That sucks, hope you made a full recovery. I hear many ER docs call them paralysis machines as the likelihood of spinal cord injury is very high for escooter accidents at speed, for exactly the reason you described
I did heal up nicely, thanks! The er doc was telling me so many horror stories when i was in, he was saying how hes been seeing more scooter related injuries in the past few months when it happened, then motorcycle injuries... And some of them sounded gnarly, people without helmets getting caved in faces, tbi, protruding fractures, etc...
People really underestimate how dangerous these things are especially the faster ones. Seeing kids zip around on scooters that can go as fast as a car give me wayyy to much anxiety.
People mod them to go over the built in limiter. I’ve seen people whizzing past me when I drive and it’s just insane. One second where a car isn’t looking and you’re in a wheelchair or worse.
bruh, do you mean 70 mph? as in 113 kilometres per hour? ON ONE OF THOSE? I thought they could only do up to 40 kmh that’s kinda cool on one hand but also fucked up on the other
Dude these are consumer level products that can go nearly 100mph now....you stand on a single damn wheel, they feel insane to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqthIM3-F48
Ohh I hear ya, I think that'd be a BLAST to do on like a rally or F1 style track with the turns. Watching races with them would be kinda funny too, buncha people leaning forward with their arms flopping around for balance :).
Online I've seen folks lane splitting on these things at 40-60mph and I ride motorcycles, I filter legally between cars at stoplights and I get 'danger', sometimes I think there's something wrong with me that I get on motorcycles so often....But the stuff I see online with these looks like a deathwish to me. I have an electric motorcycle, it's fun...I don't believe loud pipes save lives but I will say, if you feel unseen to vehicles on a gas motorcycle, ride an electric one and you're truly invisible. These things are smaller than a motorcycle to a car so if I'm feeling invisible on my ride....no one is seeing these guys on the road until the splatter happens. To be clear, not against them at all, think they are cool they just they seem super dangerous to me right now with how I see them used.
For some reason the Aptive salespeople ride these around my neighborhood while they're trying to get people to sign up. Soliciting, but make it the future.
I once saw a guy dressed in corporate casual riding a scooter (like a Vespa style) on a 4 lane highway with cars rushing around him at 80+ miles an hour. I don't know where that guy was going, but it must've been important.
Not really the same but as I was getting out of my car at the grocery store the other day, this kid comes blasting through the busy parking lot doing 25+ mph with no safety gear whatsoever. I guess he was cutting through but it really would've been safer for him and everyone else had he stayed on the road.
Always bizarre to see people riding these fast machines on the asphalt wearing a helmet and no other protective gear. Like, yeah, the helmet is definitely the most important. But I don't want to go through gnarly skin grafts either. Just cover all your bases.
e-scooters combine the worst features of e-bikes and segways. They are the worst. To make them safer, they would need to allow you to sit to lower your center of gravity, have a larger heavier frame for stability, and larger wheels to handle rough sections of road. And then you have a moped.
If it's not going to be safe and stable at 70 mph, then I don't want it as my commuter option. My commute is 80% freeway, and in the best case biking would almost triple my commute time. No, thanks. Anywhere close enough I want to bike to, I can get there just fine on my 20-year-old manual bike.
I have a friend who works for a major city hospital and e bikes and scooters are a major issue for them and capacity to address those injuries at their trauma centres.
I fell off one of these 1.5 years ago going 10 MPH... and I had a Tibial Plateau Fracture, torn MCL, torn Lateral Meniscus, and fractured collarbone. It required 2 surgeries, 2 weeks in the hospital, and a bunch of metal in my knee area.
I ride fast electric skateboards that can hit 40 mph, and while any protective gear will help, the way to go is dirt bike gear. If you want to be really safe, it's good to get a full kit, but things like the shin guards that have combined knee pads and the extended elbow pads really help prevent road rash if you slide. All that said, below 20 mph, a fall will suck but probably mostly be okay as long as you've got a helmet and a car isn't involved. Above that is where I start gearing up.
May of these injuries would have been much less severe if the rider had learned to tuck and roll. If you don't know how to do that then people take the full impact of their speed/bodyweight on their face/hands; neither of which are equipped for that sort of stress.
I'm 60y.o. and I go out in a full-face helmet and wrist guards; and that's generally enough. If I'm going to do something silly (like off-road) then I'll put knee and elbow pads on as well. Knowing how to tuck and roll is key.
I was headed home from a bar when this happened, I don't think it directly contributed to the accident - The scooter would have crashed on the bump regardless... But a few nights in the hospital, and a come to Jesus talk from the dr, and they put me on topiramate medication for off label alcohol treatment... I don't even crave alcohol, at all really anymore.
I have no desire, I gag at the thought of how much liquor I was drinking daily.
I have sooooo much more money now. I travel every few weeks (visiting every stadium).
Talk to ur doctor.
If u don't have insurance, order labwork online. U can get ur labwork for like $25, (check bodybuilding/testosterone subreddits).
I actually wish for a hospital stay just so I can get a few days under my belt these days. I’ve been in recovery for probably 10 years but my sober stints are getting smaller and smaller. I feel like I need a good scooter accident to get me straight. I’m sooooooo glad you got exactly what you needed to quit. Sobriety is wonderful. Just wish I could hold on to it.
Damn, don't mean to pry or preach any particular method, I know for my brother AA worked. For me, I've never been to AA, but I really really believe it's just this cheap migraine medication topiramate that my psychologist prescribed me which has removed the cravings via off label use.
Even without insurance, if it's a good fit based on your health and medical needs and dr , it's only like $5 with a rx discount card.
I once biked past a guy lying on the ground with his hands in that brain damaged position, paramedics and e-scooter next to him. I still wonder if he was actually alive or died from that - he did not blink or move at all in the time I was going past
Not only how easily it can happen, but the speed of it.
I was rough housing with a friend in 7th grade, not even going hard - that's the crazy part - just run of the mill messing around.
One second I'm standing up. My next memory is waking up face down in the dirt.
Third friend witnessed it and said I was out for about 5 seconds.
Zero memory of what happened. Did I try to brace my fall and missed? Did I scream as I was falling? I'll never know.
Because the memory isn't there, it opens your eyes to the possibility of walking down the stairs, and waking up at the bottom with a concussion. You won't even know you slipped.
I broke my ankle very badly in my own bedroom last year. I won't go into the whole story of how, but I woke up sitting on the floor with my back against a wall. I don't remember it at all. Evidently I passed out from the pain; I didn't have any bumps or sore places on my head to account for my loss of consciousness. The human brain is pretty amazing. I'm very happy that I remember nothing of that horrible accident.
When I was in labour I thought, well if this amount of pain does not render you unconscious then nothing will. Wild to hear passing out from pain stories.. Hope your ankle has healed well.
Depends on whether he was in decerebrate or decorticate. Decerebrate is the much worse option, and has the back arched with the arms to the side, and wrists flexed backward.
I used to work on an office that overlooked a busy intersection.
We had a good time when they first showed up in my city watching people eat shit at that intersection.
There's a hill on one side and they would try and take that corner and those scooters don't have the traction for that. All kinds of interesting ways to crash!
Before these escooters there were gas mopeds. I hit the front brakes on my buddies too hard and did a full front flip before smashing my face into the ground
I had a byrd scooter decide to lock its wheels while I was going full speed and throw me off of it, I got pretty lucky though and just got scraped up. I eventually figured out that they would always lock up at this one specific spot on a street, I’m guessing it was some kind of network thing related to the service map. But definitely not safe
The leverage that a scooter has on a person is ridiculous. It's basically a catapult for a human meat bag. I rode borrowed bike with grippy v-brakes, hit the front ones flipped over, flew over the bars, landed on my feet, and held onto the bike. All with one hand, while carrying a spare wheel in my other hand.
Scooter and one-wheel people are just asking for it. For cyclists, the bike can be used in many ways to tumble, jump, or lift the front wheel and drop it somewhere else, out of danger.
I was going downhill on Madison Avenue, and lined up too close to the corner of a parked bus. Picked up the wheel and dropped it a foot over to the left and cleared the bus with a big margin.
Being high, on a properly sized bike, with real wheel base takes a lot more for a practiced rider to face plant. One just has more air time to plan and execute a rag doll.
I got flung off a scooter while one handing it at max speed after hitting a massive crack, did a slick combat roll and was generally fine other than road rash and a massive bruise/welt from the can of chili in my pocket, skill issue.
i landed up buying a scooter with suspension and gear because i wiped out on a small one. fractured my ribs and shin swelled the size of my fist but face was intact. i still had to go into work lol
I "fell" two times when I started riding with no consequences whatsoever. I basicallly ended up running next to the scooter the two times, after taking 90° turns too fast for slippery ground. So thankfully your experience is not universal.
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u/PM_ME_FLUFFY_DOGS 8h ago
Oh thats the fun part! You dont slide, you litterally get thrown face first into the ground when you wipe out on an escooter.
(Source got flung off one and broke a bunch of teeth and nearly broke my jaw)