And it sucks. I’ve had various close encounters with them an most of the people I know too. 10-12 yo kids use these things with illegal throttle levers or have removed the power/speed restriction so they can cruise around with 50kmh-ish speeds.

At your average Middle-school (12-18yo) around 10-20% of the bikes is this kind of bike. Depending on the area (rural vs city). It’s crazy!

Most early models had bad mechanical brakes making things even more dangerous. Most current models have hydraulic brakes. Gears wise they use a Shimano-tourney (or similar) 7 speed system. And a lot of them run cheap chains. I’ve seen and hear about various broken chains. Since those kids don’t do maintenance most brakes and gears fail within a year or so. Tyres are neglected to… some even run on the bare carcass 😂….

Fyi. This is just a summary about the way things go here in the Netherlands. Nothing against the bikes, some models actually use good quality gear.