Scooter Use is Rising in Major Cities. So Are Trips To the Emergency Room. (washingtonpost.com) 136
They have been pouring into emergency rooms around the nation all summer, their bodies bearing a blend of injuries that doctors normally associate with victims of car wrecks -- broken noses, wrists and shoulders, facial lacerations and fractures, as well as the kind of blunt head trauma that can leave brains permanently damaged. The Washington Post reports: When doctors began asking patients to explain their injuries, many were surprised to learn that the surge of broken body parts stemmed from the latest urban transportation trend: shared electric scooters. In Santa Monica, Calif. -- where one of the biggest electric-scooter companies is based -- the city's fire department has responded to 34 serious accidents involving the devices this summer. The director of an emergency department there said his team treated 18 patients who were seriously injured in electric-scooter accidents during the final two weeks of July. And in San Francisco, the doctor who runs the emergency room at a major hospital said he is seeing as many as 10 severe injuries a week.
[...] As the injuries pile up in cities across the country, the three largest scooter companies -- operating under the names Bird, Lime and Skip -- have seen their values soar as they attempt to transform urban transit, following the successes of ride-hailing and bike-sharing companies. The scooter start-ups have attracted massive investments from Uber, the prominent technology venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and Alphabet, Google's parent company, with some analysts estimating that some of the privately held companies might be worth more than $1 billion. Responding to The Post, all these companies said safety is a priority to them, but at least Bird is also lobbying against legislation in California that would require users to wear helmets, the paper reported.
[...] As the injuries pile up in cities across the country, the three largest scooter companies -- operating under the names Bird, Lime and Skip -- have seen their values soar as they attempt to transform urban transit, following the successes of ride-hailing and bike-sharing companies. The scooter start-ups have attracted massive investments from Uber, the prominent technology venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and Alphabet, Google's parent company, with some analysts estimating that some of the privately held companies might be worth more than $1 billion. Responding to The Post, all these companies said safety is a priority to them, but at least Bird is also lobbying against legislation in California that would require users to wear helmets, the paper reported.
No helmets? (Score:5, Insightful)
They must WANT their customers to be brain damaged if they're actively lobbying against requiring the most basic of safety gear for a scooter.
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California's helmet law is not about "safety". It is an underhanded way to ban scooter-sharing. A helmet requirement would make it much more difficult for the scooter companies. How can they possibly keep a helmet with each scooter? If riders are expected to bring their own helmets, it would make it much more of a hassle, and require people to plan ahead.
One example is Santa Monica. They just spent $100M on their "Big Blue Bus" system, and are getting far below the expected ridership. There are not ev
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California's helmet law is not about "safety". It is an underhanded way to ban scooter-sharing. A helmet requirement would make it much more difficult for the scooter companies. How can they possibly keep a helmet with each scooter? If riders are expected to bring their own helmets, it would make it much more of a hassle, and require people to plan ahead.
Not every business plan is viable. If this business model depends on people riding unsafely, it should probably fail. (Are the bikes really slow? I don't see the issue if they're no faster than bicycles. And you can probably see the obvious--that I'm not a libertarian on the topic of letting idiots kill themselves.)
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I'm not sure that the issue is particularly about speed, but it's about likelihood of head coming into contact with the ground in the event of a malfunction, mis-balance, or collision. Humans aren't too bad at handling slips trips and falls in bare feet or up to a couple of cm of shoe thickness. Start to lengthen the leg (effectively) - by wearing one of high heels; platform-sole shoes (yes some of us can remember wearing t
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Yes, a big deal since if they provide a helmet, it will soon disappear. If they don't, few people who might decide on impulse to rent a scooter will just happen to have their own with them.
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"the Great Nanny State of California" ... seriously, are you a dumb ass?
First states to have mandatory seat belt laws (est. 1985): New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Texas, Missouri, D.C., Hawaii.
That's right, Texas beat California As for the biggest complaints of our so-called "nanny state", California's cigarette tax is significantly lower than New York's. ($2.87/pack vs $4.35/pack), and there is an additional $1.50 tax when in NYC.
People who like to winge about California often have never spent much time i
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The problem is every US state has become a nanny state. New Hampshire is one of the least damaged, but hardly comes out unscathed. The nanny state here has been held back a bit because of New Hampshire's history, but also is being saved thanks to an influx of libertarians migrating to the state as part of an effort to overhaul a state. We, freedom loving people of the world need there to be at least one last bastion of hope, freedom, and a place to call home and the only way you can achieve that is by like-
Re:No helmets? (Score:4, Funny)
People who like to winge about California often have never spent much time in the various parts of California.
I lived in California for all my life. I'm somewhat familiar with the Great Nanny State of California. For example, Los Angeles tried to ban IDE cables [snopes.com] because the terms Master and Slave were used. Or San Francisco wanting to ban the Blue Angels [sfgate.com] from flying during Fleet Week for terrorizing families in neighborhoods. And don't get me started on "ban paper bags, use plastic bags instead" in the 1990's to "ban plastic bags, use paper bags and pay per bag instead" in the 2010's.
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> And don't get me started on "ban paper bags, use plastic
> bags instead" in the 1990's to "ban plastic bags, use paper
> bags and pay per bag instead" in the 2010's.
Paper bags are OK, but not brown bags in Seatlle, Washington. http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/... [time.com]
> It's not a brown bag lunch, it's a "sack lunch." The Office for Civil Rights
> in Seattle, Washington has suggested that government workers refrain
> from using the common term because it could be offensive to some people,
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All I need to predict "nannystatism" is the state tax rates.
2016 highest income tax rates (https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/fun-facts/states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-taxes/L6HPAVqSF):
California 13.3%
Oregon 9.9%
Minnesota 9.85%
Iowa 8.98%
New Jersey 8.97%
Vermont 8.95%
District of Columbia 8.95%
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I have a coworker whose husband used to think just like you. Now she has to feed him manually 3 times a day. He had a motorcycle accident while not wearing a helmet. Sorry, but the burden you put on society is not worth it to us. Wear a damned helmet.
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> I know of no states that require them for a bicycle.
http://www.calbike.org/bicycling_in_california_sharing_the_road?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7LCp9bip3QIVSI9-Ch0yOQ8vEAAYASAAEgKWFfD_BwE
"Helmets: Bicyclists and bicycle passengers under age 18 must wear an approved helmet when riding on a bicycle. CVC 21212"
There, now you know of one.
Re:No helmets? (Score:5, Interesting)
Helmets don't protect against concussions.
I recently ran across an interesting story...
Back when World War I started, British troops did not have helmets. After a few artillery barrages, the British government bought helmets (from the French) and started producing their own helmets for troops. Soon, all the British troops had helmets.
And the number of head injuries increased!
Well, needless to say, people were quite concerned. What the hell is going on? We got them helmets to keep them safe and it's worse now than it was before!
But not really. See, the number of deaths went down. But the number of injuries increased. Because, let's face it, a 1 mm thick steel helmet when impacted by shrapnel traveling at hundreds of miles per hour is not going to leave the wearer none the worse. But they probably won't die from the encounter.
You're right--bike helmets won't protect against concussions. If you're riding your bike at, say, 20 MPH and you run into a car, you may end up with a concussion. But you will probably survive, which is kind of what we're aiming for here.
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I recently ran across an interesting story...
Back when World War I started, British troops did not have helmets. After a few artillery barrages, the British government bought helmets (from the French) and started producing their own helmets for troops. Soon, all the British troops had helmets.
And the number of head injuries increased!
Well, needless to say, people were quite concerned. What the hell is going on? We got them helmets to keep them safe and it's worse now than it was before!
But not really. See, the number of deaths went down. But the number of injuries increased. Because, let's face it, a 1 mm thick steel helmet when impacted by shrapnel traveling at hundreds of miles per hour is not going to leave the wearer none the worse. But they probably won't die from the encounter.
This. Also, to just emphasis this point, as cars got safer with better seat belts, air bags and better crumple zones designed into the cars, the death rate went down. However, the amount of severe leg injuries increased because no one had thought about what happens to people's legs in auto accidents. So peoples legs were hitting sharp corners and horribly designed lower dash areas and coming out of accidents alive but very injured. So they got better at designing for the entire body surviving an accident. G
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Helmets don't protect against concussions.
Define protect? Eliminate? No. Reduce? Definitely.
Also, most states don't require helmet use for riding even a motorcycle.
So never fix anything stupid while something else stupid exists. Got it.
I know of no states that require them for a bicycle.
I know of no states that require them for walking either. Or swimming for that matter. Or other things that are not relevant.
Why should they be required for an electric scooter?
Because your logic is as stupid from the top down as it is from the bottom up.
Re:No helmets? (Score:4, Insightful)
You have it backwards. According to the peer reviewed research, at speeds below 35 mpg, helmets are the rider's best friend. Above that, and the weight of the helmet becomes a serious risk of breaking the rider's neck, so the only real benefit is an increased chance of an open casket funeral.
People riding these things should play by the same rules as a motorcyclist.
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at speeds below 35 mpg
Below 35 miles per gallon?
Must be some thirsty scooters! :-o
Re:No helmets? (Score:4, Insightful)
At low speeds, your reflexes can reasonably protect you. 20mph is about that; some of these things can hit 40mph, which is kind of ridiculous.
The helmet doesn't protect against concussion; it breaks where impact would deform the skull. I've seen people break their necks and wake up in the hospital, neck brace for 10-12 weeks, then back on the motorcycle; and I've seen their helmets. Usually, you have to tell people their helmet is no longer safe; in this case, that's not often a problem.
We don't require adult bicyclists to wear helmets here (even though a head impact can kill you easily); we require children to wear helmets. A scooter under 20mph would fall under the same reasoning: if a cyclist wears a helmet, so should you.
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I'd be interested in a citation, although I know that this is too much to ask from an anonymous coward.
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You have it backwards. According to the peer reviewed research, at speeds below 35 mpg, helmets are the rider's best friend. Above that, and the weight of the helmet becomes a serious risk of breaking the rider's neck, so the only real benefit is an increased chance of an open casket funeral.
I don't know about the "research" you mentioned, but helmets, especially full-face helmets, also protect against flying debris. Ever get hit in the face by a rock, perhaps kicked up by a semi-truck, at 65 mph? Even rain at that speed is really uncomfortable. People who don't wear helmets are called, "future organ donors". I'm not saying you can't get really messed up even while wearing a helmet, but not wearing one is just dumb.
People riding these things should play by the same rules as a motorcyclist.
Agreed.
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Helmets are worthless at the speed that most riders get up to.
Not at all. To see why, stand on a stairway a couple of steps above a landing, then throw yourself headfirst into a wall as hard as you can.
OK, that's a thought experiment that you wouldn't want to do even with a helmet, but unless you're an Olympic broad jumper the speed you hit the wall is going to be a lot less than the speed you can easily hit even on a crappy dockless bike. And the physical circumstances of this thought experiment are fairly representative of the worst case bike accident where you go o
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If it's the kind of scooter I'm thinking of, that's nonsense. Worst case you can hop off and stay on your feet at 15 MPH. Or do you advocate requiring a helmet for running as well?
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To put it in perspective, 15 mph is the pace of a 4 minute mile run, which is faster than most people's top running speed. An elite sprinter could hop off a scooter going 15 mph, but it's a safe bet *you* can't.
But you *think* you can, because driving cars has given you a distorted view of what that speed means to an unprotected human body. That makes this the worst kind of dangerous thing: a dangerous thing that people think is safe.
As for wearing a helmet while running, not on a track. But if you are ru
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The part you're missing is you only have to run 15 MPH long enough to stop running when you're hopping off of an electric scooter. That's a LOT easier than trying to maintain that pace for a mile.
Weaving in and out of traffic is another matter. Then you need a helmet because the car windshield your head will soon meet will be going more than 15 MPH. In other words, don't do that, didn't your mother ever tell you not to play in traffic?
Freedom to be stupid (Score:2)
One's not wearing a helmet only endangers the non-wearer. There is simply no standing for the government to mandate it.
Of course, these companies are doing it for a different reason — they want (more) people to use their services, helmet or not.
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It also places others at risk of severe psychiatric trauma, bloodborne disease, and funerary costs.
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You realize, of course, how I can ban just about anything based on that argument? No? Let's begin with "traumatizing speech" and "verbal assaults"... Voila — down with the First Amendment! And so on...
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It's not black and red, you know. A pinprick and a little blood aren't going to hurt anyone; killing another human being causes serious psychological trauma.
We also do ban speech to incite violence.
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In ACLU's own terms, it is a "slippery slope" without the "clear bright line" separating the reasonable and egregious applications.
Once you accept an argument, that preventing somebody's "psychological trauma" is a sufficient reason to limit another's pursuit of happiness, the government can ban just about anything — may as well abolish the Constitution.
Because one can always pull out a poster boy — err, scratch that — a poster person, who may be "traumatiz
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In ACLU's own terms, it is a "slippery slope" without the "clear bright line" separating the reasonable and egregious applications.
So are a lot of things. There are noise restrictions: you can't blare music at 120dB at night or the police show up. I can hear my neighbors talking and hear people outside driving cars sometimes; they're not loud but they're audible. At what point do we fine you for making "noise"?
I can shine a flashlight at an airplane. Laser diodes require a lens to form collimated light, and they do scatter over distance: a spot at 2 kilometers is larger than a spot at 2 meters. At what point is shining a brig
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At last, somebody is doing something about the shortage of donor-organs!
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No, they don't actively want that. They just don't care. Requiring helmets means either they pay for them (obviously bad) or the customers pay for them (which means fewer customers). So of course they're actively lobbying against it.
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You are assuming that helmets are safer on bicycles AND on scooters.
You DO realize that helmets are NOT any more safe on bicycles, right?
http://bicyclesafe.com/helmets... [bicyclesafe.com]
TEDx Copenhagen - Mikael Colville-Andersen - Why We Shouldn't Bike with a Helmet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
If you were actually concerned about safety you would lobby crash helmets for motorists instead of just cyclists or motorcyclists. About 38,000 motorists die on U.S. roads every year compared to fewer than 700 cyclists.
But since
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What percentage of scooter injuries are concussions? I suspect not that many. On top of that with helmets, we will see a new problem -- pedestrian injuries caused by impact of helmets on pedestrians. There's a reason that America's National Football League is trying to reduce helmet contacts with other player's heads.
I'm not opposed to helmets, but maybe a design that is less menacing to innocent bystanders than the "standard" hard helmet ...
It's my understanding that Segways are limited to fast walking
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They don't _want_ their customers to be brain damaged. In fact they'd be happier if no one was ever hurt riding their scooters. However they already know that people continue using their scooters even though people are getting hurt using them, some very seriously.
On the other hand if this law passes either they would have to provide helmets to go with the scooters (and find some way of preventing people from just walking off with t
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So your saying women are as bad at driving scooters as cars?
Helmets (Score:2)
Biking helmets (Score:2)
No one wears helmets on those because doing so is stupid.
Whereas in other parts of the world (lots of countries in Europe), you'll see lots of people wearing helmets.
Mostly because there are numbers [theguardian.com] showing that it helps reducing some injuries and reduce risks of death (sorry the only english language source I found. But this seems corroborated by our swiss nationnal accident statistics, too - this one is done by the national accident insurance fund [wikipedia.org], they have a strong financial interest into promoting anything that might reduce injuries).
You don't wear a helmet driving your car do you?
I don't wear a helmet dr
Well, yeah... (Score:4, Insightful)
I started seeing rental scooters in the area a few years ago, but they've really taken off here in the last year or so.
And most of the time I see people on these things, they're not wearing the provided helmets. Or they're riding double on them (occasionally triple). I've even seen some scooter riders flat out ignore stop signs and stop lights, and a couple who were driving on the sidewalk.
I saw one guy who clearly didn't know how to operate the scooter cut a wide turn, and sideswipe a concrete barricade. The helmet popped out of the wire cage on the back of the scooter (of course he wasn't wearing it), and he kept going down the street. I called after him, but either he didn't hear me, or he ignored me. And then he turned onto a much busier street.
Honestly, I'd feel bad for them, but instead I feel bad for the people who are going to be in accidents with these thundering idiots.
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For some people, their only notable achievement will be a Darwin award.
Especially Worrying (Score:2)
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Not 'Vespas', more like a kid's kick scooter with a battery and motor.
Kids were making them for themselves about 10-15 years ago, was a minor trend.
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With a battery and motor?
What the article doesn't talk about (Score:4, Interesting)
is the cause of accidents. They talk about people injured by mechanical failures, and undoubtedly those occur.
But no mention of what percentage is caused by that, what percentage caused by rider error (which is likely rather higher) and what percentage is caused by other drivers (since it's illegal to ride these things on the sidewalk, which means you're in a bicycle lane or on the street). Most motorcycle accidents are cause by drivers of cars who never saw the bike. I suspect the same is true on these toys.
But let's not let facts get in the way of any propaganda! There's money to be made, selling advertising to outrage monkeys.
Not illegal to ride on sidewalk everywhere (Score:1)
...what percentage is caused by other drivers (since it's illegal to ride these things on the sidewalk...)
In Denver it's illegal to ride the scooters in Bicycle lanes, you are expressly told to ride them on the sidewalk.
Of course you are also told to ride with a helmet and I've not ever seen that...
The best option would be to speed limit scooters to about 2x walking speed, so that people could not get up enough speed to really hurt themselves or others.
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The article, however, is about California (Santa Monica), where, as far as I know, it's illegal to ride them on the sidewalk.
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Except I always see them ride in sidewalks, facts, what are those again?
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That the cops don't enforce the law doesn't change what the law is.
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No but it does change people's perception of the law. If I know something is illegal but I wouldn't get in trouble for doing so I have no incentive not to do it. Kind of like here cycling drunk is illegal and subject to the same fine as driving a car. Yet I cycle home sometimes so drunk that I fall off my bike because of the unwritten rule that you don't punish cyclists for things that would prevent them from cycling.
A law that isn't enforced is not a law, it's a kind request.
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Most motorcycle accidents are cause by drivers of cars who never saw the bike.
No, they're caused by reckless driving,
Not according to statistics from accident investigators.
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I have seen 3 safe motorcyclists, and all in the last year. The first one was a surprise, as I had not seen a motorcyclist actually obey a non-trivial portion of traffic laws in the prior two decades of driving.
It's always the guys that look like extras out of Sons of Anarchy riding the giant Harleys and Indians that tend to obey the laws while the assholes on the crotch rockets drive like, well, assholes.
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is the cause of accidents. They talk about people injured by mechanical failures, and undoubtedly those occur.
But no mention of what percentage is caused by that, what percentage caused by rider error (which is likely rather higher) and what percentage is caused by other drivers (since it's illegal to ride these things on the sidewalk, which means you're in a bicycle lane or on the street). Most motorcycle accidents are cause by drivers of cars who never saw the bike. I suspect the same is true on these toys.
Scooters are worse.
* Very short wheelbase;
* Very small wheels;
* Extremely tight turning radius.
That's a formula for falling off. Now, it wasn't so bad with those "Razer" scooters, where you'd only break your wrist. But these things go much faster, and in most cities are forbidden from riding on the sidewalk. For example, CA vehicle code says so for anything motorized.
And 15 to 40 mph on the sidewalk is not a good idea in a neighborhood with old people walki
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"it's illegal to ride these things on the sidewalk"
Surely not everywhere and always. Someone ran a survey of the local laws in Vermont's 250 odd towns and cities. They found that in some it's illegal to ride bicycles on sidewalks (if you can find a sidewalk), in some it's optional, in some it's mandatory. I expect the same would be true of scooters.
Pedestrians (Score:2)
Where I live, scooter riders almost always ride on the sidewalks, which are already very narrow. They almost never wear helmets. I have seen several instances of two people squeezing onto a single scooter. I have seen falls and accidents. I've seen pedestrians get hit. Almost every day I walk around in my neighborhood, some scooter rider whizzes by me, unannounced--I can't hear them coming, and they get within inches of me.
Whether or not a law is passed to regulate the use of these motor vehicles--and
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You're right, Summary execution is a much better punishment.
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They can afford a smartphone--that's how one reserves the scooter. So don't tell me that they can't afford a bike. That's not to say it should be a $5000 fine, but it should be high enough that even the rich and entitled Bay Area brats that are commonly seen recklessly tooling around on these scooters would think twice about zipping around on a sidewalk. For a lot of these riders, even $5k is not that much money. Ideally, traffic fines should be a percentage of your income, like they do in certain Scand
This article sponsored by Uber, Lyft (Score:1)
and it's not a scooter problem, it's a cultural problem. There are countries that have literally a hundred times more cyclists and scooterists than you, and still fewer accidents.
Riding or driving like a massive asshole and refusing to wear a helmet because it's not cool is the problem, and it's wholly a problem of American culture, not a problem of scooters.
Who's getting hurt? (Score:2)
It's one thing if it's the people riding the scooters are the ones getting injured.
It's another thing if it's people they run into, or someone trips on a scooter that some idiot just dumped on the ground (because none of these things have stations to park them, like rental bikes)
Fractured patella (Score:3)
Needless to say I wear full protective gear after two surgeries, months of physio for my extremely tight and shrunken quads, etc. Mandating a helmet for these type of activities where you are moving on concrete should be a no-brainer. I see dumb people with very small children in my area with no helmets, wobbling on bikes and scooters, makes me cringe.
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a helmet for these type of activities where you are moving on concrete should be a no-brainer
It's lack of a helmet that's a no-brainer. Eventually.
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My god, have you been living in a cave for the last 15 months? Don't you know about SpatulasForRentOnTheStreetCorner.com [spatulasfo...corner.com]?
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I don't ride the scooters here, but I do make frequent use of a bike share membership and imagine that the rationale behind why people ride scooters is pretty similar.
Here's a sample use case where I see the scooters making sense -- going to lunch 1.5 miles away in a crowded city:
forget Byrd.. (Score:1)
Byrd,,
its a shame that your choosing to collect profits versus considering the safety of your riders, customers, and the public @ large...
Layme,,
perhaps everyone should give you the "Bird"
I don't care if they wear helmets... (Score:2)
... in fact, I'd rather they didn't. I want them as soft as possible if they crash into me.
Organ Donors Need (Score:2)
No helments and FASTER scooters.
We need all the fresh young organs we can get from volunteers.
Not surprised (Score:1)
Cars cause more deaths per capita (Score:2)
So, the problem is just that we aren't using the streets and roads for their original purpose of bikes, horses, and the odd delivery truck.
In the 50s everyone warned of lawless youth on scooters, the kind you pushed by hand.
You see the problem only from the perspective of the group you're not part of, not the group you are part of.
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Obviously your perceptions are biased by observer's influence. We all know it's those nasty nasty skateboarders causing all the accidents, and all the cyclists, scooter-users, and drivers that are totally blameless.
Excuse me while I use my blue flame skateboard to speed past all of them on my way to the Seattle Cider Summit ...
Really? (Score:2)
Jesus Christ, FINALLY something in my favor.
-Charles Darwin
Speed governors (Score:2)
scooter wheels are too small (Score:1)