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E-bike riders aren’t wearing helmets — and head trauma cases are through the roof
(www.tomsguide.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I also see significantly more "older" people on ebikes riding a reasonable pace where I live (Denmark) than young people going super fast. Here ebikes definitely seem to me like it's something that primarily people aged 40-50+ use.
I got the cheapest+lightest ebike w/gears that I could find (~$700 and there were bigger sales after I bought it), it has a 250w motor and a 15mph limit... though being out-of-shape I typically only saw 8-12mph.
Could be a little of both even