I decided to get myself a collapsible helmet after reading that someone I follow on Twitter nearly got into an accident. There are quite a few options regarding helmets [0] but only two really stand out, the Morpher [1] and the Plixi [2] - I purchased the Plixi because it’s the only collapsible helmet rated by Consumer Reports. I’m very happy with the helmet, especially after comparing it with a Morpher that my coworker has.
There are also hats with D3O material. [1] I wear one downhill skiing [2] but it is probably less suited for scooters or bikes, especially in warmer months.
2: The alternative to not wearing this protection is none at all. I don't downhill ski much these days but didn't wear a helmet when no one did and am not about to start now.
Hopefully those safety concerns will force cities to accommodate electric scooters as part of their transportation infrastructure, leading to proper lanes, safety inspections and docking stations, instead of banning them nilly-willy.
The current urban infrastructure in America are build for automobiles, specifically cars, with bikes being an afterthought. The mass adoption of electric scooters will eventually cause a wake-up call for city planners, and will hopefully put the brakes on car culture.
Wouldn't it be great if there was suitable lanes without potholes that weren't 'shared' with cars (cars don't share).
Injuries are to be expected, some users will ride stupidly, and unfortunate things happen. Add thousands of scooter each having 10 rides a day, of course injuries will rise.
This one is definitely on the company. The current fleet isn't designed with durability in mind.
That said, unlikely, but could have been a malicious citizen who intentionally damaged the brakes (people are super disrespectful to the green transit)
> people are super disrespectful to the green transit
I've found the general sentiment is that people are disrespectful to Bird and Lime, rather than green transit in general. Something about them being an eyesore.
And being in public. Can't do the same to private ones because there are far less sitting in the open.
People complain of them parked on the sidewalk with rows of car parking all around, or riding on the sidewalk where on the street would be a death sentence.
Yes. I complain about them on the sidewalk if there are any number of people there. If you’re not comfortable riding on the street don’t do so and try to get the configuration changed so you are more comfortable.
Since theres no way to reliably and automatically detect a failure of the brake system without trying it, I disagree that this is completely on the company. It's in the riders best interest to verify that they can stop before reaching 20mph on a random scooter they pick up from the street corner...
I think it's very unreasonable to expect the company to be aware of vandalism and random damage without a rider report, or a much more expensive scooter. Ideally they would detect the damage during the next charge cycle, but I personally wouldn't put my faith in someone who's paid to spend as little time as possible with each scooter.
Weren't Limes and Birds of the world super disrespectful to pretty much every municipality onto which they dropped their POS tincans without permits?
I mean, it should not even need a disclaimer that of course cutting brakes on those things is wrong, but if you drop them all over a major metro, usually without even bothering to get proper permits and work out proper storage and usage policies, and let every brain-dead idiot zoom around full-speed on sidewalks, bike lanes and roadways, you should not be very surprised that bad things will happen.
The brakes may have malfunctioned since last inspection.
Another idea is when you're 63, find a more suitable form of transportation.
If that's too offensive, then check the brakes work before going down a steep hill. Also learn how to use the rear foot brake (if it has one, which I know the Segways and others do).
> The brakes may have malfunctioned since last inspection.
If the vehicle is so poorly designed that the brakes can go from 100% to completely non-functional between regular inspections, it shouldn't be on the road under any circumstances.
> Another idea is when you're 63, find a more suitable form of transportation.
...Huh? You think a 20-year-old can eat asphalt at 25mph and stroll away without a scratch? This is the weirdest victim-blaming I've seen.
Eating asphalt was a consequence of user not knowing the scooter has a rear foot brake. We also don't know exactly what happened except for a 63yo rider decided to scoot down a hill on a rental, and claims brakes didn't work.
Without knowing the full story including the exact condition or problem with scooter, you can't just believe everything you read. This is particularly true when said "victims" are no doubt hungry for compensation claims.
A 63yo is less able to take evasive action such as using foot to brake at speed and maintain balance before it's too late.
So yes, until evidence proves otherwise, I'm blaming the 63yo for the accident they had. We can't "Nanny" the world at every micro-step. Take some responsibility.
If you have evidence that Brogan is lying, that would be a useful contribution to the discussion. If not, it's really weird to just accuse someone of fraud out of the blue.
> A 63yo is less able to take evasive action such as using foot to brake at speed and maintain balance before it's too late.
This wasn't a matter of reflexes. She blew through three intersections with no brakes before deciding to bail out. If she panicked and didn't think of foot-braking, or believed that it would just cause an immediate crash at that speed, that's a shame, but it has nothing to do with age. A 20-year-old could make the same mistake. You really don't need to double down on this.
What's weird is your conviction of facts based on some bloggy article which seeks to link this incident to a wide-spread problem.
With a $100,000 surgery bill and talk of law suits, you're quick to take the side of the person wanting the payout.
You don't go to court with "the brakes didn't work. The end." as the submitted evidence. You have a report about the scooter, and a lot more facts at hand.
> "After cruising along for about a mile, the couple started to descend a steep hill."
There's your problem. 63 years old on a scooter, probably new to scooters, and descending a "steep hill". What could go wrong? And she scooted a whole mile apparently without using the brakes at all? Doesn't add up.
You may be interested to know that scooter manufacturers often specify an age range the scooter is suitable for. One popular scooter I looked at recently said "Age: 16 - 55".
> You really don't need to double down on this.
Nor do I need to triple-down, but I'm quite comfortable with the reasoned position I'm taking thanks.
Why didn't she use the rear foot brake? If you're going down a hill, you will definitely want to hover your back foot on the brake.
The foot brake can't malfunction because you are physically pressing the rear guard against the wheel with downward force. If the user isn't aware of the rear brake, that's user error.
That said, maybe lime scooters don't have rear brakes?
The other thing is, these scooters are great. I wouldn't rent one, because you don't know if the last person was doing jumps and stunts on it, which they are not designed for. But they are amazing little transport devices which help people get to their destination quicker.
Maybe she didn’t know it had one, which is one of the major problems with any type of rental device. A rental device that a user isn’t familiar with is subject to misuse by uninformed users. Imagine if we allowed car rentals to people who had never driven before or bike rentals for people who never learned to drive. I’m not suggesting there should be a license for these and maybe that’s just the cost of having them.
File under "pretty obvious if you think about it".
On motorcycles, the rule to live by is All The Gear, All The Time. On mopeds, it's apparently Helmet With Maybe A Jacket. On electric scooters, it's Lol. The truth is that it should always be ATGATT on all 3. Going down on any of them is going to be exactly the same as going down at the same speed on a motorcycle.
One of the things you learn during rider training is that "stuck throttle" is usually panic freezing your wrist in place. Same goes for brakes that aren't working. I'll grant you that the scoots probably aren't maintained super well either, so it might be more likely there than on your personal machine.
All these rentals are adding up to just one thing: A lot more untrained, inexperienced motorcycle riders on the roads (and sometimes the sidewalks). The results are pretty obvious if you think about it.
> Going down on any of them is going to be exactly the same as going down at the same speed on a motorcycle.
I'm all for better safety, but I think this is an overreaction. I'd compare falling off a scooter to be similar to falling off a bike–you're dealing with similar speeds and similar weight vehicles in both.
I agree, but think of the change to Valley culture. Everyone wearing leathers or plate armor jackets. Full wrap face helmets and MBP's at all of the eateries. Eventually we could see roving gangs of electric biker faangs with their corporate emblems displayed widely across their backs. Soon territory disputes with comments like "Get outta here, crapple!"
> I'd compare falling off a scooter to be similar to falling off a bike
I agree, and I've fallen off a bike a number of times. I have a few scars to show for it, and I would probably not be here if I hadn't worn a helmet during one of those accidents.
You very quickly reach speeds on a bike, and a scooter, where going down is going to mean significant injury even with the proper gear. Without safety gear, you're looking at life-changing or life-ending injuries.
Eh - I've fallen off a bike twice at relatively low speeds, and both time I've broken a bone (first time a finger, second time a scaphoid fracture).
I think it's important not to under-react just because the speeds are lower than a motorcycle - all those bones in our limbs break just as well at 10mph. When on a bike or a scooter, scaphoid wrist protection and at least a jacket on at all times, for me.
The risk is lower on a scooter than on a motorcycle. We don't have to over-correct though, and treat scooters like they're _that much_ safer than a motorcycle.
The most dangerous thing we can do is let ourselves mentally relax when we're on one, as if we're not on a big sharp chunk of (relatively) fast metal and inertia.
A helmet wearing person slamming headfirst into the nape of somebody's neck at 15 or 50 miles per hour is probably going to kill them.
The problem though, is that scooters have terrible dynamic stability in comparison to bicycles which thanks to conservation of angular momentum and large wheels, are very easy to control and remain upright on when traveling at speed. In contrast, even small things like hitting a small rock/bump the wrong way can destabilize someone on a scooter and lead to an accident.
Falling off a bike/scooter at similar speeds obviously ends with similar results, but I'd be confident to wager that the probability of an accident is a lot higher on a scooter due to the point above.
Bicycles powered by humans are "helmets only" mostly out of necessity. You're generating a lot of heat, and things can go really badly for you if you're working up a sweat in full motorcycle gear.
Well, talking about the weight of the vehicle is a red herring here. With the exception of getting hit/crushed by the vehicle, the human component of going down is all about speed, fleshy weight, and ride-height.
I'm also not expecting people to ATGATT while on the scooters, but without doing that, injuries are definitely going to rise with increased use.
What's maybe not so obvious is how much danger scooters expose pedestrians and cyclists to. Scooter riders are not just a danger to themselves. They have much less road awareness than motor cyclists and tend to zoom in and out of crowded cycle lanes and right through car lanes and zebra crossings as if there are no rules at all in and around Amsterdam. I've seen more than one pretty bad accident involving a scooter and pedestrians or cyclists and I've yet to see my first accident with a car and pedestrians or cyclists (in Amsterdam, elsewhere it's unfortunately not such a good record).
I had my earbuds in walking down a fairly wide sidewalk today at night when a scooter rider rode past me going full throttle within maybe eight inches of me. This is not the first incident like this either. It's only a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt or killed on these.
What are these companies going to do to discourage bad riders and encourage responsible use?
Nothing? Unless use drops because of the news/awareness/users injuring themselves, capitalism demands that they offload the costs to the public, minimize their liability, and maximize their returns.
I think it's obvious that the smaller and less dangerous something seems, that the more risk people will take and the more injuries will occur. The fact that people use them on the sidewalk is bad enough.
There have been incidents of people cutting the brake lines on the bikeshare bikes that are scattered all around Seattle. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these scooter accidents are from similar deliberate sabotage.
HN opinion is obviously pro-cars. Every comment for these scooters are getting downvoted here. The truth is that large roads have been created for expensive machines and we have accepted that as the only way of transportation eventhough it is the deadliest. I’m sad that I can’t ride one of these scooters without a driver license, because I am not interested in driving a car but I am interested in riding a scooter for short distance trips.
The interesting part of the article for me was that Bird helped change CA law which previously required wearing helmets in electric scooters.
Transportation of any kind is a fairly dangerous activity. I assume it’s more likely to be injured on a scooter than in a car, but I don’t think the hard numbers are in.
For example if you multiply the number of miles not driven by the vehicular accident rate, you would want to subtract that number of injuries off the scooter injury total, but surely it would still be positive.
"If you hit the ground at 20mph [on a scooter] or a baseball bat hits your head at 20mph, that's about the same thing."
Sure, riding these scooters may be the most dangerous thing that some people have ever done besides using a motor vehicle, but they are also really fun and useful. I'd say, let them exist for awhile and see how it works out in the long term. Could be great for public transit and the last mile problem.
Been riding motorcycles for 16 years. Took a lime for a ride. Couldn't believe I even need a license and 1 year on L/P for my bike... I didn't feel safe on that thing, at all.
i was an e-scooter ocd fan before it was cool,because i grew up as a cyclist in manhattan in between the goldendays of pre-fax machine messengering, and the post platinum days of smartphone gps based uberdeliverpostmates everything.
before bloomberg thestreets were garbage, and no bike lanes, plus theft was even worse than it is now.
so i did a xootr for a while. the roma. because none of the early 90's nickel-cadmium battery scooters were good enough. i tried the i-ped it kinda sucked also.
and now the not so new revolution.
this too shall pass
valuations are based on the far fetched pitchthat millenial overconsumers will overpay for scooter use for years because they are paying for a 'network' access rather than owning a scooter which limitstheir access. , so insteadofbuying a scooter for 500 dollars and riding it to kingdom come as super users, you can get an order of magnitude more users who will over pay out the ass.
it thelong run this model is doomed accept for tourists, like bird on the santa monica boardwalk.
the more popular this model gets in new york, themore it will be destroyed by commonsense consumers on one side and theives and vandals and government on the other.
> "I blew through three intersections and luckily didn't get hit," she said. "I'm now going 25 mph heading toward six lanes of traffic."
Honestly 25 mph isn't that fast. Many healthy cyclists can achieve 25 mph quite easily, although perhaps not for a very long time. If you regularly cycle in places with steeper slopes, 25 mph can be achieved without much effort.
But I think the smallness of the scooters themselves could contribute to a feeling of being unsafe. Psychologically it feels that the object is too small to be able for the user to remain in control. This is in contrast to a bike, when the user simply feels more in control even at a similar speed.
> Honestly 25 mph isn't that fast. Many healthy cyclists can achieve 25 mph quite easily.
That's very fast. I know someone who crashed a bike at 22 mph (we know because the bike had a speedometer). Their injuries were so bad the ER doctor assumed they'd been in a car accident.
I fell off my bike going downhill after hitting a pothole going roughly 30mph. I wasn't wearing a helmet. Yes, it was exceptionally irresponsible of me. The accident looked so bad, it stopped car traffic all around me and I heard a driver saying, "Oh my God, he's dead" because I wasn't moving and had blood all over me. When I got to the ER, the doctors said I'm lucky to be alive with the head trauma I suffered (remarkably, only a concussion). I walked away with horrible road rash (and a bald spot) on the back of my head. I got several cuts on my face that made me bleed profusely. My arm looked mangled, but it was just really scratched up.
What the fuck do you mean 25mph isn't fast on a bike?
Scooters are amazing. I could see how some people could feel unsafe on them but besides the one offs I think its silly to demonize the scooters. People can always bring their own scooter and even bikes to the road. It says all over the scooters near me to keep them off the road as well
Can I just mention I find it very strange that there are hip techy Silicon Valley startups that invest their time in these scooters, when from a pure engineering perspective these things are doomed to be unsafe. COG is very high above the ground, which makes keeping balance more difficult. Wheels are close to the COG in the horizontal direction, making it easier to fall forward over the steering handle. Wheel radius is small causing the scooter to get stuck behind all pits in the road and stuff like that. I mean sure it’s fun to ride these things but please tell me this is not the Technology Age’s means of transportation. Apart from that I found this article to be quite sensational. I’m missing the cold hard statistics proving these things are actually dangerous, which do not (yet) exist as stated in the article itself.
Yeah I'm not quite sure why scooters were chosen. ebikes seem better in every way. You can even set them up with throttles so they are no effort. Bike geometry is very stable. I have never fallen off a bike on a road.
Especially comparing folded scooters to bikes. (Yes, there are foldable bikes, but they're still big). Part of the workflow of shared scooters is picking them up for recharge and re-location, and you can fit a lot more scooters in the back of an SUV than you can bikes.
I believe the rental scooters can not be folded. They install a collar around that part to prevent them being folded up and stolen. Or perhaps it's just to reduce any risk of them not being unlocked properly from folded position.
It's the same answer for why so many more bicyclists are killed by cars in America than Europe. We need protected lanes that are separated from cars by more than paint.
I ride my bike in sf and oakland where these scooters are common, and I do not like the idea of sharing an enclosed lane with them. so many people riding them are completely inexperienced and bad at passing and turning or otherwise uninterested in the general flow of traffic. they are a nuisance and I do not want to share a lane with them that I can't swerve out of. I honestly don't want them in bike lanes at all.
Your suggestion may not be that simple. Consider Florida statute s. 316.2065 (11) "No person upon roller skates, or riding in or by means of any coaster, toy vehicle, or similar device, may go upon any roadway except while crossing a street on a crosswalk;"
Laws generally exist for a reason, and some reason forbids scooters from the bike lanes. Bike lanes are for bikes only.
There is also a lot of hate for scooters right now, at least in the Bay Area, I was riding one yesterday and made a right turn signal, moved a lane over and promptly got honked at by the car I merged in front of, there was a good 20 feet still between us and traffic was going ~20. Granted a ton of scooter riders are 14 years old and ride like total idiots so I understand the frustration, but they are definitely not given the same respect cyclists are.
In California, cyclists (which technically includes e-scooters) have the legal right to use the full road - I believe this is true in many US states. There also aren’t bike lanes on most CA streets, even in San Francisco.
We're talking about two deaths total here? How many people were killed in automobile crashes since this article was published?
Even in the example the article uses, automobiles are the problem. What does the author suppose the busy intersection is busy with? The intersection is only dangerous because of the automobiles using it.
"Scooter accidents happen for a lot of reasons ... sometimes, the scooter is the problem. As she sped down that hill in San Diego, her husband yelled to Brogan to crash into him in order to break her fall. But she didn't want to send him flying. So moments before careening into the busy intersection, she held her arms up against her chest and slid the scooter out sideways."
I'd like to know some estimate of the rate of disabling or deadly accidents per mile ridden to appreciate the scale of the problem.
The lack of gear and training probably makes accidents worse than they would be. But how frequently and how severe?
> "Some of these injuries have been life-threatening; others have left people permanently disabled."
How many does "some" represent here? Definitely some fraction of the total injuries, which "could be as high as 1,000 per month."
Why "could be?" How uncertain is that figure and what other reasonable estimates of injury rates are there??
On the one hand, the "vast majority end up getting discharged with cuts and scrapes," but on the other hand, "some people may need lifelong care."
How many? And why are you hedging with "may?"
There are some specific numbers in the article-- but they are for individual emergency rooms, without the additional context necessary to extrapolate from that ER over any large regions. And then the information from different ERs ranges so widely as to appear to contradict each other.
I left the article with two takeaways:
1) I assume this is a very real problem.
2) I hate how we reward nonspecificity and anecdotal evidence in journalism. The problem's serious enough to at least take a shot at metrics that would help us to compare it to other social problems, like motorcycle or car or pedestrian injuries.
> On the one hand, the "vast majority end up getting discharged with cuts and scrapes," but on the other hand, "some people may need lifelong care."
> How many? And why are you hedging with "may?"
That's a quote from a doctor about specific cases that went through a specific hospital he works at. That's why.
I've posted the full quote below, for context. Ironically, the journalist went through the effort of giving some very concrete numbers:
> Doctors in Dell Seton's emergency room say they're seeing about 10 injuries a day.
> "The vast majority end up getting discharged with cuts and scrapes, maybe a broken bone," said Ziebell. "But some injuries are significant."
> The hospital has seen 37 severe traumas since April: eight head injuries, 23 orthopedic injuries, four facial injuries and two "other" injuries. In October alone, doctors say 18 people were admitted to either the intensive care unit or surgeries with overnight hospital stays.
> "The folks that had severe head injuries, they're in for a long course of rehab," Ziebell said. "Some people may need lifelong care, like a nursing home."
> Ironically, the journalist went through the effort of giving some very concrete numbers:
C'mon. I addressed that in my very next sentence after the one you quoted.
A "concrete number" that is an arbitrary slice of the problem is more misleading than helpful.
The concrete numbers provided here, about individual ERs, with no indication as to what slice of the problem we're talking about, are essentially random noise when considering the problem as a whole.
> The concrete numbers provided here, about individual ERs, with no indication as to what slice of the problem we're talking about, are essentially random noise when considering the problem as a whole.
Again, the article lays this out concretely:
> Because rentable electric scooters are so new, federal and local officials haven't started tracking accidents, and the companies have declined to release any stats. But some numbers are beginning to appear.
Then, they list the concrete numbers they do know.
Huh. I don't feel like that was a "concrete" rebuttal to the point I actually made, especially when you really look at the "numbers" they cite next in the article, but I want to take a step back.
I think it's getting lost in the noise, so to reiterate, my main point is that I'd just like journalism to include a little more analysis, to put numbers in context, and to avoid relying extensively on emotional appeals as a substitute for chalkboards or backs-of-napkins when dealing with complex social problems.
Based on your username, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like you know what it's like to wrangle data and communicate findings. Sometimes you don't have all the data you want, but you have to make sense of what you have access to, get signal from noise, and make reasonable extrapolations even under a lot of initial uncertainty.
Now imagine you have access to everything the journalist had. You could ask additional questions at the hospitals or conduct additional searches in the public record.
If we asked, "what else could we learn about this important trend?" is your response really, "well, if the companies don't just tell us and there's no fully funded federal study... we just can't possibly know anything aside from the fact there were some number greater than fifty headlines in six months."
I feel like we could have, say, talked about the populations served by these ERs, or the fraction of overall ER cases that involve scooters and how that's changing over time. Anything to give us a sense of why these ERs vary in their numbers by a factor of ten, to determine how representative they are, or anything to give us a trendline. Even headline counting COULD be rigorous if you add more methodology than this article's "quick search." The gun violence project is one example of that approach.
The journos I really respect take these sorts of next steps. They do more with less. Sometimes they have to hedge and caveat, but they take a shot. It's not impossible, so I just wish we held more journalists to that higher standard, that's all.
> Under current state law, people must wear helmets while riding these vehicles, which can travel at 15 mph. Bird sponsored a bill in February to get rid of that law, which passed in September. Starting January, helmets will no longer be required for scooter riders in California.
> Bird said its goal in sponsoring the legislation was to create "consistent ridership rules" between e-scooters and e-bikes since helmets aren't required with e-bikes.
So they are actively working to enable more severe injuries and cloaking the move in an appeal to "consistency". That seems pretty grotesque to me.
On one hand, you have personal liberty and what I believe to be the "right to die". On the other hand, you have complications with insurance, or depending on who is more at fault, possible manslaughter. There's definitely a balance to be struck somewhere. I regularly achieve speeds well above 15mph when riding a regular bicycle downhill without a helmet and quite frankly it's fucking stupid
San Francisco is really dumb about scooters at the moment. I can’t ride one because I don’t have a driver license. So I need to learn how to drive a freaking car and risk my life in one of these deadly machine to have the privilege of riding a kick scooter
93 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 200 ms ] threadhttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/28/90-year-old-woma...
Footnotes:
0: https://helmets.org/folding.htm
1: https://www.morpherhelmet.com
2: https://www.overade.com/shop/en/plixi
1: https://www.d3o.com/
2: The alternative to not wearing this protection is none at all. I don't downhill ski much these days but didn't wear a helmet when no one did and am not about to start now.
The current urban infrastructure in America are build for automobiles, specifically cars, with bikes being an afterthought. The mass adoption of electric scooters will eventually cause a wake-up call for city planners, and will hopefully put the brakes on car culture.
Wouldn't it be great if there was suitable lanes without potholes that weren't 'shared' with cars (cars don't share).
Injuries are to be expected, some users will ride stupidly, and unfortunate things happen. Add thousands of scooter each having 10 rides a day, of course injuries will rise.
I'm not sure the comparison makes sense as the use cases I think are different.
Time spent is a better approximation, taking into account additional safety provided by seatbelts and an enclosure.
Are you saying cars get demerits for having safety equipment?
I feel like this should be addressed by safety codes. Providing scooters with brakes that don't work is completely nuts.
That said, unlikely, but could have been a malicious citizen who intentionally damaged the brakes (people are super disrespectful to the green transit)
I've found the general sentiment is that people are disrespectful to Bird and Lime, rather than green transit in general. Something about them being an eyesore.
People complain of them parked on the sidewalk with rows of car parking all around, or riding on the sidewalk where on the street would be a death sentence.
I think it's very unreasonable to expect the company to be aware of vandalism and random damage without a rider report, or a much more expensive scooter. Ideally they would detect the damage during the next charge cycle, but I personally wouldn't put my faith in someone who's paid to spend as little time as possible with each scooter.
I mean, it should not even need a disclaimer that of course cutting brakes on those things is wrong, but if you drop them all over a major metro, usually without even bothering to get proper permits and work out proper storage and usage policies, and let every brain-dead idiot zoom around full-speed on sidewalks, bike lanes and roadways, you should not be very surprised that bad things will happen.
Another idea is when you're 63, find a more suitable form of transportation.
If that's too offensive, then check the brakes work before going down a steep hill. Also learn how to use the rear foot brake (if it has one, which I know the Segways and others do).
If the vehicle is so poorly designed that the brakes can go from 100% to completely non-functional between regular inspections, it shouldn't be on the road under any circumstances.
> Another idea is when you're 63, find a more suitable form of transportation.
...Huh? You think a 20-year-old can eat asphalt at 25mph and stroll away without a scratch? This is the weirdest victim-blaming I've seen.
Eating asphalt was a consequence of user not knowing the scooter has a rear foot brake. We also don't know exactly what happened except for a 63yo rider decided to scoot down a hill on a rental, and claims brakes didn't work.
Without knowing the full story including the exact condition or problem with scooter, you can't just believe everything you read. This is particularly true when said "victims" are no doubt hungry for compensation claims.
A 63yo is less able to take evasive action such as using foot to brake at speed and maintain balance before it's too late.
So yes, until evidence proves otherwise, I'm blaming the 63yo for the accident they had. We can't "Nanny" the world at every micro-step. Take some responsibility.
> A 63yo is less able to take evasive action such as using foot to brake at speed and maintain balance before it's too late.
This wasn't a matter of reflexes. She blew through three intersections with no brakes before deciding to bail out. If she panicked and didn't think of foot-braking, or believed that it would just cause an immediate crash at that speed, that's a shame, but it has nothing to do with age. A 20-year-old could make the same mistake. You really don't need to double down on this.
With a $100,000 surgery bill and talk of law suits, you're quick to take the side of the person wanting the payout.
You don't go to court with "the brakes didn't work. The end." as the submitted evidence. You have a report about the scooter, and a lot more facts at hand.
> "After cruising along for about a mile, the couple started to descend a steep hill."
There's your problem. 63 years old on a scooter, probably new to scooters, and descending a "steep hill". What could go wrong? And she scooted a whole mile apparently without using the brakes at all? Doesn't add up.
You may be interested to know that scooter manufacturers often specify an age range the scooter is suitable for. One popular scooter I looked at recently said "Age: 16 - 55".
> You really don't need to double down on this.
Nor do I need to triple-down, but I'm quite comfortable with the reasoned position I'm taking thanks.
The foot brake can't malfunction because you are physically pressing the rear guard against the wheel with downward force. If the user isn't aware of the rear brake, that's user error.
That said, maybe lime scooters don't have rear brakes?
The other thing is, these scooters are great. I wouldn't rent one, because you don't know if the last person was doing jumps and stunts on it, which they are not designed for. But they are amazing little transport devices which help people get to their destination quicker.
On motorcycles, the rule to live by is All The Gear, All The Time. On mopeds, it's apparently Helmet With Maybe A Jacket. On electric scooters, it's Lol. The truth is that it should always be ATGATT on all 3. Going down on any of them is going to be exactly the same as going down at the same speed on a motorcycle.
One of the things you learn during rider training is that "stuck throttle" is usually panic freezing your wrist in place. Same goes for brakes that aren't working. I'll grant you that the scoots probably aren't maintained super well either, so it might be more likely there than on your personal machine.
All these rentals are adding up to just one thing: A lot more untrained, inexperienced motorcycle riders on the roads (and sometimes the sidewalks). The results are pretty obvious if you think about it.
Edit: Typo that I noticed.
I'm all for better safety, but I think this is an overreaction. I'd compare falling off a scooter to be similar to falling off a bike–you're dealing with similar speeds and similar weight vehicles in both.
I stopped motorcycling after that.
I agree, and I've fallen off a bike a number of times. I have a few scars to show for it, and I would probably not be here if I hadn't worn a helmet during one of those accidents.
You very quickly reach speeds on a bike, and a scooter, where going down is going to mean significant injury even with the proper gear. Without safety gear, you're looking at life-changing or life-ending injuries.
I think it's important not to under-react just because the speeds are lower than a motorcycle - all those bones in our limbs break just as well at 10mph. When on a bike or a scooter, scaphoid wrist protection and at least a jacket on at all times, for me.
The most dangerous thing we can do is let ourselves mentally relax when we're on one, as if we're not on a big sharp chunk of (relatively) fast metal and inertia.
A helmet wearing person slamming headfirst into the nape of somebody's neck at 15 or 50 miles per hour is probably going to kill them.
Falling off a bike/scooter at similar speeds obviously ends with similar results, but I'd be confident to wager that the probability of an accident is a lot higher on a scooter due to the point above.
Well, talking about the weight of the vehicle is a red herring here. With the exception of getting hit/crushed by the vehicle, the human component of going down is all about speed, fleshy weight, and ride-height.
I'm also not expecting people to ATGATT while on the scooters, but without doing that, injuries are definitely going to rise with increased use.
What are these companies going to do to discourage bad riders and encourage responsible use?
Transportation of any kind is a fairly dangerous activity. I assume it’s more likely to be injured on a scooter than in a car, but I don’t think the hard numbers are in.
For example if you multiply the number of miles not driven by the vehicular accident rate, you would want to subtract that number of injuries off the scooter injury total, but surely it would still be positive.
The speed limit everywhere will be 15 MPH. Will Bird and Lime have appropriate limiters? I doubt it.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
Sure, riding these scooters may be the most dangerous thing that some people have ever done besides using a motor vehicle, but they are also really fun and useful. I'd say, let them exist for awhile and see how it works out in the long term. Could be great for public transit and the last mile problem.
http://fortune.com/2018/09/22/lime-scooters-fatality-death/
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/person-died-renting...
https://dailycaller.com/2018/09/30/electric-scooter-rental-c...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45596449
before bloomberg thestreets were garbage, and no bike lanes, plus theft was even worse than it is now.
so i did a xootr for a while. the roma. because none of the early 90's nickel-cadmium battery scooters were good enough. i tried the i-ped it kinda sucked also.
and now the not so new revolution.
this too shall pass valuations are based on the far fetched pitchthat millenial overconsumers will overpay for scooter use for years because they are paying for a 'network' access rather than owning a scooter which limitstheir access. , so insteadofbuying a scooter for 500 dollars and riding it to kingdom come as super users, you can get an order of magnitude more users who will over pay out the ass.
it thelong run this model is doomed accept for tourists, like bird on the santa monica boardwalk.
the more popular this model gets in new york, themore it will be destroyed by commonsense consumers on one side and theives and vandals and government on the other.
Honestly 25 mph isn't that fast. Many healthy cyclists can achieve 25 mph quite easily, although perhaps not for a very long time. If you regularly cycle in places with steeper slopes, 25 mph can be achieved without much effort.
But I think the smallness of the scooters themselves could contribute to a feeling of being unsafe. Psychologically it feels that the object is too small to be able for the user to remain in control. This is in contrast to a bike, when the user simply feels more in control even at a similar speed.
Also the longer wheel base of a bicycle results in a slower response to user steering input, which results in greater stability as well.
Stats on accidental deaths from falling or stumbling put it nearly on par with accidental automobile deaths.
That's very fast. I know someone who crashed a bike at 22 mph (we know because the bike had a speedometer). Their injuries were so bad the ER doctor assumed they'd been in a car accident.
What the fuck do you mean 25mph isn't fast on a bike?
https://peopleforbikes.org/blog/14-ways-to-make-bike-lanes-b...
It's a lot simpler for bicycles and scooters to live side by side than either of them with cars.
Some basics like safety standards for rented transportation are even easier.
Laws generally exist for a reason, and some reason forbids scooters from the bike lanes. Bike lanes are for bikes only.
Laws need to be updated as the world changes and that's a really bad reason to justify one.
[0] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
Even in the example the article uses, automobiles are the problem. What does the author suppose the busy intersection is busy with? The intersection is only dangerous because of the automobiles using it.
"Scooter accidents happen for a lot of reasons ... sometimes, the scooter is the problem. As she sped down that hill in San Diego, her husband yelled to Brogan to crash into him in order to break her fall. But she didn't want to send him flying. So moments before careening into the busy intersection, she held her arms up against her chest and slid the scooter out sideways."
The lack of gear and training probably makes accidents worse than they would be. But how frequently and how severe?
> "Some of these injuries have been life-threatening; others have left people permanently disabled."
How many does "some" represent here? Definitely some fraction of the total injuries, which "could be as high as 1,000 per month."
Why "could be?" How uncertain is that figure and what other reasonable estimates of injury rates are there??
On the one hand, the "vast majority end up getting discharged with cuts and scrapes," but on the other hand, "some people may need lifelong care."
How many? And why are you hedging with "may?"
There are some specific numbers in the article-- but they are for individual emergency rooms, without the additional context necessary to extrapolate from that ER over any large regions. And then the information from different ERs ranges so widely as to appear to contradict each other.
I left the article with two takeaways:
1) I assume this is a very real problem.
2) I hate how we reward nonspecificity and anecdotal evidence in journalism. The problem's serious enough to at least take a shot at metrics that would help us to compare it to other social problems, like motorcycle or car or pedestrian injuries.
> How many? And why are you hedging with "may?"
That's a quote from a doctor about specific cases that went through a specific hospital he works at. That's why.
I've posted the full quote below, for context. Ironically, the journalist went through the effort of giving some very concrete numbers:
> Doctors in Dell Seton's emergency room say they're seeing about 10 injuries a day.
> "The vast majority end up getting discharged with cuts and scrapes, maybe a broken bone," said Ziebell. "But some injuries are significant."
> The hospital has seen 37 severe traumas since April: eight head injuries, 23 orthopedic injuries, four facial injuries and two "other" injuries. In October alone, doctors say 18 people were admitted to either the intensive care unit or surgeries with overnight hospital stays.
> "The folks that had severe head injuries, they're in for a long course of rehab," Ziebell said. "Some people may need lifelong care, like a nursing home."
C'mon. I addressed that in my very next sentence after the one you quoted.
A "concrete number" that is an arbitrary slice of the problem is more misleading than helpful.
The concrete numbers provided here, about individual ERs, with no indication as to what slice of the problem we're talking about, are essentially random noise when considering the problem as a whole.
Again, the article lays this out concretely:
> Because rentable electric scooters are so new, federal and local officials haven't started tracking accidents, and the companies have declined to release any stats. But some numbers are beginning to appear.
Then, they list the concrete numbers they do know.
I think it's getting lost in the noise, so to reiterate, my main point is that I'd just like journalism to include a little more analysis, to put numbers in context, and to avoid relying extensively on emotional appeals as a substitute for chalkboards or backs-of-napkins when dealing with complex social problems.
Based on your username, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like you know what it's like to wrangle data and communicate findings. Sometimes you don't have all the data you want, but you have to make sense of what you have access to, get signal from noise, and make reasonable extrapolations even under a lot of initial uncertainty.
Now imagine you have access to everything the journalist had. You could ask additional questions at the hospitals or conduct additional searches in the public record.
If we asked, "what else could we learn about this important trend?" is your response really, "well, if the companies don't just tell us and there's no fully funded federal study... we just can't possibly know anything aside from the fact there were some number greater than fifty headlines in six months."
When we stop there I get terrified that Paulos was just right, we struggle to use numbers in public settings so nobody tries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innumeracy_(book)
I feel like we could have, say, talked about the populations served by these ERs, or the fraction of overall ER cases that involve scooters and how that's changing over time. Anything to give us a sense of why these ERs vary in their numbers by a factor of ten, to determine how representative they are, or anything to give us a trendline. Even headline counting COULD be rigorous if you add more methodology than this article's "quick search." The gun violence project is one example of that approach.
The journos I really respect take these sorts of next steps. They do more with less. Sometimes they have to hedge and caveat, but they take a shot. It's not impossible, so I just wish we held more journalists to that higher standard, that's all.
> Bird said its goal in sponsoring the legislation was to create "consistent ridership rules" between e-scooters and e-bikes since helmets aren't required with e-bikes.
So they are actively working to enable more severe injuries and cloaking the move in an appeal to "consistency". That seems pretty grotesque to me.
(Why aren't helmets required with e-bikes!?)