Apparently electric bikes, once seen as an environmental plus, have taken off in China and are now becoming a deadly traffic menace. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal (“E-Yikes! Electric Bikes Terrorize the Streets of China”), there are now at least 120 million e-bikes on China's roads and in 2007, there were 2,469 deaths from electric-bicycle accidents nationwide - roughly 3% of China's annual 90,000 traffic accident deaths. Moreover, they may not be the most environmentally friendly means of transportation as their batteries contain LEAD. The Wall Street Journal article also includes an interesting interactive graphic depicting how the bicycle kingdom is increasingly moving from pedal power to electric power.
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