 16:33
  Tim Gates: Those definitely all sound good.
• 16:34
  Tim Gates: I mean, I can't they may they'll cause a lot of grumbling, certainly.
• 16:38
  Tim Gates: Um, but I think those, you know, maybe the door to uh the entry door to these things, the gateway to these items, make it a little bit harder and less accessible for people that just want to use them and maybe uh aren't um knowledgeable or experienced um in how to use them and how to use them safely.
• 16:59
  Tim Gates: Because if you've got kids that are you know under the age of 15 or 14 that haven't even gone through like a driver's training class or understand you know the power and you know and the energy that these things have when traveling at high rates of speed.
• 17:16
  Tim Gates: Um, and again, certainly different than a normal bicycle.
• 17:20
  Tim Gates: You know, maybe some educational policies or some, you know, they have to go to a training program to get their license or that sort of thing, you know.
• 17:27
  Tim Gates: Like you said, similar to boater safety or hunter safety, anything, anything where you're dealing with an object that could potentially kill somebody, or has killed somebody, um, that's where I think we need to be headed with the policy.
• 17:40
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah.
• 17:41
  Jeff Cranson: And I think we need to have, um, I think you raise a really good point too about the ADA, and we'll have to have advocates for people with disabilities, of which there are several organizations across the state, they should be at the table too.
• 17:53
  Tim Gates: Yeah, they will need to be at the table.
• 17:55
  Tim Gates: How do you write these things such that you're not excluding people that um you know, you're not excluding the wrong people basically from utilizing, having utilizing these things.
• 18:04
  Tim Gates: I mean, there is a purpose for them uh for the bikes, but unfortunately we see them being used for the wrong purposes in a lot of cases, in a lot of cases.
• 18:12
  Tim Gates: And again, like I said, it's a lot of it's just inexperience, youth, inexperience, ignorance, and I'm not just picking on um, you know, teenagers using them, but you know, as I see it, frankly, I see it everywhere.
• 18:22
  Tim Gates: I see it on our college campus, I see it all over the place.
• 18:25
  Jeff Cranson: But uh I was gonna ask you, does MSU have any specific regulations on campus, or can't they really do that since those are all public streets?
• 18:33
  Tim Gates: I no, I don't I I've seen them.
• 18:35
  Tim Gates: I mean, if we have them, which I'm I can't say for certain if we do or don't, but I mean I see them frequently.
• 18:40
  Tim Gates: E-scooters and well, so the e-scooters and bicycles in general are supposed to be using the bicycle lane um on the roadway.
• 18:48
  Tim Gates: And that was the problem that we had maybe five years ago or so when you know I had the scooters just kind of started to explode everywhere.
• 18:55
  Tim Gates: Is make the requirement is for you to ride them in the bicycle lane.
• 19:00
  Jeff Cranson: Um, I remember there was a fatal crash outside of Case Hall that was really bad.
• 19:04
  Jeff Cranson: On a scooter, yeah, that yeah.
• 19:07
  Tim Gates: Well, and speaking of crashes too, I mean, so we talked about the one in California, but take a place like Mackinac Island, for example, that does not have motorized vehicles, and you've got horses, obviously, and you've got scads of people, like really congested summer weekend day in the what I call like the downtown within the village of Mackinac Island, maybe not so much of a problem outside, but in the village where you've got these, you've always had bicyclists interacting with and weaving through people and horses, but now you've got something that can getting back to the acceleration point that can accelerate really quickly.
• 19:42
  Tim Gates: You know the horses can be a little bit skittish, right?
• 19:44
  Tim Gates: I mean, they can be spooked, absolutely throw a rider off, throw, you know, kick or something, and there have been injuries that have occurred um due to that sort of thing.
• 19:54
  Tim Gates: There's also you think about like the maybe the walk up to the grand hotel off that large hill.
• 19:58
  Tim Gates: Now you couldn't easily pedal quickly up that hill, but an e-bike can certainly get a decent rate of speed going up.
• 20:05
  Tim Gates: Um, and of course, pretty much any bike could get a decent rate of speed going down that hill.
• 20:10
  Tim Gates: But you know, there's been collisions that have occurred on that hill that wouldn't have occurred previously.
• 20:14
  Tim Gates: You know, you've got uh in the response to it, to be perfectly honest, the response to it has been to establish a speed limit in the village of Mackinac Island.
• 20:24
  Tim Gates: And you say, Well, speed limit, you don't have any cars, you don't have any gasoline-powered vehicles.
• 20:30
  Tim Gates: Well, the speed limit exists for the e-bikes.
• 20:34
  Jeff Cranson: Um the local ordinance is supposed to be on the island now that you can only use one if you have a qualifying disability.
• 20:42
  Jeff Cranson: Right.
• 20:42
  Jeff Cranson: Um, but again, in enforcement.
• 20:45
  Tim Gates: Well, and they don't and the good part about it that you have the rental agencies and the ferries, they do a great job to the best of their ability to police that.
• 20:57
  Tim Gates: They don't rent them on the island, they don't run e-bikes on the island.
• 21:01
  Tim Gates: They I don't know if they ask for documentation of any sort on the ferries, but they try to remove people that that have um or remove the e-bikes that try to get brought on.
• 21:10
  Tim Gates: Um, but of course, they still exist on the island, they're still, you know, there and a problem.
• 21:15
  Tim Gates: And um, but you're right, though, again, it gets getting back to the ADA piece where you know you have to afford persons with disabilities the ability to do that, you know, have that experience in a manner that's equivalent to an able-bodied person.
• 21:31
  Tim Gates: So that that's always going to be there.
• 21:34
  Tim Gates: And you know, obviously it's a dicey issue to if you were to ask people to prove their disability or to, you know, that sort of thing.
• 21:42
  Tim Gates: So they deal with it.
• 21:43
  Tim Gates: And then the way that they've tried to deal with it on Mackinac Island in the near term, at least, and in in the village, is to post a speed limit and try to enforce it.
• 21:52
  Tim Gates: With they have a very small village police department there, right?
• 21:55
  Tim Gates: Right.
• 21:56
  Tim Gates: You know, and how do you enforce, how do you chase these people down?
• 22:01
  Tim Gates: How do you radar or lidar these e- bikes that are going?
• 22:04
  Tim Gates: How do you how do you prove that they're going uh above 15?
• 22:07
  Jeff Cranson: So yeah, I think um you raise a really good point though about the ferries.
• 22:11
  Jeff Cranson: I'm gonna have to look into that.
• 22:12
  Jeff Cranson: And this is uh this is a topic that we could explore more because it's gonna keep coming up uh at the state level, and then and the Mackinac Island folks are gonna be wrestling with it going forward, obviously.
• 22:23
  Jeff Cranson: But yeah, uh it's all about the conflict of different uses, and that applies to the trails already.
• 22:29
  Jeff Cranson: There are people that like to, you know, we think of these as bike trails, but there are people that like to walk on the bike trails, and sometimes they like to walk three abreast, you know.
• 22:38
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, and if you're on your bike and you uh give them a heads up on your left, they sometimes move to the left.
• 22:45
  Jeff Cranson: Yep.
• 22:45
  Tim Gates: So yeah, but it's that closing speed that the e-bikes have that a pedal bike doesn't have quite so much that you know they're there so quickly, and silently in many cases, too.
• 22:57
  Tim Gates: Again, you're not talking about a gasoline-powered vehicle.
• 23:00
  Jeff Cranson: No, the only way I can tell they're just they're going faster, so there's a bit of a whirr sometimes, and that's well, well, thanks.
• 23:07
  Jeff Cranson: I always appreciate you taking time to talk about these things.
• 23:09
  Jeff Cranson: We're gonna explore it further, and I have a feeling we'll be seeing you uh before a legislative committee again sometime.
• 23:15
  Tim Gates: Sure.
• 23:15
  Tim Gates: Sure, sure, sure.
• 23:16
  Tim Gates: Not a problem.
• 23:16
  Tim Gates: And in my apologies for not being uh necessarily up on the the latest uh policy information.
• 23:22
  Tim Gates: Um, you know, I my experience on this is is a little bit outdated at this point, but I definitely still keep in touch with what's going on in the news in terms of safety issues and crashes, etc.
• 23:33
  Jeff Cranson: So No, it's changing fast, but it's always it's always good.
• 23:36
  Jeff Cranson: I know, I just I know how important this is to you and your work and what you're teaching your students.
• 23:41
  Jeff Cranson: So I appreciate it.
• 23:42
  Tim Gates: Yeah, you're welcome, Jeff.
• 23:43
  Tim Gates: Thanks for the uh opportunity.
• 23:45
  Jeff Cranson: I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation.
• 23:48
  Jeff Cranson: You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout.
• 23:53
  Jeff Cranson: I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, and Jacke Salinas, who posts the podcast to various platforms and transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.