this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility

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Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!

"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.

micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"

Feel free to also check out

!utilitycycling@slrpnk.net

!bikewrench@lemmy.world

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!bikepacking@lemmy.world

!electricbikes@lemmy.world

!bicycle_touring@lemmy.world

!notjustbikes@feddit.nl

!longboard@lemmy.world

It's a little sad that we need to actually say this, but:

Don't be an asshole or you will be permanently banned.

Respectful debate is totally OK, criticizing a product is fine, but being verbally abusive will not be tolerated.

Focus on discussing the idea, not attacking the person.

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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 _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works to c/micromobility@lemmy.world
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[–] NABDad@lemmy.world 28 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I can't understand why people refuse to wear helmets when riding.

I had a professor in university who got in an accident while not wearing a helmet. He went over the handlebars and landed on his head. It happened years before I met him, but he would regularly get crippling migraines as a consequence, and he would plead with his students to never ride without wearing a helmet.

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A friend's dad fell off his bike hardly moving and had severe brain damage and was a shadow of his former self. Then died young. It doesn't take much at all. I will never not wear a helmet on a bike.

[–] HaywardT@lemmy.sdf.org -2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's probably safer to not bike.

[–] soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz 3 points 8 months ago

Just don't leave your house, ever

[–] soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz 4 points 8 months ago

95% of delivery riders in the UK don't wear helmets. Ask them

[–] BorgDrone@lemmy.one -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I can't understand why people refuse to wear helmets when riding.

Because wearing a helmet makes you more likely to be in an accident and increases the risk of brain injury when you are.

The first has two causes:

The second:

  • A helmet effectively makes your head larger, and as such increases the risk of your head hitting the road. In fact your risk doubles. source
  • A helmet protects against ‘focal’ injuries, that is injuries at the point where your head hits something. But a another type of brain injury is ‘diffuse’ injury, basically the fact your head hit something at all, and your brain rattles around in the skull. This type may cause worse problems than focal injuries. The added size of the helmet amplifies the rotation of your head on impact and makes this type of injury worse. source. Add to this the fact that wearing a helmet makes you more likely to hit your head in the first place.

In addition to this, wearing a bicycle helmet makes cycling less attractive, and as a result people will cycle less. This results in a loss of health benefits from cycling.

Sure, intuitively you might think a helmet will make you safer, but intuition is often wrong. When you look at the actual data it shows a different picture.

[–] Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

It seems like this is not yet settled. This meta-analysis of studies concerning increased risk-taking found that most studies with experimental data did not find that wearing a helmet increased risk-taking behavior. The author mentions the downhill biking experiment and suggests that there's a distinction between taking more risks because you are wearing helmet and riding slower because you feel unsafe without one. This is supported by the habitual non-wearers not increasing their speed/risk when wearing a helmet.

This Other analysis looks at the actual rates of different kinds of injuries and finds that helmets significantly decrease the risk of head and face injuries while not having a significant impact on neck injuries.

This study of hospital stays related to bike accidents shows that hospital stays were significantly more frequent and severe for those who didn't wear helmets. (and it examines some of the potential cultural hurdles in expanding helmet use).

Overall, I'm most influenced by the last study. Theoretical analysis of risk taking and injury type is certainly important, but the real life data in this and other studies indicates that wearing a helmet strongly correlates with a decreased risk of injury and death.