I'm a cyclist, and I won't get on a bike without a helmet. I went over my bards going around 20 mph and my helmet absolutely saved my life.
I got on one of those scooters once and it kicked up to 20 mph and I was like "Oh, I guess I'm never using these because I'm not going to carry a helmet around with me every day but there's no way in hell I'm riding one of these without one."
I’m really stupid with an even worse aversion to risk and have ridden my e-bike many times without safety gear over the past decade. I ride handless very often as well. I have also eaten major shit going 20+mph on numerous of those occasions. I’m in my 30s now and my joints are absolutely cooked, especially my knees.
I’d really suggest people minimum wear knee pads and a helmet, ideally elbow pads as well. It may not seem like the attractive option at the time, but when you’re rocking the joints of a 50 yr old at 30 it gets real real quick.
And that’s if you’re lucky enough to not outright die or end up paralyzed from an accident. I’m not religious, but the fact that I haven’t yet must be some sort of divine intervention because it doesn’t really make sense. Just like it makes no sense to ride these fast ass e-devices without safety gear.
It's a style to wear loose clothes for MTB. This also means you can have elbow, and kneepads under your clothes, if you're afraid how the protection gear will look.
If you do downhill MTB you'll use more burly protection, and even a back protector, as well as full face helmet. Not a single person will look strange at you for using that for downhill.
It's terrifying to me how fast people are willing to go with so little stopping power and such a high center of gravity. I had a bike accident (wearing a helmet) at relatively low speed and it messed me up for decades. We're still learning about the effects of concussions and TBIs but barely even talk about what injuries do to nerves and blood flow in the neck, and hearing.
(Hearing, which can be affected by head injuries, has already been tied to dementia but i feel confident that blood flow to the brain, which is also affected by serious injuries and tension issues, is going to show up as another influential factor.)
That's the thing with scooters, even if you had all the breaking power in the world, you'd still be thrown off. On a motorcycle at least you have the tank to hold you in place.
The issue of course is that even without riding it, you may still be injured by one. Having to be on constant look-out for some teenagers is tiresome. Regular bikes don't have instant acceleration like that.
Not to mention the fact that these kids have no insurance. A pedestrian run down at 30 mph will almost certainly be financially ruined from hospital bills, if they live.
I'm not even a cyclist. I just like to bike with my kids. I wear a hard hat all day, I don't even notice a bike helmet on my head, it's like 20% weight of a hard hat, just seems so utterly stupid not to wear one.
I had to take my bike three blocks to the bike store and was planning on walking it so didn’t bring a helmet. The sidewalk was totally empty so I hopped on thinking I’d save a minute. I still don’t know how it happened but I somehow managed to fall off in such a way that my head hit a tree. I was barely moving so only ended up with a facial laceration. I can’t imagine what this lady must see in the ER. I’m glad my mother was an absolute stickler for seat belts.
My kids and I bike to their school about 0.5 miles away and at very low speeds with rarely in traffic with the neighborhood. But I do see kids on Ebikes and scotters within our neighborhood going faster than the posted speed limit without any safety gear, sometimes two of them on the same bike.
Yeah, I had three kids actually pass me on e-bikes and scooters this weekend, I was doing about 22 at the time. I’ve talked to parents that have intentionally modded them to go faster.
i'm a cyclist, too. i had a cyclist pt in ICU who took a bus mirror to the face at 35 mph. he had A LOT of facial and hand fractures. but his brain and skull and spine were untouched. helmets 1000% save lives.
If he took it to the face, his helmet may not have played much of a role. Coming from the motorcycle world, bike helmets feel a bit like performative safety. I wouldn't even feel safe wearing one of those open face helmets and they are much more protective than what bicyclists wear.
I try to explain how hard these hits are by asking the skeptical if they would sprint full speed into a wall without a helmet on, and then that this speed is like 12 mph.
Just the point I was going to raise, though a typical younger person can run 15-18 mph, if the portable speed sign that got deployed down the street can be trusted.
Well, that's a personal choice and everyone needs to make it for themselves. The dutch ride bikes all the time and helmets are not terribly common there. I'm not saying that helmets are a bad thing, but I think they're merely a bandaid over fundamentally unsafe infrastructure. We need more bike lanes that are more than just a 1 foot painted gutter.
I've been trying to get in shape again after a set of major surgeries during COVID. I'm on the road for now. Always wear a helmet. I want a full face when I can go off road again.
Full helmet warning:
Back in 98 when I first started riding, a group of us found this jump. It could launch us about 6 feet up over about a 10 foot distance. I was doing this for 2 hours with no helmet. 1 friend wouldn't take it.
We finally convinced him and what happened next seemed to happen in slow motion. he rotated off his pedals over the handle bars. By peak jump, his head was near even with his front tire.
When he hit the ground, head first, it seemed like 10 minutes before he made a sound. Really it was about 30 seconds.
The crash cracked his helmet from front to mid helmet. He still has neck issues.
2, for full face:
I was riding down a local trail with fairly advanced jumps. I came across a teen and his friend. Friend was laying on the ground on his back. First aid training took over. Asked name, date, year, who president was, where he was at. He knew none of the answers, which says he took a really hard hit. I kept him still, kept him talking and awake until ambulance arrived.
I told his friend I could take his bike and gave my contact info.
His parents called and I have my address and coordinated to a time to get the bike.
The kid, just graduated high school, broke his collar bone, his jaw and fractured an eye socket.
Just graduated and his life is forever changed. Not to mention the severe TBI that gave him judging on my initial questions. He couldn't give me even the most basic answer until the ambulance arrived about 30 mins after I came across them.
I have a roommate using one our ebikes to go to work. Does not use a helmet.... a cupple weeks ago, He was driving normally on side of the road giving cars space, well a older woman went to pull over for a large truck, she ended up hitting him as she was pulling over smashing him into a parked car. And it being E bike had nothing to do with this but shows even if u on a bike doing everything right you are at risk, The car almost ran over his head and hes leg destroyed part of the parked car. Luckly a tesla was parked and filmed it and we have the video. But he still wont put a damn helmit on
At least on a bike you have big wheels to protect you from small bumps in the road and you're more likely for your legs to provide some cushioning if you fall. If you crash at speed on a scooter you're pretty much guaranteed to faceplant.
I bought an e scooter for a small commute, and now I don't have the job anymore. So my kids ride the scooter now.
Absolutely, they have to wear a helmet while riding it (same as their bikes). I wear a helmet while riding it. It's just safer, and I have hit a hose on a sidewalk before, and that almost launched me. Those little wheels are just so bad at navigating objects in a road.
We visited NZ and I was happy to see many of their rent scooters come with helmets, but nobody local was wearing them or they were wearing their own helmets. Zero of the scooters in my town come with helmets, but then I wonder if they did if we’d see more lice.
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u/WoodenInventor Jul 19 '26
2017 is also when a lot of those rental e-scooters (bird, lime, spin) became ubiquitous.