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micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility

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E-bike riders aren’t wearing helmets — and head trauma cases are through the roof (www.tomsguide.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

People will put on some shorts, a tanktop and some flip-flops, get on their bike, and ride similar speeds to that of someone on a motorbike wearing full safety gear. All while surrounded by vehicles which weigh tonnes and with the most likely surface their head will hit being the curb or some concrete. It's stupid.

I mean, seriously. Hit your self in the head with a brick or an iron bar. You're likely to hurt yourself badly even if you do it lightly, let alone full force.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Just in: most people who get shot aren't wearing bulletproof vests.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (14 children)

Are you really calling source on the fact that:

Biking without a helmet is dangerous.
Biking at 30 mph with a helmet is more dangerous.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

I'm sating this article is sensationalist shit. The information in the article does not lead to the conclusion from the title.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (11 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The US is not the world. Older folks here usually don't have eBikes. It's teenagers and folks in their early 20s with fat tire bikes going super fast. Some folks commute with eBikes, but most people other than teenagers don't go especially fast on bikes unless they're wearing helmets and spandex.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Yeah, speed is a killer. A doubling in speed represents a quadrupling of kinetic energy. So, while a 100 kg man-bike moving at 10mph (~16 kph) has (0.51004.444...^2) (0.5mV^2 for kinetic energy, m is mass in kg, V is velocity in m/s) 987 joules of energy, a 100 kg man-bike at 20 mph (0.51008.888...^2) has almost 4000 joules of energy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The stats don't exist because ebikes have only been around for a few years. There are no stats on them yet, and they aren't seen as a separate category of transportation from bikes.

I'm claiming i on experience of commuting in my city daily for over a decade and seeing the changes in trends, ages, and behaviours of other commuters on bikes. I also work in cycling advocacy, education, and infrastructure.

There are however, many articles form local hospitals/newspapers cited a big uptick in serious cycling injuries the past few years, and that was when ebikes became mainstream.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Just a note of caution, while your observations may be valid, there could be other factors that influence the outcome. In my geography, the number of private passenger vehicles went from about 30-31 per 100 of the total population to just under 40* in the last ten years, meaning there's about a third increase of car traffic around those new e-bike riders compared to a decade ago.

* It's an odd phrasing, I admit, but I wanted to share the numbers without suggesting that 30% of the population has cars or drives regularly, which may not be the case. Some families have multiple cars, some of those vehicles are company cars, etc.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

"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.

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