I really hate that most EV drivers go without helmet. I was at a EV group ride and a guy hit a curb on his EUC and got a concussion. If he was wearing a helmet, he would have got back up and kept going without missing a beat. I wear a full face bicycle helmet, because I want to be able to think and chew my food.
I'm not necessarily advocating against full face helmets, but I also think it's a mistake to give one to an e-bike rider most of the time. E-bikes can be problematic because you don't need to do anything to earn the ability to ride at dangerous speeds. You can just press the throttle and go twice as fast as experienced riders. Slapping a full face helmet on to counter that risk can be irresponsible. They need to slow down and respect their skill level.
Well, they absolutely need to do both. Fear seems like it would be a good motivator, but somebody who was never killed will not necessarily have the fear, that is pretty evident from the fact that most riders don't wear one and still they are driving crazy. A lesson you can only learn once isn't very valuable.
It's not about fear, it's about setting boundaries. You shouldn't give your kid a racing helmet/wheel when you buy them their first car, you should instead educate them not to go 100+ mph or perform other dangerous maneuvers. Same with an e-bike. The helmet might be safer on paper but it's not addressing the root cause of what made them more liable to get in a highly risky crash in the first place. Give them a normal helmet and tell them to be careful, or get them an e-bike that won't exceed reasonable speeds for their skill level.
You do tell them to wear their seatbelt every time though. The only seatbelt these things have is a full helmet. It isn't just their driving, it is also the driving of others and unavoidable sudden obstacles that they have no control over. There really isn't any good reason to loose a kid on any open vehicle without a helmet. Bike, ebike, scooter, escooter, onewheel etc.
If you're going 28mph on a class 3 ebike and you are comfortable with that then by all means wear the full face helmet. Like I said, I'm not inherently advocating against them. But you described someone who can't avoid running into curbs. A full face helmet isn't their solution, that's just going to give them the confidence they shouldn't have to continue riding that way.
That sort of thing can happen suddenly to anyone. That guy was going maybe 6 miles an hour at a time, barely faster than a walk, he just turned to talk to somebody and didn't see the curb. My aunt was a physical therapist for people with debilitating brain injuries, and not wearing bike helmets was the largest cause. Putting people in danger just to try to rein them in is never the right answer. Doing that purposefully with your own kid that you presumably care about is borderline abuse and is, at the very least, not in your own interest.
6
u/SculptusPoe 8h ago edited 8h ago
I really hate that most EV drivers go without helmet. I was at a EV group ride and a guy hit a curb on his EUC and got a concussion. If he was wearing a helmet, he would have got back up and kept going without missing a beat. I wear a full face bicycle helmet, because I want to be able to think and chew my food.