Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles, heelies, or an office chair: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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It's a little sad that we need to actually say this, but:
Don't be an asshole or you will be permanently banned.
Respectful debate is totally OK, criticizing a product is fine, but being verbally abusive will not be tolerated.
Focus on discussing the idea, not attacking the person.
I bought a new helmet for my downhill biking. It's almost lighter than some road bike helmets and has great air flow. Wear a helmet, people. Your noggin is precious and cars and trucks are aiming for us.
I hope your downhill helmet has a face/jaw.
Source: my previously broken face/jaw.
I wear a full helmet for any bike riding now
helmets aren't made to protect you from "cars and trucks" but from falls
false sense of security
Falls that can come from avoiding cars and trucks…
The collision with a car is just one factor. Yeah, if hit directly, the collision itself can be devastating. But the fall from the collision is extremely dangerous in itself.
People are downvoting you but you are right. Bicycle helmets are not designed for impact collisions with vehicles and wearing a helmet vs not wearing one — in motor vehicle accidents — statistically doesn’t matter very much.
But why does this matter? Two reasons:
— Studies have shown that motor vehicle drivers are more likely to give a cyclist more space when passing if the cyclist is not wearing a helmet. Drivers think helmet = protected and no helmet = squishy.
— People tend to blame cyclists for their injuries if they weren’t wearing a helmet. Victim blaming is bad. A cyclist can certainly be at fault in an accident, but they don’t deserve their injuries.
That said, I still always wear a helmet when riding in the US because drivers are crazy, our road infrastructure is usually in disrepair, and I am capable of making mistakes that could lead me to fall.
getting downvoted but you are 100% correct.
ignorance on this comment thread deep. people here don't have any idea what they are talking about and just want to blowhard about how helmet wearing is the issue.
if you're going 25mph on an ebike, a helmet isn't going to stop you from fucking up your head.
Cars and trucks can still smack your melon, or otherwise cause your melon to get smacked.
I can't understand why people refuse to wear helmets when riding.
I had a professor in university who got in an accident while not wearing a helmet. He went over the handlebars and landed on his head. It happened years before I met him, but he would regularly get crippling migraines as a consequence, and he would plead with his students to never ride without wearing a helmet.
A friend's dad fell off his bike hardly moving and had severe brain damage and was a shadow of his former self. Then died young. It doesn't take much at all. I will never not wear a helmet on a bike.
should we wear helmets while walking around or jogging? riding a bike at 5mph doesn't need a helmet. or in the shower? most folks get head trauma from shower falls, far more than bicycle accidents.
helmet wearing is for when you're going 15mph or faster. it's for sport cycling.
This is an inherently close minded take on helmets.
If you're sharing the road with vehicles which can go 30mph, you need a helmet. You don't need to be moving to be killed on a bike
It's been years since Go Pros were first becoming popular, but I remember stumbling across a biking forum and was appalled at the number of riders posting videos of assholes in cars trying to run them off the road. All it takes is once.
During that same period, the number of recorded e-bike riders seeking medical attention for head trauma increased nearly 50-fold to just shy of 8,000 visits in 2022.
So.... Number of ebike riders rose by 50x since 2017. Makes sense, but doesn't mean it's more dangerous or anything to do with helmets
Are you really calling source on the fact that:
Biking without a helmet is dangerous.
Biking at 30 mph without a helmet is more dangerous.
?
Wearing a helmet increases your risk of injury: https://road.cc/content/news/268605-wearing-cycle-helmet-may-increase-risk-injury-says-new-research
Paradoxically, wearing a helemt makes people feel safer doing more dangerous things, so it increases the actual risk. However, the existence of cars without sufficient infrastructure makes biking significantly more dangerous, reguarless of everything anything the bike rider is doing. So in countries with functional bike infrastructure, like the Netherlands, people don't wear helmets because it's safer not to. In dysfunctional countries, like the US, people have to wear helmets.
Faster biking without a helmet is obviously dangerous, I don't know if this is also related to cars. In the Netherlands, eBikes with acceleators are considered motorcycles and require helmets but eBikes that are just pedal assist are considered regular bikes and people generally use the assist to go farther not faster.
Dutchies wear no helmets because we're stubborn that way. There's more injuries compared to our neighbor Denmark where more than half of people wear helmets.
With the advent of eBikes there's been a huge upsurge in cycling related injury, certainly among the elderly. However the mental ownership of bikes makes us as unwilling to wear a helmet as stereotypical southern us state males were unwilling to adapt the seatbelt.
Inverse survivorship bias 'i never needed one' prevails. Only one in ten wears a helmet and if you bring up this topic in conversation it gets really uncomfortable soon...
There's biking and there's biking.
In the Netherlands, for example, people wear helmets if they're doing bike sports like road racing or BMX.
But if they're just cruising down the street on their granny bike to get groceries, they don't bother because that's fairly safe.
It's rather like the need for a seatbelt on the highway, vs the need for a seatbelt on a 25 mph neighborhood street.
That’s changing. Electric bikes are involved in many more accidents now, and it’s advised to wear a helmet if you’re young or older (I’ve lived here 25 years now and you can see the changes).
I would call you a sweet summer child, but I've stood in your shoes exactly. A while ago I had a serious bike accident because I slipped from the wet pedals and landed head first on the concrete. Doc in the ER told me I was able to walk it off because I was wearing a helmet (which now had a serious crack).
I posted online about it and while a lot of people are logged the story with their own various tales, it was also the day I learned about the very vocal minority of bike riders who completely detest helmets. many of them go so far as to say that helmets are actively dangerous.
Their arguments are mostly variations on
I fell on my bike onto the pavement going 12mph. That's it. Not very fast whatsoever compared to some cyclists.
I ended up busting 4 ribs in half and fractured my scapula (shoulder blade). I was wearing my helmet w/front visor thank God because it's amazing how quickly your head smacks that concrete. I went face first too and the visor + helmet completely spared me any head trauma.
Never felt pain like that in my life. The agony of getting loaded onto a gurney with that many busted bones isn't something I wish to repeat.
Head injuries are no joke, when I ride my ebike I use a helmet with a chin bar too because I can barely afford an ebike that isn't bottom of the barrel so I know I can't afford to get my teeth replaced.
It would be interesting to know whether the increase in head trauma stems from single accidents being inherently more dangerous on e-bikes and that being the increase, or if e-bikes make biking more accessible bringing out less experienced bikers on the road where they are subsequently struck by cars.
It's not possible to see the study without a subscription, so it's hard to tell.
I'd not be surprised to see the latter being the case though, cars are the biggest predator when it comes to bicyclists.
ebikes ride about 10mph faster than on a bicycle.
higher speeds is the issue. combined with the inexpereince and lack of physical skill and health of ebike riders. recipe for injuries.
that and most ebike riders are much older. you don't see 22yo college grads on them, you see middle aged adults and retirees, because they cost $2000+ not $200.
Are you claiming this on intuition or on some actual statistics?
Also, on account of your use of mph, is this relevant only for the U.S? In the EU, e-bikes are pedelec only and capped at 25 km/h, which I don't think is 16 km/h more than the average bicyclist puts out.
Yeah everyone wearing a helmet looks fucking dumb. You know what's more dumb, brain damage. Literally.
I recently got an e-bikes. It goes up to 20mph and honestly scares the shit out of me sometimes. I have a normal bike helmet but am looking into something a bit beefier, between a bike and motorcycle helmet
I don't think people understand: At 20mph that's athlete sprinting speed. Imagine going all out "impending asthma attack and you don't even have asthma" full sprint down a hill then tripping on a curb
exactly. folks get ebikes because they wnat to go fast without being fit. they can do 20mph rather than 5mph.
falling at 20mph is going to have an impact force 16x greater than it is at 5mph
I got mine to get my asthmatic self up these Seattle hills. The person at the bike shop told me it is possible to go into a secret menu setting and up the top speed to 25mph. I did that once, immediately feared for my life, then set the max back down to 20 lol
Wear helmets people, they're super cool. What's not cool? Hitting your head on concrete, lights out, no waking up.
If you think your head and its contents are important, wear a properly adjusted helmet. Every time.
Wonder how many of those injuries are on rentals? Veo rental e-bikes are very prevalent around these parts. Have never seen anyone riding them with a helmet. If you own an e-bike and don't wear one, that's on you. But rental ones don't even have a way to provide you with one.
OTOH, most rental e-scooters have a helmet carrier box on the back. It unlocks when you go to pick one up with the app.
"Head trauma cases are through the roof" is a weird way to put it. It didn't get that much more dangerous to use an E-bike but usage is through the roof.
Overall increased bike usage makes bikes safer for the average user so it wouldn't surprise me if the "head injury per non-professional rider" would be going down.
Paramedics treat pedal bicycle accidents the same as a car crash. An electric bike can go much faster and cause more damage.
Helmets and gloves.
What country? Here in Europe ebikes are limited to 25kph therefore slower than regular bike.
An e-bike is a motorcycle in everything but name and highway-worthiness. It's honestly a little bonkers how long it took for this conversation to come up. I do think there's a bit of an odd feeling strapping on a motorbike helmet when you're getting on what you think of as a bicycle, and it probably doesn't help that motorcycle helmets are bulky and a PITA to carry around if you're using your e-bike as a commuter. Those are all addressable solutions, though.
Probably the fastest/cheapest way to affect a change would be to set a top speed for eBikes operating in public areas as bicycles. Speed kills, and keeping people from doing practically 30 mph in the bike lane would probably be a good place to start. I'm not talking about handing out tickets as much as having manufacturers govern their top speeds down. After that, public health campaigns.
There are different classes of ebikes:
—Class I is pedal-assisted only, up to 20mph. No throttle. In no way is this a motorcycle.
—Class II is pedal-assisted or throttle, up to 20mph.
—Class III is pedal-assisted up to 28mph. Throttle is optional.
—Class IV is speeds over 28mph or a motor 750W or more.
Personal opinion: Class 1 can and should be allowed anywhere a regular pedal bike is allowed. Class 2 needs to have a max weight limit if it’s to be used on sidewalks or multiuse trails, basically anywhere there are pedestrians. Class 3 absolutely should have a max weight limit if it’s going to be used anywhere except roads. Class 4 is getting into speeds and weights high enough to warrant consideration for licenses/permits in public spaces.
An e-bike is a motorcycle in everything but name
Can't say I agree as long as you're referring to a class 1-3 ebike, otherwise, we are no longer referring to ebikes.
Yeah because there's all these rental e-scooters and bikes in densely populated urban areas, but they don't come with a helmet.
Even the people I see on these e-bikes look like alcoholics that lost their license. And they drive opposing traffic. I talked to one guy, who was drunk at 2pm, and told him he should ride WITH traffic, and he said no, because then he can't see the cars coming.
I mean...